decoded_text stringlengths 4.18k 47.6k |
|---|
hidden the updates will notice that they reappeared in Windows Updates because of the re-release.
KB2952664 and KB2976978 telemetry updates
The hidden flag for updates on Windows Update that administrators can set is only valid for a particular revision of an update. When Microsoft releases a new update revision, it becomes available again.
If it was blocked by hiding it in Windows Update, it needs to be blocked again each time Microsoft re-releases the update.
To hide a Windows update, right-click on it in the Windows Update window, and select "hide update" from the context menu. Unless it is re-released, it won't show up anymore on the machine and won't be installed either.
Both "compatibility updates for keeping Windows up-to-date" are offered through Windows Update and Microsoft Update Catalog.
The update description is identical for KB2952664 and KB2976978:
This update performs diagnostics on the Windows systems that participate in the Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program. The diagnostics evaluate the compatibility status of the Windows ecosystem, and help Microsoft to ensure application and device compatibility for all updates to Windows. There is no GWX or upgrade functionality contained in this update.
According to the description, the update performs diagnostics on machines that participate in the Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program. The program has been part of Windows since Vista, and is designed to collect information on hardware, software and services.
As I mentioned back in October 2016 already when I described how to leave the Windows Customer Experience Improvement program, Microsoft does not reveal the actual data that the program collects.
You could say that these updates are not that bad then if you do not participate in the Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program.
Woody Leonhard demonstrated that the last revision of the updates did trigger new scans regardless of the membership status of the Customer Experience Improvement program. While it has not been tested yet with the new version, it seems likely that Microsoft has not changed that.
We don't know an awful lot about what KB2952664 and KB2976978 actually do. They do seem to trigger a new Windows task called DoScheduledTelemetryRun, but it is unclear what is being collected, and whether something else is changed on the system during installation of the updates.
Tip: You can use the Windows Task Schedule, PowerShell, or Nirsoft's Task Scheduler View to manage tasks on all recent versions of the Windows operating system.
Now You: Did you hide these updates in the past on your machines?
Summary Article Name Windows KB2952664 and KB2976978 telemetry updates re-released (again) Description Here we go again. Microsoft re-released the Windows 7 telemetry update KB2952664 and the Windows 8.1 telemetry update KB2976978 yesterday. Author Martin Brinkmann Publisher Ghacks Technology News Logo
AdvertisementShare. Bang indeed. Bang indeed.
The fourth episode of Hitman, which sees Agent 47 head to Thailand, will be released on August 16.
In a press release, developer Io Interactive announced that the 'Club 27' mission will see players having to eliminate indie band frontman Jordan Cross and his family lawyer, Ken Morgan within the confines of the Himmapan luxury resort.
Hitman Episode 4 Screenshots 3 IMAGES Fullscreen Image Artboard 3 Copy Artboard 3 ESC 01 OF 03 From Hitman: Episode 4 -- Bangkok. 01 OF 03 From Hitman: Episode 4 -- Bangkok. Hitman Episode 4 Screenshots Download Image Captions ESC
We've actually already seen a little of both Cross and Himmapan, when Cross' fictional band, The Class, released a very real music video earlier this week.
The episode will also include 65 challenges, as well as new opportunities and disguises - we've heard tell of some musical instruments being used for things other than creating hot choons.
We've actually had more Hitman activity than usual of late, it's not been long since we got the surreal Bonus Missions.BRUSSELS (JTA) — Jihadist websites eat up a fair share of Bart Olmer’s workday. He even has passwords to some closed hate forums.
“Reading hate speech is part of the job,” says Olmer, who reports on intelligence services for Holland’s largest circulation daily, De Telegraaf.
It’s an explanation he may need to repeat for security services on future visits to France, if that country’s parliament passes legislation aimed at making it illegal to visit hatemongering websites.
The legislation was among several measures proposed following the March 19 slaying of three children and a rabbi at a Jewish school in Toulouse. Parliament is to vote next month on the measures aimed at stopping “self-radicalized lone wolves” like the killer from Toulouse, Mohammed Merah. Leftist parties said they’d oppose the bills.
Researchers and European politicians are split on France’s post-Toulouse legislation push.
Some want to use this opportunity to introduce similar legislation elsewhere in Europe while the Toulouse shooting is still in people’s minds. Others find it risky and “emotionally motivated,” favoring better law enforcement rather than new legislation.
“In Western Europe we have the legislation we need: Murder and incitement are illegal,” said Mike Whine of the Community Security Trust, the defense agency of Britain’s Jewish community. “We need better application of existing laws. We need to ban more hate preachers from entering our countries, for instance.”
Bruno de Lille, a Belgian minister from the Flemish Green Party who is a campaigner for gay rights, said legislation that originates in emotions should be avoided.
“It’s often ineffective and jeopardizes basic values and liberties in a manner disproportionate to the contribution to collective security,” he said.
Whine and de Lille made their remarks at a conference last week in Brussels on monitoring hate speech and hate crimes in Europe. Titled “Facing Facts,” the conference was organized by a Brussels-based nonprofit called CEJI: A Jewish Contribution to an Inclusive Europe. The goal of the conference was to talk about how countries and nongovernmental organizations can better cooperate on monitoring discrimination.
Joanna Perry, hate crimes officer for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, or OSCE, said at the conference that too many governments take a negative view of local watchdog NGOs that present them with figures about hate crimes that often are politically unsavory.
Ten governments — including Greece, Estonia, Latvia, Moldova and Ukraine — reported to the OSCE that their police forces had recorded fewer than 10 hate crimes in 2009. Portugal and Macedonia said they did not compile any data on hate crimes.
Only nine members of the OSCE, the world’s largest security-oriented intergovernmental organization, submitted official data on anti-Semitism in 2009, compared to 48 member states that did not.
Other than in France, Perry said she “couldn’t point to any direct impact on policy or legislation” following the Toulouse shooting, though “it does raise awareness to the issue.”
Robert Trestan of the Anti-Defamation League said he believes the Toulouse attack helped European governments and authorities “better understand that people who target Jews will often also target law enforcement agents. It’s something American authorities know very well.”
Two weeks before the attack at the Ozar Hatorah school, Merah murdered three French soldiers at Montauban. Merah admitted to all the killings during a daylong siege at his apartment on March 22, before he was killed by police in a shootout.
“This understanding further motivates law enforcement agencies to monitor hate crime and hate speech because it helps them protect their own agents,” Trestan said at the conference.
NGOs monitoring racism and hate speech also need to improve their performance, according to findings published at the conference.
A survey conducted by conference organizers showed more than half of watchdog NGOs in the European Union have no working definition for what constitutes a hate crime. Of the 44 NGOs surveyed, 27 reported that they had no system to verify complaints, and 17 did not share information with police.
Beyond legislation, the Toulouse shooting already is changing how European governments monitor radicals, according to a Belgian civil servant who attended the conference. Since April 1, the Belgian secret service has been scrutinizing the comings and goings of suspected radicals more closely.
“Before the shooting the issue was marginal. Now it’s a priority,” said the civil servant, who spoke under condition on anonymity.
The post-Toulouse legislation in France also aims to outlaw trips abroad for weapons training. After the killing, security services learned that Merah had trained in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Hate crimes tragedies like the Toulouse shooting sometimes serve as a catalyst for change in the fight against extremism, according to Superintendent Paul Giannasi, manager of the UK interministerial program for fighting hate crime. He attended the CEJI conference as a representative of the British police.
Public outcry following the 1993 murder of Stephen Lawrence, a black boy from London, by a gang of white extremists “brought on massive change” in how hate crimes are handled in Britain, Giannasi said. “Since then, authorities are actually encouraging more people to complain about discrimination.”
It was a major change in policy for British crime fighters, whose performance is usually judged on crime statistics.
“It was realized that more complaints about hate crimes don’t mean greater prevalence, just more awareness and trust in the authorities,” Giannasi said.Since 19th of July, Russian anho.org (shorthand for "Anarchist Hosting") has been targeted with a DDoS - attack. Since then, numerous activist websites have been unaccessible - including Indymedia-Siberia and various anarchist groups (Autonomous Action of Kazan, Autonomous Action of Irkutsk, Inter-Professional Union of Workers etc.). Main goal of the attackers is antijob.anho.org - website, committed to defence of workers against employers. This project includes popular feature "black list of employers" where workers are reporting problematic employers. Founders of the Antijob-website are contacted almost by weekly basis with "benefical propositions" with offers of money, as well as with threat - all from side of the bosses. Obviously, all these offers have been left without a reply.
Now bosses, who may not tolerate public scrutiny, organised a DDoS-attack. Concept of the DDoS attack is that a virus is spread to thousands of computers somewhere in Souther Asia, or other continent. Then, after an order "from the center", infested computer began to send requeries to server of the Antijob-website. Website may not handle all the traffic, and falls down.
We managed to track down the botnet attacking us - it is ArmageddoN DDoS Botnet, which offers services with a starting price of 1500 dollars, and extra 10 dollars for each bot. That means, employers spent at least 2000 dollars in order to get antijob website down.
Last attack took place half a year before - back then, it was Moscow-based IT company "Prime Lab", practices of which were reported in Antijob, who was behind the attack. But this effort was not much of use for the company - eventually it collapsed, and employers whom Antijob website had supported, gathered their wage arrears in form of material property of the collapsing company (details of the story in Russian here and here)
And it will go like that with everyone attacking us!
Collective of antijob.anho.orgOne broadcaster called it “Christmas in October.”
Senators general manager Pierre Dorion said it will be “the most exciting day for a lot of us” since the first day of the off-season, way back on April 10.
It’s opening night for the Ottawa Senators on Wednesday, with the Toronto Maple Leafs at the Canadian Tire Centre — hit the refresh button on the Battle of Ontario. Both teams promise change, the Leafs in the brighter spotlight, of course.
In six months and two days since their 2015-16 season abruptly ended, the Senators have quietly made a vast overhaul of their hockey operation. Dorion has replaced Bryan Murray as GM, with Murray now a senior adviser. Guy Boucher is the new head coach of a revamped staff, with a different, intense, approach to the way team practices and plays.
And while the main stars are still in place — defenceman Erik Karlsson, forwards Mike Hoffman, Bobby Ryan, Mark Stone and Kyle Turris — the Senators have made more changes to their starting roster than many realize.
When the Senators line up for Game 1 of 82, they will feature as many as six players who weren’t with the club at the start of last season: defenceman Dion Phaneuf, the former Maple Leafs captain, centre Derick Brassard (from the New York Rangers in a trade for Mika Zibanejad), and forwards Phil Varone, Tom Pyatt, Ryan Dzingel and Chris Kelly.
Every Senator, as new as Brassard or as familiar as 15-year man Chris Neil, is as relieved to have training camp over with as they are excited to play real games. Though shorter in duration due to the World Cup of Hockey imposition, this camp may have been the most gruelling the Senators have known. From the first day, Boucher has demanded up-tempo play and a fervent adoption of his “system” and style — fast, attacking hockey, with and without the puck.
In hiring Boucher, the former Tampa Bay Lightning coach who was in the Swiss League most recently, Dorion wanted a coach who could make demands on a team that has only reached the playoffs once in the past three seasons, and that after a miraculous run to get there.
How all this change will present itself remains to be seen. In theory the Senators are going to use speed and pursuit to improve puck possession.
They also intend to reduce the number of shots against and chances allowed. The way Boucher expressed it Tuesday, the changes in approach are dramatic enough that they have to be implemented in phases, beginning with a tighter defensive posture, especially up the middle in front of the net.
“We want to protect the middle … that middle’s got to be jammed,” Boucher says.
Offensively, while he has worked on improving the league’s 26th-ranked power play almost daily, he will add a focus to the team’s five-on-five play later on, once he is satisfied the Senators are defending well enough.
The team can’t realistically keep up this practice tempo — Tuesday was a 70-minute skate, most of it devoted to hunting down the puck carrier — but this boot camp is meant to carry the club later on, when games dominate the calendar and practices are shorter tuneups.
How good are these Senators? Nobody really knows.
Even a mild improvement in special teams, with solid goaltending from Craig Anderson and Andrew Hammond, and better team defence should put Ottawa in the mix.
Dorion repeated his mantra that “we feel we’re a playoff team” able to make some noise once there. Ownership demands nothing less, though without spending to the cap to improve the odds.
Boucher neatly turned a question about playoff expectations on its head, with a little diversion on dealing with the here and now.
“I’m a big process guy,” Boucher says. “If you get lost in a long-term goal, you’re not taking care of the present.”
Nobody is more thrilled to have his name pencilled into the opening night lineup than welcome-back Kelly.
Drafted by the Senators in 1999, Kelly was a mainstay of the organization until 2011, when Murray was compelled to part with several of his veterans in a rebuilding program.
Kelly moved on to Boston, winning a Cup with the Bruins that spring, and enjoyed his time in Boston when he could stay healthy. While with the Bruins, Kelly suffered two leg fractures, one from a collision with his new Ottawa linemate, Neil, back in March of 2013.
Last fall, Kelly suffered an even worse break, a fractured femur on Nov. 3 that ended his season. In the face of a trend toward youth and speed, Kelly, 35, thought his career might be over. The Senators signed him as a free agent.
“A big chunk of the season was taken away from me and I didn’t know if I’d get an opportunity to be back in the NHL,” Kelly said. “This is pretty sweet to not only come out for opening night, but be back where I started … part of a good group like this.”
It’s pretty sweet for everyone to get the party started with a little Senators-Leafs action.
wscanlan@postmedia.com
@hockeyscannerStill, the Right to Rise onslaught is a decent explanation for Rubio’s stagnation. But not a complete one, since it’s not as though Jeb actually controls the entire Republican establishment. If his donors were really unhappy with his strategy they could desert en masse to Rubio; if leading Republican politicians felt certain Rubio was the better bet, they could counter Jeb’s ads with a wave of endorsements. But they haven’t, again despite Rubio’s higher favorables and better general election odds. Which raises the possibility that …
Rubio’s a little too conservative. Both the Republican donor class and the New Hampshire electorate, in slightly different ways, are more moderate or even liberal than the wider Republican electorate. Meanwhile, as Harry Enten of FiveThirtyEight points out, Rubio is a lot more conservative than his “great establishment hope” image currently suggests.
Moreover, his conservatism is most pronounced on social issues, which makes him culturally alien to both the libertarian and Yankee moderates of New Hampshire and the secular and socially liberal segment of the party’s donor base.
Which is why it isn’t necessarily surprising that Rubio is polling slightly better in evangelical-heavy Iowa than in New Hampshire, or that he’s having trouble putting away more moderate figures like Christie and Kasich in the latter state. It may well be, as Enten suggests, that a lot of Republican bigwigs are just much more politically and culturally comfortable with the other candidates in the establishment “lane,” and so they aren’t ready to throw in with Rubio’s piety and Tea Party-ish voting record until they have no other choice.
Then there also might be a more personal element as well …
Rubio seems a little too ambitious. He’s no Ted Cruz, whose naked self-promotion and penchant for making enemies has left him effectively running against the entire institutional party. But as Matt Yglesias of Vox notes, Rubio’s ascent has been marked by repeated acts of rebellion and opportunism — many of them successful, all of them quite normal for politicians, but condensed into a relatively narrow span of time.
The G.O.P.’s history as a royalist party is somewhat exaggerated, but it has repeatedly handed nominations to elder statesmen in years when it seems to be their turn, and the royalist tendency is naturally strongest in the party elite. It may not be only Jeb Bush’s inner circle that regards Rubio’s rise as a little swift, and his decision to run as a little premature, even arrogant. There may be a sense that he needs to prove himself with voters, to actually win a caucus or a primary, before he can lay claim to wide support.
In the quest for that support, he has one glaring problem …
Rubio’s strengths might be a bad fit for the 2016 mood. Part of the reason that pundits (myself included) have tended to rate the Florida senator highly as a candidate is that he combines a conservative record with some of the gifts of Bill Clinton circa 1992 and Barack Obama circa 2008 — eloquence, optimism, a strong personal narrative, a clear interest in domestic policy.Woman forced to remove piercing before sitting exam
ISTANBUL
DHA Photo
A woman in the Central Anatolian province of Kırıkkale was only permitted to sit yesterday’s Public Personnel Selection Examination (KPSS) after removing a nose piercing at the behest of a security guard, daily Hürriyet has reported.
The woman was stopped and prevented from entering the exam room when a female police officer noticed her piercing during a security check before the exam. She was only allowed to enter after removing her piercing.
“[Bringing in] metal objects is forbidden; it’s never happened to me before,” the unidentified woman said. “It hurt but I had to remove it in order to enter the exam.”
Meanwhile, 20 people were prevented from entering the exam room in the Thracian province of Tekirdağ because there were carrying car keys. The candidates gave up on sitting the exam after failing to find a safe place to store their keys.
The KPSS is a nationwide exam for candidates looking to acquire public service jobs.Saturn's icy, ocean-bearing moon Enceladus may have tipped over in the distant past, according to recent research from NASA's Cassini mission.
Researchers with the mission found evidence that the moon's spin axis -- the line through the north and south poles -- has reoriented, possibly due to a collision with a smaller body, such as an asteroid.
Examining the moon's features, the team showed that Enceladus appears to have tipped away from its original axis by about 55 degrees -- more than halfway toward rolling completely onto its side. "We found a chain of low areas, or basins, that trace a belt across the moon's surface that we believe are the fossil remnants of an earlier, previous equator and poles," said Radwan Tajeddine, a Cassini imaging team associate at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, and lead author of the paper.
The area around the icy moon's current south pole is a geologically active region where long, linear fractures referred to as tiger stripes slice across the surface. Tajeddine and colleagues speculate that an asteroid may have struck the region in the past when it was closer to the equator. "The geological activity in this terrain is unlikely to have been initiated by internal processes," he said. "We think that, in order to drive such a large reorientation of the moon, it's possible that an impact was behind the formation of this anomalous terrain."
In 2005, Cassini discovered that jets of water vapor and icy particles spray from the tiger stripe fractures -- evidence that an underground ocean is venting directly into space from beneath the active south polar terrain.
Whether it was caused by an impact or some other process, Tajeddine and colleagues think the disruption and creation of the tiger-stripe terrain caused some of Enceladus' mass to be redistributed, making the moon's rotation unsteady and wobbly. The rotation would have eventually stabilized, likely taking more than a million years. By the time the rotation settled down, the north-south axis would have reoriented to pass through different points on the surface -- a mechanism researchers call "true polar wander."
The polar wander idea helps to explain why Enceladus' modern-day north and south poles appear quite different. The south is active and geologically young, while the north is covered in craters and appears much older. The moon's original poles would have looked more alike before the event that caused Enceladus to tip over and relocate the disrupted tiger-stripe terrain to the moon's south polar region.
The results were published in the online edition of the journal Icarus on April 30, 2017.
Please follow SpaceRef on Twitter and Like us on Facebook.NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Six months ago the U.S. oil industry scored a surprise win against farm groups when the Obama administration proposed slashing the amount of ethanol refiners must blend into gasoline, a move that could save them billions of dollars.
The Philadelphia Energy Solutions oil refinery owned by The Carlyle Group is seen at sunset in front of the Philadelphia skyline March 24, 2014. REUTERS/David M. Parrott
Stunned by the reversal, producers of the corn-based biofuel and their supporters are now fighting back ahead of a June deadline for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to make a final decision on the cut.
The clash has been portrayed as a battle between “Big Oil” and “Big Corn,” two powerful and deep-pocketed lobbies. But a Reuters review of public records and interviews with lawmakers, lobbyists and executives reveals a more complex picture.
A private equity firm and an airline helped convince the Obama administration to backtrack, at least temporarily, on a policy it has supported for years: requiring steadily-rising volumes of ethanol to be blended into gasoline each year, a key to shifting U.S. energy consumption toward renewable sources.
The ethanol industry, blindsided by the proposed cut, has said it was orchestrated by “Big Oil.” However, some of the most effective players in the fight weren’t traditional oil majors but rather The Carlyle Group and Delta Air Lines, owners of two Philadelphia-area refiners.
Together with their allies, the refiners helped convince policymakers that the rising mandates would cripple their businesses and threaten thousands of jobs.
For key White House officials including Gene Sperling, President Barack Obama’s top economic adviser at the time, the pitch was familiar: a year earlier, many of the same players had worked with him to rescue Philadelphia refineries from closure, saving jobs and keeping a lid on East Coast gas prices.
In one exchange last July, Philadelphia Congressman Robert Brady contacted Vice President Joe Biden on behalf of Carlyle, which bought two struggling refineries in his district in 2012. They had been on the brink of closure due to lower margins then; now they were threatened by biofuel mandates, whose cost eclipses the salaries of all refinery workers combined.
“I talked to the vice president and I told him what the issue was, and he said, ‘we’ve got to try to fix that,’” Brady said in an interview. “And we fixed it.”
It is impossible to say how much impact any one group or company had on the decision to reduce the mandates. Carlyle and Delta acknowledged contacting lawmakers and regulators but declined to comment on specific meetings.
The EPA said it consulted with stakeholders and other arms of the federal government but made the final decision itself.
Still, the efforts of this informal coalition help explain how an industry with few open allies in Washington was able to prevail - at least temporarily - over the once-invincible farm lobby, which has seen its sway diminish.
“For thirty years, you would have lost a lot of money betting against ethanol, which usually wins,” said Bob McNally, an energy consultant and former White House energy advisor under President George W. Bush. “This time was different.”
GETTING THE POLICY “RIGHT”
At its core, the fight is about who should bear the cost of blending increasing volumes of biofuels like ethanol into fuel supplies under a 2007 law supported by both the Bush and Obama administrations: the Renewable Fuel Standard, or RFS.
Refiners say the law, which mandates more biofuels to be blended into petroleum-based fuels through 2022, is an untenable burden as gasoline demand shrinks. Biofuel groups say the volumes required by the law should be met.
Dan Utech, a senior energy adviser to Obama, said in an interview that the administration “heard loudly and repeatedly” from both sides. “Our goal was to try to balance objectives and get the policy right,” he said.
Tom Buis, CEO of Growth Energy, one of Washington’s top two ethanol groups, pins the proposed cut on the oil industry’s heavy spending and an aggressive “misinformation” campaign about the ethanol mandates’ impact on gasoline prices.
Refiners spent at least $81 million on lobbying last year, nearly triple that of biofuel producers, according to a Reuters analysis of data from the Center for Responsive Politics. The data does not itemize spending on specific issues like the RFS.
Farm state legislators also lobbied the White House on behalf of their backyard interests. But the response, some say, was more tepid: “Everywhere along the line it was a little bit like ‘well, yup, I hear ya,’” said Minnesota Senator Al Franken. The resulting cuts were thus “completely puzzling,” he said.
WHITE HOUSE TO THE RESCUE
As oil and biofuel groups vied for the White House’s attention, the Philadelphia refiners had an advantage, the White House was already familiar with their issues.
In 2011, the East Coast refining industry was on the brink of extinction. Sunoco Inc. was exiting the business and threatening to shut its massive 330,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) refining complex in Philadelphia - the Point Breeze and Girard Point refineries - if it couldn’t find a buyer.
Enter Brady, a nine-term congressman with deep ties to the city’s labor unions. Loath to lose 850 jobs in his district, he got in contact with Sperling to help save the refineries. Once Sunoco identified Carlyle as a potential buyer, the White House helped expedite environmental approval for the transaction, a person close to the deal said.
Brian MacDonald, who headed Sunoco at the time, said Brady has a reputation for getting things done: “When he calls down to the White House, they pay attention to what he’s saying.”
Meanwhile, Delta Air Lines was approaching neighboring Pennsylvania Congressman Patrick Meehan about buying another refinery located in his district, the 185,000 bpd Trainer plant in suburban Philadelphia. It too was slated for closure.
By fall 2012 the deals were done, saving more than 1,200 jobs and averting a possible gasoline price spike just ahead of the election, which Obama won.
FOR WANT OF A RIN
But by early 2013 those refineries and others like them were once again in trouble, this time because of an obscure market for RINs, or Renewable Identification Numbers.
Created by the EPA in 2007 to enforce its mandates, the credits are 38-digit serial numbers used to identify each gallon of U.S. biofuels. Refiners collect RINs to show compliance.
Suddenly they were in short supply. Refiners began to hoard RINs amid fears the rising mandates would force them to blend gasoline with more than 10 percent ethanol, exceeding the level most car makers’ warranties and gas stations allow.
That meant refiners without adequate blending facilities saw their RIN costs surge. In 2013, the industry’s tab more than tripled to at least $1.35 billion, disclosures show.
“The economic consequences are crushing,” said Philip Rinaldi, chief executive of the Carlyle-owned refinery, in a statement.
The credits surged from about a nickel each in December 2012 to a high of $1.05 on March 11, 2013. The next day, executives from Carlyle and its Philadelphia refiner met with White House economic adviser Ronald Minsk, visitor logs show.
Later that month, Meehan went back to work on behalf of Delta, hand-delivering a letter to Sperling urging the president’s help in taming RIN prices. He also raised the issue with White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough.
“They were aware of the issue and they themselves were trying to work through the component pieces to see if there was a solution,” Meehan said. Thanks to the 2012 refinery rescue, “it wasn’t new territory,” he said.
Other refiners joined the chorus. On June 26, a dozen industry representatives from companies including PBF Energy and Phillips 66 met with Sperling, visitor logs show. People familiar with the meeting say refining executives discussed an October 2012 study sponsored by the oil industry warning the U.S. economy would fall into a “death spiral” unless the biofuel blending mandates were reduced.
Asked about White House meetings, Utech said: “With everybody that comes in, we take seriously concerns that they raise and we look skeptically at claims that they make.”
SUMMER BLITZ
On July 18, RINs, painfully, rose further to $1.45. Within days, David Marchick, a Carlyle executive who had worked with Brady on the 2012 refinery deal, contacted the congressman’s office seeking help, according to a Brady aide.
Brady’s first phone call was to Biden, who hails from Delaware - another state that had fought in 2010 to save local refinery jobs from a shutdown.
“We did all this work and now we’re going to lose this thing?” Brady said of the conversation. He said Biden agreed. Biden’s office declined to comment on the exchange.
Asked about his role, Sperling described himself as a “canary in the coal mine” on the issue, flagging it at meetings with senior Obama advisers. Broader decisions about it involved many voices within the administration, he said.
“We were very committed to the growth of biofuels, but when RIN prices go up from a few cents to as high as $1.45 in a period of months, that is a degree of potential disruption and volatility that you have to take seriously,” Sperling said.
Meetings intensified in July and August, when 17 refiners and their allies visited the White House’s rulemaking arm, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to discuss the RFS. Only six biofuel supporters visited the OMB over the same time.
Biofuel groups eventually stepped up their efforts, but only after an October leak of an EPA proposal showed the agency was already planning to cut the corn ethanol mandate to about 13 billion gallons, 1.4 billion less than what was called for in the law. In November, the EPA formally proposed the cut, along with reductions to other biofuels.
Graphic on lobbying meetings: here
FIGHTING BACK
Biofuel supporters are now trying to make up lost ground.
In April, the industry relaunched a public lobbying effort, buying TV and online ads and creating a new website - OilRigged.com - addressing oil industry “misinformation.”
Hearings also have resumed on Capitol Hill, where on April 8 the latest topic was job creation and savings at the gas pump thanks to Washington’s biofuel mandates. Many policy analysts now believe when the EPA finalizes its blending rules in June, the cuts will not be as deep as proposed in November.
“I think that the final rule will be slightly less severe,” said Divya Reddy, energy analyst at Eurasia Group.
Slideshow (9 Images)
Biofuels supporters have said they are also willing to go to court, if needed, to defend the RFS from the cuts. But for now, the groups are busy knocking on White House doors again.
“We’re trying to reach out to White House folks that have heard from the refiners — but haven’t heard from us,” said a biofuel trade group representative.Updated 1:43 p.m.
Rep. David Wu (D-Ore.) acknowledged questions surrounding a sexual encounter with a teenage woman are "very serious," but would not elaborate on the matter.
"This is very serious, and I have absolutely no desire to bring unwanted publicity, attention or stress to a young woman and her family," the Democrat said in a brief statement.
Wu's statement came in response to a story posted Friday night by the Oregonian which, citing multiple sources, reported that "a distraught young woman" called Wu's Portland office this spring, "accusing him of an unwanted sexual encounter."
The newspaper wrote: "When confronted, Wu acknowledged a sexual encounter to his senior aides but insisted it was consensual, the sources said. The woman is the daughter of a longtime friend and campaign donor. She apparently did not contact police at the time."
"In the voice mail, the young woman accused Wu of aggressive and unwanted sexual behavior, according to sources with direct knowledge of the message and its contents," the Oregonian wrote. The newspaper said its reporting suggests the woman graduated from high school in 2010 and that the alleged assault occurred over Thanksgiving weekend last year.
The late Friday night report is the latest in a series of unflattering reports about erratic behavior that have put Wu on the defensive in recent months and stretch at least as far back to his 2010 re-election bid.
In February, Wu said that sending photos of himself in a tiger costume to his staffers was "inappropriate." The Congressman said he is getting mental health treatment and acknowledged he is taking medication.
Redistricting could complicate Wu's re-election efforts, and another Democrat already has announced a primary challenge to the seven-term Member.
The Oregonian reported that this is not the first accusation of a similar nature. From its story:
In 2004, The Oregonian reported on a 1976 case when Wu was a student at Stanford University and was disciplined for trying to force an ex-girlfriend to have sex.
Wu refused interview requests related to the Stanford incident for months and hired an attorney who aggressively attacked the paper's reporting and sought to stop publication. When the story ran three weeks before the 2004 election, Wu quickly apologized for his "inexcusable behavior" and was re-elected.As far as Shanghai-born electric cellist Tina Guo is concerned, goals are meant to be pursued wholeheartedly. It was this fearlessness that led Guo to famed composer Hans Zimmer, who she recently collaborated with on the Wonder Woman main theme, titled "Is She With You?" And while the classically-trained musician can be heard on many major film, television, and video game scores—including the upcoming Christopher Nolan film Dunkirk, also scored by Zimmer—her career has been anything but unconventional.
Currently on tour with Hans Zimmer Live, she first caught Zimmer's eye after a mutual friend in his orchestra showed him a music video Guo had posted online. Guo had been experimenting with the electric cello for a few years, but was finding it difficult to explain'metal cello' because it was still only a vision in her head.
"You can tell people things, but if you don't demonstrate it, it's just an idea—everyone has ideas," Guo said. "So I thought, 'OK, that's it. I have to make a video that visually and audibly demonstrates what it is I'm trying to do, or what I'm trying to become.'"
Using her entire life savings—a little under $6,000 at the time—she produced "Queen Bee," a metal-inspired take on the orchestral interlude "Flight of the Bumblebee" by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. In what she calls "probably [her] most extreme music video" (it got an 18+ restriction on YouTube), Guo's idea can not only been heard, but emphatically seen and felt.
"I spent every penny that I had," Guo said. "I didn't know how I was going to pay my rent or buy food but, you know—sometimes you have to take risks."
Luckily, that risk paid off. Zimmer was searching for a cellist to play on the score of Sherlock Holmes, mentioning it to the aforementioned friend, who told him to check out her video. It was only a few weeks after Guo posted the video, and he immediately called her. After Sherlock Holmes, she went on to work with Zimmer on a number of scores over the years, including Inception, Batman v. Superman, and Pirates of the Caribbean 5. Guo will also be playing on the upcoming Christopher Nolan film Dunkirk, of which Zimmer composed the score.
Funnily, Guo didn't even know who Zimmer was at first. "I wasn't trying to get into the soundtrack world," she laughed. "Actually, I was hoping that Rammstein would see the video and invite me to play with them." However, from the beginning, Zimmer had always shown trust in Guo's creative process."I remember for Sherlock Holmes, he just left me |
The sample included 65 mother-infant pairs. Environmental exposure to F was quantified in tap and bottled water samples and F in maternal urine was the biological exposure indicator; samples were collected during the 1st, 2nd and 3rd trimester of pregnancy. The mean values of F in tap water for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd trimester were 2.6 ± 1.1 mg/l, 3.1 ± 1.1 mg/l and 3.7 ± 1.0 mg/l respectively; above to 80% of the samples exceeded the reference value of 1.5 mg/l (NOM-127-SSA1-1994). Regarding F in maternal urine, mean values were 1.9 ± 1.0 mg/l, 2.0 ± 1.1 mg/l and 2.7 ± 1.1 mg/l for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd trimester respectively. The infants with MDI and PDI scores less than 85 points were 38.5% and 20.9% respectively. After adjusting for potential confounding factors (gestational age, age of child, marginalization index and type of water for consumption), the MDI showed an inverse association with F levels in maternal urine for the first (β = −19.05, p = 0.04) and second trimester (β = −19.34, p = 0.01). Our data suggests that cognitive alterations in children born from exposed mothers to F could start in early prenatal stages of life.The different candidates in the 2016 presidential election all have backing from different people, different groups, and different supporters. When it comes time for the final vote tallies to be made, the bigger the group of supporters, the more votes that can come in. Well, Bernie Sanders may have just gotten the biggest boost when the the backing collective known as Anonymous backed the Democratic candidate and gave 10 reasons for it.
Meanwhile, they spoke out against other candidates, most notably Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
Anonymous took to their website to list the ten reasons that will convince voters that they should cast their ballot for Bernie Sanders. Not only is Anonymous looking to get people to vote for Sanders, but they feel he deserves much more mainstream media coverage as well.
Each of their reasons are explicitly detailed get people to see what Sanders and his campaign are all about. Some of the reasons that are easier to put forth are that he wants to break up big banks and that he opposes both the TPP and NAFTA.
Photo by Joshua Lott/Getty Images
Anonymous has been known for numerous things over the past years; some have been considered good and some have been considered bad. They’ve also been blamed for a lot of things that never ended up being their fault whatsoever.
Still, they may have some incredibly detailed points about backing and voting for Bernie Sanders. At the same time, they are making sure to point out that the other two leading candidates to capture the presidency are doing some things in the exactly opposite fashion.
Not always, though.
Anonymous gives the reasoning of “decriminalizing the use of marijuana” as a reason for backing Sanders. They also let it be known that Clinton is against decriminalizing it while Trump is more in favor of legalizing marijuana for medical uses.
Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images
One thing that is really bothering Anonymous is the lack of mainstream coverage that Bernie Sanders is getting while Donald Trump gets much more even though they are polling similarly. Anonymous believes the mainstream media hates Sanders and actually censors him so it looks like he endorses Clinton.
According to the Hill, a recent poll from Quinnipiac University shows that Bernie Sanders actually demolishes Donald Trump in a general election, and it wasn’t even close. Sanders actually had a 13 percentage point victory over Trump in that poll by way of 51 percent to 38 percent.
When detailing their 10 reasons for backing Bernie Sanders, Anonymous focuses a lot on how much he doesn’t discriminate.
“Sanders doesn’t degrade racial and religious minorities, nor does he inflame the majority- he comes right out and tells us that the elite are to blame. He said this at a rally: ‘they’re always playing one group against another. Rich got richer — everybody else was fighting each other. Our job is to build a nation in which we all stand together’. Hillary has an “abysmal” racial justice record and Trump… well, he’s said enough about that topic to fill a phone book.”
As a bonus, Anonymous says that for every list that comes out telling people not to vote for Sanders, it actually brings him more attention and supporters.
Bernie Sanders has seen his support grow in the 2016 presidential polls over the past few months, and Hillary Clinton has seen hers drop some. Donald Trump has kept a consistently big lead in the GOP race, but many say he would get destroyed by the Democratic candidate. The backing of Anonymous for Sanders may have simply pushed his support even higher.
[Image by PYMCA and Getty Images]A. Grigonio brewery shop, Pakruojis
On the morning of the second day of the Lithuanian brewery tour 2015 we stopped by a small and little-known brewery called A. Grigonio. It's literally just a few hundred meters from Jovaru Alus. As far as I know, it's a farmhouse brewery in the same vein, but I never got to see it. Vidmantas said the owners were not at home, and so a tour wasn't possible.
We went into the little brewery outlet, where a shy local girl sold me a couple of 1-litre PET bottles of beer for about a euro each. (I'll pause here while you ponder the price/interest ratio for these extremely rare and unusual farmhouse ales.) While we're waiting for her to fill the bottles from the draft tap, Vidmantas points me to an empty beer glass. It has the brewery logo, and the name of the beer is "Nakvoselis." Vidmantas explains that this is another name for "trečiokas," that is, the third runnings. Small beer usually means the second running, but in Lithuania many also made a third running. So they've actually sold trečiokas within the last couple of decades!
We then drove some distance north, to visit E. Mozūro in Linkuva. Vidmantas struggled a bit to find it, since he hadn't been there in several years. Eventually, we stopped outside a nondescript home, perhaps slightly more affluent than the neighbours. A dog barked, but otherwise there was no sign of life. Vidmantas went out, but came back dejected. Nobody home. Very frustrating, as I've never managed to find a single one of their beers.
Rozalimo alus, Rozalimas
We stopped off for lunch at a small brewpub called Rozalimo alus, on the outskirts of Pakruojis. It's a lovely, small wooden cabin with the bar inside, and a beautiful garden outside. I ordered my food, a pint of the pale beer, and a takeaway bottle of the dark beer from the girl behind the bar. While she poured the beers I took a few steps back, then lifted my camera to snap the bar, causing her to literally run out of the frame and hide. Clearly she did not want to be in any photos.
We had our lunch outside in the sunshine. The pale beer was excellent, with very vivid dusty strawy flavours, backed by earthy nutty oily notes. Well balanced, harmonic, and unusual, but recognizably Lithuanian, and in some ways reminiscent of Jovaru. Definitely easy-drinking. I could picture myself staying the rest of the day in the sunny garden, happily drinking this beer.
I asked Vidmantas whether we could talk to the owners about a tour of the brewery. He just looked at me. "Even I have never been inside," he said with a tone of finality. And, indeed, if Vidmantas in twenty years of studying Lithuanian beer had never been inside, then there was no point in trying.
Closed brewery, somewhere in the countryside
After lunch we drove east to Pasvalys, in search of a brewery named Raginelis. Vidmantas eventually located the correct address, a big walled-off private property with no sign of a brewery. We went into the shop literally across the street, and they confirmed it was the brewery. They had none of their beers, though. Vidmantas tried calling the brewery a couple more times, getting no reply. The gates were closed, so clearly they were away. Another disappointment, as I'd never tried their beers, either.
That afternoon I got back to Kaunas, and said goodbye to Vidmantas, who headed back to Vilnius. I wandered around the city for a few hours, before returning to my hotel room, lured by the call of those bottles I'd brought back from the trip. I started with a beer from Apynys, and was happily surprised by the quality, and very surprised by the unusual flavours. It's a shame you have to go to Kaunas to get these beers, because they deserve to be much more widely available.
Then I tried A. Grigonio's Algio, and had another surprise. It was a very good beer. Sweet, nutty earthy caramel, very complex, with chocolate, honey, and many other flavours coming and going. Even traces of wax. It felt like it should have been too sweet, but for me it wasn't.
Rozalimo tamsus alus
Finally, I tried the dark beer from Rozalimo, and was shocked. The balance of soft piney resiny bitterness with sweetish caramelly rye flavours was just perfect. Low carbonation, smooth mouthfeel, and clear, vivid flavours. As my notes say: "Wow! This is incredible!" A single 1-liter bottle clearly wasn't enough, but by then it was too late.
That night I spent some time browsing the information I could find about the beer bars in Kaunas, trying to see which ones would be most likely to offer something interesting. One bar, named "Pivorius", on the edge of town seemed interesting. They clearly served farmhouse ale, and one photo showed a keg of Raginelis beer on the bar. I decided I had to pay them a visit.
Pivorius, Kaunas
The next afternoon I set out, walking the 5 kilometers from the old town in the scorching July sun. The location was not very promising, in between a small shopping center and some tall Soviet-era apartment buildings. The bar itself looked even less promising from the outside, being basically a small door at one end of a windowless concrete box. But there were people outside, relaxing with their beers in the shade, and inside the bar actually was quite nice in a low-key, homely sort of way.
The Raginelis keg was gone, though, as were their beers. The bartender was friendly, helpful, and English-speaking, so in the end I ordered something less exciting, and sat down. People came and went, ordering beers and chatting with the barman. Then in came a grandmother, carrying a grocery bag, and her grandchild, perhaps 8 years old. They ordered a beer for grandma, and a fruit juice for the little girl. Grandma chatted with the barman while he prepared their order, then they headed outside to sit in the sunshine.
Thirty minutes later the little girl comes back with the two empty glasses, puts them on the counter, flashes a smile at the barman, and skips back out into the sun.
Meanwhile, I was nursing my beer, staring out into space, thinking. So after five years of beer hunting in Lithuania there were still new surprises to be found? What else was out there, still to be discovered?In a little over a month on Xbox (and almost a year for everyone else) Lara Croft will set off on her next journey, a continuation from her last adventure in 2013 entitled Tomb Raider. Tomb Raider is a long standing platforming title, featuring a lone heroine, Lara Croft. Just recently we posted new gameplay footage for Rise of the Tomb Raider. Today, we get a look into another important aspect of the game; its soundtrack.
Rise of Tomb Raider will be composed by Bobby Tahouri who has worked on movies such as Iron Man and Despicable Me 2, as well as the hit HBO series, Game of Thrones. Crystal Dynamic’s brand director had the following to say via Xbox News:
Music is incredibly important in video games to help create the right atmosphere, mood and tone, and this is especially true for Rise of the Tomb Raider, which is set to be Lara’s biggest and boldest adventure yet. We love the sound Bobby brings to the game, and we’re excited for fans to join Lara in this adventure when the game launches on November 10.
As a fan of the series, I can say I am excited for another run with Lara Croft. Let us know in the comments below if you will be picking up this title next month.
Share This
Further reading: Ride of the Tomb RaiderNo, folks. No.
If it was said once this week outside the trial of suspended Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, I swear it was said a dozen times.
"If it's not God's law, it's not law," Moore's disciples said.
No, folks. No.
Not unless you live in the United States of Falwell. Or the Islamic State.
There's no law but god's law in those places, I'll grant you. Whether you believe in that god or not.
But alas for those folks in Montgomery -- one guy said he'd picked up a couple of law books so he knew those trying to oust Moore were wrong -- this is not the USF.
Or ISIS.
It remains a country founded on the principle of freedom, a place where my god can be a whole lot more tolerant than the damning deity depicted on signs in front of the Alabama Judicial Building.
If you want to believe in a god who sits in the sky waiting to rain down fire and brimstone - cool. If you think god is love -- awesome. If you want to believe in a being that shows its approval through cash payouts or tax breaks, well that's your call, too. And if you want to believe absolutely nothing at all, that's absolutely OK.
It's just part of the bargain of being American. It's part of the promise that made this a melting pot. It's in the DNA of the USA. Worship whoever or whatever moves your spirit, or scoff at those who do. The First Amendment guarantees it, so a thousand sects and denominations and religions find space in this land.
Which is why "God's law" is not The Law. We can't, and never could, agree what god or what interpretation of the same god laid down the law.
We don't all believe like Roy Moore.
We don't all believe like me.
And we don't all believe like you.
Good O'l J.D. Crowe
Which is why -- despite what Roy Moore and his most virulent supporters claim -- the law that must matter most in the courts and the halls of government is The Law, the statutes hewn in the legislative branches of government and interpreted by the courts.
The Law, which Roy Moore swore an oath to uphold.
In America, the rule of law is the Great Commandment. Without it we are lost, a lawless land controlled by the tribe with the biggest band and the biggest stick. That's not America. It's ISIS.
Moore's supporters on Wednesday said they couldn't understand why the chief justice was even on trial before the court of the judiciary. They argued that a charge against Moore is an attack on god and an assault on religion itself.
Which is as absurd. It is a protection of religion.
Moore, the top judge on the highest court in all of Alabama, was on trial for flouting the Rule of Law, for putting his own beliefs - again - above the decisions of the United States Supreme Court.
Moore was accused of ordering Alabama probate judges to deny marriage licenses to gay couples, despite a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that essentially made gay marriage legal in all states. Moore argued Wednesday his order was just a suggestion - even if it did say "ordered and directed" right there before his signature.
"I would not defy a federal court order," Moore testified - even though he was kicked out of the same office in 2003 for defying a federal court order. His follow-up was closer to the truth.
"I don't defy federal court orders when they are within the law," he said.
Within his version of the law.
The Court of the Judiciary stood for the Rule of Law this week, unanimously finding that Moore should be suspended without pay for the rest of his term for putting himself before his duty.
It had little choice.
Because Moore, again, put his own beliefs and his own flavor of religion above his duty, his country and his oath. He violated the one thing he was sworn to uphold.
The Law.Like Walter Olson, I was struck yesterday by Tim Carney’s admonition that “Libertarians need to reassess their allegiances on social matters” in light of government infringements on religious liberty. Walter did a good job of demonstrating that libertarians, even those who are not themselves religious, have been “on the front lines” in defending religious liberty in such cases as Catholic hospitals’ objections to paying for birth control and the wedding photographer in New Mexico who didn’t want to photograph a gay wedding. Libertarians don’t have to be conservatives to object to “liberal” infringements on personal and religious freedoms.
But there’s another problem with what Carney wrote. I’m not quite sure what “Libertarians need to reassess their allegiances on social matters” means. But perhaps he means that libertarians should stop thinking of themselves as “fiscally conservative and socially liberal” and recognize that a lot of infringements on freedom come from the left. In my experience libertarians are well aware that in matters from taxes to gun ownership to Catholic hospitals, liberals don’t live up to the ideal of true liberalism.
But what about conservatives? Are conservatives really the defenders of freedom? Carney seems to want us to think so, and to line up with conservatives “on social matters.” But the real record of conservatives on personal and social freedom is not very good. Consider:
Conservatives, like National Review, supported state-imposed racial segregation in the 1950s and 1960s. (I won’t go back and claim that “conservatives” supported slavery or other pre-modern violations of freedom.)
Conservatives opposed legal and social equality for women.
Conservatives supported laws banning homosexual acts among consenting adults.
Conservatives still oppose equal marriage rights for gay couples.
Conservatives (and plenty of liberals) support the policy of drug prohibition, which results in nearly a million arrests a year for marijuana use.
Conservatives support state-imposed prayers and other endorsements of religion in public schools.
Conservatives have a bad record on social freedom. It is, in a word, illiberal. Carney may be right that,
This is how the culture war generally plays out these days: The Left uses government to force religious people and cultural conservatives to violate their consciences, and then cries “theocracy” when conservatives object.
But conservatives earned the skepticism of liberals and libertarians on social issues over long decades during which they supported far greater intrusions on personal freedom than the ones Carney is writing about—which are nevertheless illiberal and should be opposed by all who adhere to the principles of freedom.I was delighted to see the following e-mail post from Dirk Eddelbuettel regarding the google-summer-of-code R google group:
* * *
Earlier today Google finalised student / mentor pairings and allocations for
the Google Summer of Code 2010 (GSoC 2010). The R Project is happy to
announce that the following students have been accepted:
Colin Rundel, “rgeos – an R wrapper for GEOS”, mentored by Roger Bivand of
the Norges Handelshoyskole, Norway
Ian Fellows, “A GUI for Graphics using ggplot2 and Deducer”, mentored by
Hadley Wickham of Rice University, USA
Chidambaram Annamalai, “rdx – Automatic Differentiation in R”, mentored by
John Nash of University of Ottawa, Canada
Yasuhisa Yoshida, “NoSQL interface for R”, mentored by Dirk Eddelbuettel,
Chicago, USA
Felix Schoenbrodt, “Social Relations Analyses in R”, mentored by Stefan
Schmukle, Universitaet Muenster, Germany
Details about all proposals are on the R Wiki page for the GSoC 2010 at
http://rwiki.sciviews.org/doku.php?id=developers:projects:gsoc2010
The R Project is honoured to have received its highest number of student
allocations yet, and looks forward to an exciting Summer of Code. Please
join me in welcoming our new students.
At this time, I would also like to thank all the other students who have
applied for working with R in this Summer of Code. With a limited number of
available slots, not all proposals can be accepted — but I hope that those
not lucky enough to have been granted a slot will continue to work with R and
towards making contributions within the R world.
I would also like to express my thanks to all other mentors who provided for
a record number of proposals. Without mentors and their project ideas we
would not have a Summer of Code — so hopefully we will see you again next
year.
Regards,
Dirk (acting as R/GSoC 2010 admin)
* * *
From all the projects, the one I am most excited about is:
Ian Fellows, “A GUI for Graphics using ggplot2 and Deducer”, mentored by Hadley Wickham of Rice University, USA
Deducer (text from the website) attempts to be a free easy to use alternative to proprietary data analysis software such as SPSS, JMP, and Minitab. It has a menu system to do common data manipulation and analysis tasks, and an excel-like spreadsheet in which to view and edit data frames. The goal of the project is to two-fold.
Provide an intuitive interface so that non-technical users can learn and perform analyses without programming getting in their way.
Increase the efficiency of expert R users when performing common tasks by replacing hundreds of keystrokes with a few mouse clicks. Also, as much as possible the GUI should not get in their way if they just want to do some programming.
Deducer is designed to be used with the Java based R console JGR, though it supports a number of other R environments (e.g. Windows RGUI and RTerm).
This combination (of Deducer and ggplot2) might finally provide the bridge to the layman-statistician that some people recently wrote to be one of R’s weak spots (while other bloogers wrote back that this is o.k., still no one refuted that R doesn’t compete with the point-and-click of softwares like SPSS or JMP.)
I came across Ian in the discussion forums, where he provided very kind help to his package “deducer”. Coupled with having Hadley as his mentor, I am very optimistic about the prospects of seeing this project reaching very high standards.
Very exciting development indeed!
Update: Ian’s proposal is available to view here.
p.s: for some intuition about how a GUI for ggplot2 can look like, have a look at this video of Jeroen Ooms’s ggplot2 web interfaceWife Tries To Kill Hubby With Snake, Snake Runs Away. So She Beats Him To Death With Her Lover's Help
Wife Tries To Kill Hubby With Snake, Snake Runs Away. So She Beats Him To Death With Her Lover's Help
The paramour of a 32-year-old woman, who had beaten his lover's husband to death, told police on Tuesday that they had initially scouted for poisonous snakes for several days to execute the murder.
noticiasrcn.co/Represenatational image
They managed to catch a cobra at Pattanampudur near Sulur and released the snake in the victim's bedroom two months ago. However, the reptile did not bite him and left the house a few hours later. Thus, they decided to beat the man to death. The woman paid her paramour Rs15,000 to get the job done. She also agreed to give him Rs 5 lakh to set up a gym in Irugur.
The arrested people were identified as L Sundaram alias Ram, 30, from Sri Nagar and his accomplice K Krishna alias Radhakrishna, 24, from Pattanampudur near Sulur. Ram owned a pet shop at Irugur and Krishna was an employee there.
BCCL/Represenatational image
Don't Miss 98 K SHARES 54.1 K SHARES 66.5 K SHARES 24.4 K SHARES 15.2 K SHARES
On August 8, Ram, his paramour S Saradha, 32, and Krishna, murdered Saradha's husband A Sakthivel, 35, using wooden logs at her residence and they dumped the body inside a ground level water tank. The city police arrested Saradha on August 9 for murdering her husband. She confessed to police that she wanted to kill her husband as she was having an affair. Ram and his accomplice Krishna were arrested by Singanallur (law & order) police on Tuesday. Ram told the police that he was residing in Chennai and moved to Coimbatore four years ago. His elder sister is a beautician working in a beauty parlour in Coimbatore city. He is a divorcee.Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (AFP,File)
RAMALLAH (Ma'an) -- The Palestinian presidential office released a statement on Thursday underscoring the presidency’s rejection of the attack carried out in Tel Aviv on Wednesday which left four Israelis killed and an additional six wounded.
In a statement published on the government-run Wafa news agency, the presidential office underscored its rejection to the attacks, saying it "reiterated once and again that it rejects operations against civilians by any side, regardless of justifications."
“Achieving a just peace and creating a positive atmosphere will contribute to removing the reasons behind tension and violence in the area,” the statement read.
The statement added that achieving a sustainable peace would require everyone to “stop any acts that would increase tension and strain, or that resort to violence.”
Several Palestinian political factions also released statements in response to Wednesday’s attack, with the Hamas movement stating that the Tel Aviv shooting was a “good omen” for Palestinians and the first “surprise” for the “enemy” during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
The Fatah movement, meanwhile, which is the leading party in the Palestinian Authority, said in a statement that the Tel Aviv shooting was an “individual and natural response” to Israeli state violence.
“Israel must realize the consequences of its persistence to push violence, house demolition policies, forced displacement of Palestinians, raids by Israeli settlers to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, and the cold-blooded killing of Palestinians at checkpoints,” Fatah media committee head Munir al-Jaghoub said.
Al-Jaghoub added that the Israeli refusal to abide by international agreements regarding its illegal settlement policy turned the situation in the in occupied Palestinian territory into a desperate reality far from Palestinians’ hopes and dreams of freedom and independence.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) also released a statement saying that the shooting represented a “paradigm shift” in the Intifada, which it called a “natural response” to the high number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces.
The PFLP said that the site of the shooting, being close to the Israeli Ministry of Defense, sent a strong message of challenge to the newly appointed Israeli Minister of Defense Avigdor Lieberman, and stood as a confirmation that armed resistance was the best way to reclaim Palestinians’ rights.Fox40 Screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET
Facebook's relationship with breastfeeding mothers has some Oedipal tinges.
It seems that ever since the site became populated by people who weren't university students desperate to find a warm body, Facebook has shivered at the site of anything that resembled a naked breast.
Even when it was actually an elbow.
Though breastfeeding mothers have always railed against Facebook's anti-breast policies, the company has always claimed that it is a medium, and therefore abides by the same standards as other media.
This is odd, because at the launch of Facebook Home, Mark Zuckerberg insisted that Facebook was actually a "community."
Still, one breastfeeding activist -- that is, someone who would prefer it if Facebook would just butt out of personal breast pictures intended only for family and close friends -- has finally secured a small victory over Facebook's Breast Police.
As Fox 40 in Sacramento reports, Kristy Kemp was banned from Facebook twice, after the breast police espied her breasfteeding images.
Kemp runs a breastfeeding support group, Breastfeeding/MamaTalk, that enjoys a Facebook page. This might suggest that those who go there are interested in everything to do with breastfeeding.
She posts images there, because she says that she herself has been shamed in her attempts to breastfeed in public. The supposedly offensive images featured a 3-year-old and a 5-year-old being breastfed.
"It's not right. I'm trying to do good for mothers and I'm getting kicked off for posting pictures of the most beautiful act a mother can do her for kid. It's not right," she told Fox 40.
After being bemused for days at her treatment by Facebook, the company finally sent her an apology. It read, in part: "A member of our team accidentally removed something you posted on Facebook. This was mistake [sic], and we sincerely apologize for this error."
Some might stick out their chest and suggest this was arrant nonsense, as she was banned not once, but twice. Could both times have been accidental removals? I must ask Nate Silver.
Facebook's breast policy revolves around the areola. If it is visible, the image is verboten.
However, how often does the site really believe breastfeeding pictures are posted for any other purpose than a positive one?Share 0 SHARES
ROY KEANE’S new autobiography is set to dominate the back pages of newspapers and much office chatter as details of his book slowly emerge ahead of its publication this Thursday.
The book, tentatively titled Everybody Is A Prick Except Me, largely focuses on the later years of his playing career bringing the reader right up to 2014 and Keane’s role as both Ireland and Aston Villa assistant manager.
One detour from this formula sees the Cork man discuss one of his earliest childhood memories – being stuck in a cramped womb.
“Very little planning went into the whole construction obviously. You’re talking about a bodily process that has seen billions born throughout the history of mankind and here I am, a future United captain, struggling for room to fully stretch out my legs,” reads the opening of the third chapter of Keane’s book.
“You’ve what? Nine months to really plan it, make changes, adjustments, Jesus even get a decent light in the place, but they didn’t and by the time I was born I had plenty to say to my parents about it. My first words were ‘amateur hour’ and ‘I’m disappointed in you'”.
Keane’s book, which is sure to be a best seller, also covers much of his time away from the game post-retirement.
“I had played at the highest level and never really had an opportunity to enjoy some time off,” Keane says as he details the year he spent traveling the world in an attempt to see some of the world’s greatest cultural sites and feats of human achievement.
“Visited the Sistine Chapel, boring. Shit technique for a painter if we’re being honest. The Pyramids, built too far out of town with poor public services, fecking sand everywhere. Gaudí’s Cathedral…the prick never bothered to finish it like…” Keane goes on like this for close to four chapters.
Keane’s ghostwriter, Roddy Doyle, revealed to WWN that the experience was arduous at times.
“I wrestled with Roy on the number of character assassinations he should put in the book,” explained Doyle, “but in the end he got his way and the bit about Ghandi being ‘fucking useless in a street fight’ stayed in.”Electronic Surveillance: Gone Too Far?
McCain Institute debates the statement: ‘Spy on me, I’d rather be safe.’
WASHINGTON—Until it was leaked that the National Security Agency monitors the phone calls and emails of American citizens, most Americans had no idea what their government was doing in the name of national security.
We have now learned that the government collects data about our telephone calls, photocopies domestic mail, collects images from license plate readers and surveillance cameras, and much more.
Is there any real harm done by the NSA surveillance program to the public? Do the benefits of protecting lives from potential terrorist attacks and national security outweigh the loss of our privacy? Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden’s leaks of troves of classified information raise a multitude of questions.
The McCain Institute for International Leadership recently co-hosted a formal debate on the subject, “Spy On Me, I’d Rather Be Safe.” Two debaters for, and two against, considered the question in front of an audience of several hundred people Nov. 20 in Washington, D.C.‘
Lawful’ Electronic Surveillance
Richard Falkenrath was deputy homeland security advisor under President Bush before and after 9/11. In 2006-2010, he served as the New York City Police Department’s deputy commissioner for counterterrorism.
Falkenrath said that preventing terrorist acts is not difficult when the terrorist plot is uncovered in advance. It was his personal experience that where this has happened in the United States, the initial lead came from electronic surveillance in one form or another. He said “lives are at stake.”
Surveillance has more oversight than it did 35 years ago when the president, based on Article 2 of the Constitution, could legally conduct electronic surveillance inside the U.S. for foreign intelligence purposes, without judicial review, according to Falkenrath.
Falkenrath said he supports “lawful forms of surveillance,” backed by the Constitution, statutes, and judiciary review. The approach has had the bipartisan backing of both chambers of Congress, and the Bush and Obama administrations, he said. The Supreme Court has also held that the information is not private.
“The bulk acquisition of telephone records for narrow counterterrorism purposes has been authorized 34 times by 15 different federal judges,” said Falkenrath, adding that the judges have said they allowed the authorizations because of the safeguards that are in place.
Mass Surveillance Ineffective, Wasteful
Arguing against the motion was Michael German, who is senior counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. German was a special agent with the FBI for 16 years, where he specialized in domestic terrorism and covert operations.
German said he didn’t question the need for the government to use tools to address terrorist threats, but he questioned whether these tools were necessary and effective. He listed three terrorist bombing attempts that failed: the Christmas Day underwear bomber, the Times Square bomber, and Najibullah Zazi’s crew, who brought explosives into New York City.
“Luck was what [saved us] in these cases, not mass surveillance,” he said.
Mass surveillance did not prevent the shootings at Fort Hood, and the Army recruiting center in Arkansas, or the Boston Marathon bombing. Too much data overloads the investigators, according to German.
The FBI investigation of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was one of 1,000 assessments done that year by the Boston team, and may explain why he wasn’t apprehended before he set off the bombs that killed three and injured an estimated 264.
German said the time-tested way of the past was to follow the evidence based on “reasonable suspicion” and “probable cause,” not “flawed hunches or profiles.”
German said, “In my 16 year FBI career, I can honestly say I never found a criminal or terrorist by rummaging through the personal information of innocent people.”
The data collection of the government is massive and wastes billions of dollars—money that could have been more effectively applied to keep us safe, he added.
“The National Counterterrorism Center says it receives 5,000 pieces of information and puts 350 people on the watch list every day,” German said. He quoted a NCC analyst who said, “There are so many databases … people don’t know where to get information or they may already have it and not know it.”
He said NSA can point to just one instance of a terrorism-related prosecution that might not have been successful. Once, a transmittal of money to Somalia discovered through electronic records was used as material evidence in a trial.
Safeguards in Place
Arguing in favor of the idea that spying keeps us safe was Stuart Baker, who is the author of “Skating on Stilts: Why We Aren’t Stopping Tomorrow’s Terrorism.” He was the first assistant secretary for policy at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), 2005-2009.
Baker sees nothing wrong with intelligence agencies using data already collected by third parties, such as phone numbers.
He said that when he was at DHS, they would get from the airlines travel information on reservations, and passport information on everybody coming into the United States—not just the suspects. Baker said this data would have been used to question the underwear bomber after he deplaned if he hadn’t been discovered beforehand trying to blow up the plane.
Regarding the massive phone databases collected, Baker said safeguards are in place. Only a limited number of people have access to the data, there are rules for getting access to it, and it’s court enforced. Five hundred phone numbers emerge each year from the analysis, and only then would the names of the people be identified. Compared to 1.3 million searches that law enforcement does each day, 500 is a small number, he said.
Transparency and Privacy Violated
Arguing against the NSA’s spying was David Cole, who is a professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center. He has litigated many significant cases before the Supreme Court.
Cole said that NSA’s secret program violates core principles of democracy: government transparency and citizen privacy. The NSA surveillance program has reversed these by demanding transparency from the public, while employing secrecy itself, Cole said.
“We should have a say how far the government can go in spying on us,” Cole said.
Government surveillance may sometimes be justified for national security to keep us safe, he said. However, there is also a role for democracy and the human need for privacy—something “essential to human development” and “political freedom.”Sami Inkinen, 38, co-founder of the real estate-focused Web site Trulia.com, and wife Meredith Loring, 34, train |
woman for months says he hasn’t thought of marriage, he’s probably just being honest. Men don’t think about these things. a. 1/3 of husbands who had said no at first had forgotten that they did so b. 2/3 remembered, but most thought it wasn’t a big deal. c. When told that saying this upset their wives, the men generally responded, “What did she want me to do, lie to her?” d. More than 90% of men who said they weren’t ready didn’t think the answer was a rejection, just a fact. e. The best response is, “Maybe it’s time for you to think about it.” f. Statistically, this is actually one of the most encouraging answers a woman can receive; many of these men proposed within 4 months.
6. Men don’t get subtle hints—a woman has to discuss marriage directly and, to make sure he gets the point, ask follow-up questions.
7. When a man says he isn’t ready, it usually doesn’t mean he will never marry. Often, it’s because they don’t have enough money.
8. Men rarely respond positively when challenged. a. Over 50% of men say that when presented with a choice, “Marry me or get lost,” they chose to get lost. b. Over 50% of men say that when a woman walks out, they let her go. c. Instead, come back to the subject later. Send the message, “I love you, but I need marriage.” Don’t let them off the hook. i. “How could you do this to me? You hurt me.” ii. “The reason I’m so hurt is that I love you.”
Marrying after 40 1. The best places to meet eligible men are clubs and groups based on common interests. Join organization that have single men as members. a. 21% of engaged women over 40 said that they had met their fiancée at an athletic club b. Sports clubs that focus on activities that attract singles (trips, bicycling) are best c. Next best are tennis, and golf. d. Third come professional or social organizations that are overwhelmingly male, like engineering associations or collectors of sports memorabilia. e. Fourth come organizations that have a singles scene, or sponsor events that give singles a chance to socialize with other club members. f. Dances, picnics, and charity golf or tennis tournaments are also a good place to meet men.
2. Have an active social life a. Women who go out twice a week, even just to dine with other women or do volunteer work, are 3x as likely to marry than those who don’t go out. b. Going out three times a week boosts your chances even further. c. However, going out more than 5 nights a week decreases your chances.
3. Though men often date women who are much younger, they usually marry someone close to their own age.
4. The most common reason men over 40 were attracted to their fiancées was that they took good care of themselves. So stay in shape!
5. When asked what attracted them to their fiancées, younger men cite virtue, talent, or accomplishments. 62% of men over forty cited “niceness” (congeniality, agreeableness, a relaxed, low-maintenance attitude, and acts of kindness).
6. Older men may be in a hurry to get married; delay them, don’t dump them, if you aren’t ready yet.
7. Men who attend religious services are more likely to marry. Divorced men, widowers, and single fathers 1. Young widowers without children are the most marriageable men on earth
2. Single fathers with young children have little or no energy for a social life
3. Most widowers are not ready for a relationship until 2 years after their wife passed away
4. Men whose wives died of lingering or painful illnesses are less likely to remarry.
5. The more amicable a man’s divorce, the more likely he is to remarry
6. The younger a man is, the more likely he is to remarry Why Men Marry Some Women And Not Others Tip: To turn text into a link, highlight the text, then click on a page or file from the list above. Printable versionThere’s no denying the popularity of the beers at Trap Rock Restaurant & Brewery in Berkeley Heights.
Charlie Schroeder, the brewmaster, sells a lot of his JP Pilsner, Kestrel IPA, McClellan Stout and other varieties — about 480 barrels a year. That’s enough to fill a backyard swimming pool.
But Schroeder, one of a handful of craft beer producers in New Jersey, thinks he can sell a lot more through the seven other restaurants his bosses own. There’s just one problem: The state’s aging brewery laws won’t allow it.
"The owners of the business would love to be able to sell the beer I make here to the other restaurants," Schroeder said. "Customers ask me about that all the time: ‘Why can’t you do that? That doesn’t make sense.’ "
Some lawmakers in Trenton agree. A bill proposed in the Legislature would revamp the rules governing brewpubs — any restaurant that brews its own beer — and microbreweries, stand-alone beer producers working on a smaller scale than the major companies.
The measure would bring New Jersey in line with neighboring states, supporters say. It has become a cause célèbre among the craft brewers here, who have tried for years to get the laws changed. Some in the liquor industry have reservations, though.
Right now, brewpubs and microbreweries face tight restrictions, even on things as mundane as what they can use their property for. Breweries in New Jersey aren’t allowed to host certain special events, something wineries can do. Visitors taking a tour can only buy two six-packs to take home.
"Those laws are unique to New Jersey," said Greg Zaccardi, the owner of High Point, a 3,000-barrel-a-year Butler brewery focused on wheat beers. "We compete with brewers from neighboring states that have much more supportive laws."
Assemblyman Craig Coughlin (D-Middlesex) first introduced the bill, but it has since attracted support from some big names, including Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean Jr. (R-Union) and Assemblyman Jon Bramnick (R-Union). Coughlin, who also introduced a bill to lift an oft-ignored licensing requirement for home brewers, believes the measure will receive bipartisan support.
The proposed bill would reduce fees and change some restrictions, such as increasing production limits to make room for future growth.
Brewpubs, currently capped at 3,000 barrels per year, would be able to produce up to 10,000 barrels. Microbreweries — in Jersey, that’s everything except Anheuser-Busch in Newark — would jump from 300,000 to 500,000 barrels.
But the bill isn’t without criticism, and one provision appears to be similar to a benefit wineries have that is the subject of a federal court case. The bill would allow New Jersey microbreweries to open as many as 10 "salesrooms," intended to help market their products. Wineries already are allowed to have on-site retail sales, but that right is being challenged by out-of-state vintners that argue it discriminates against them.
The salesroom component is also gaining attention from the New Jersey Liquor Store Alliance, which represents 1,500 of the state’s 1,800 liquor stores.
Alliance president Paul Santelle, who met last week with supporters of the brewery bill, said allowing salesrooms could inadvertently hurt his industry and allow some companies to skirt a state law limiting the number of retail liquor licenses one company or person can hold.
He said his group still hasn’t discussed the bill, something they plan to do next month.
"We are committed to working with these guys and making sure we help them," Santelle said. "But we don’t want to hurt ourselves in the process."
Craft beer is all the buzz these days. As America’s biggest breweries have seen their shares of the market decline, small breweries have grown dramatically in recent years.
Some companies — including Brooklyn Brewery, Sierra Nevada, Dogfish Head and Samuel Adams — are reaching a wide market.
U.S. beer sales declined 1 percent last year and 2.2 percent in 2009, according to the national Brewers Association, the leading interest group for the craft beer industry. But those smaller beer producers saw a 12 percent bump in revenues last year, the group said.
"It’s definitely taking off," said Paul Gatza, director of the Brewers Association. "Craft brewers are growing every year by double digits."
New Jersey isn’t all that different.
Flying Fish, the state’s largest craft brewer, is undertaking a $5 million expansion of its Camden County operation that will allow it to produce up to triple the amount of beer it does now. Other brewers say they’re seeing continual growth.
A few decades ago, the state didn’t have a craft industry, said Gene Muller, founder and president of Flying Fish, which produces about 14,000 barrels per year. Now there’s nearly two dozen brewpubs and microbreweries. But New Jersey’s beer producers also believe that they could be doing much better and that their growth, though impressive, pales in comparison with what’s taken place in other states.
"It’s kind of depressing. New Jersey ranks 32 in the nation" for craft beer production, Muller said. "We can do a lot better than that."
Ryan Hutchins: (973) 392-7863 or rhutchins@starledger.comYes, the NUS’ advice to it’s own LGBT+ societies on how to reduce discrimination against certain groups in the LGBT+ community is to discriminate against a certain group in the LGBT+ community.
And yes, that sound you can hear is my forehead crashing through my keyboard.
Aside from the offensiveness of making such an assumption about all white gay men – that we're misogynistic, transphobic, racist, the whole caboodle – does the NUS not see how damaging these gross, negative generalisations are?
Does the NUS not realise that gay men face significant discrimination, just like the rest of the LGBT community? That we're more likely to suffer from a mental health problem than most other groups in society; that we face continued opposition in the job market (lesbian employees in the UK earn 8pc more than heterosexual women, but gay men earn 5pc less than straight men)? Does the NUS not realise that we're more likely to be homeless than our straight brethren; or that we're part of a group subjected to a vile rise in hate crimes in London?
It does realise these things, because it debated them this week – alongside issues such as the alarming lack of access to medical care for those from the trans community and the horrifically high suicide rate among LGBT+ groups. And yet, a game of Sexual Minority Top Trumps has led to the ludicrous decision that gay reps shouldn't get a say.
It's like they're trying to delete the G from LGBT.COLUMBUS -- The Ohio House of Representatives will consider eliminating Ohio's energy efficiency and renewable energy standards.
Introduced today by Rep. Ron Amstutz, a Wooster Republican, House Bill 554 is a companion to Senate Bill 320, introduced two weeks ago by Cincinnati Republican Sen. Bill Seitz.
In an interview today, Seitz said his objective is to eliminate all state mandates and let markets determine whether energy efficiency technologies are adopted here and whether more wind, solar and hydro projects are built.
Opponents say ending state mandates will cripple further development of wind and solar, and hamper the adoption of more efficient technologies in manufacturing.
Seitz said he and Amstutz conferred on the issue, and the point of quick passage is to make certain the suspension of renewable and efficiency standards is in place before the end of the year. Otherwise, the state's current renewable energy requirements, temporarily suspended by the legislature a year ago, will automatically kick back in.
Environmental groups and their allies are likely to fiercely oppose elimination of the mandates. They argue that they create jobs, safeguard the environment, and make Ohio industry more competitive.
Seitz said he thinks it would be possible but difficult to approve a final version of the legislation before the House and Senate break for summer, probably sometime after the first week in June.
"I don't think we are going to get 320 through by the end of June," Seitz said frankly. "But getting it done by the end of the year is not ideal" either, he said.
Zanesville Republican Sen. Troy Balderson, chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said he has set a hearing on Seitz's bill for Wednesday.
Balderson said passing the legislation quickly "is going to be challenging" and that Seitz "wanted to get the conversation going" with his bill. "There are going to be some changes," he said, "but this is a conversation that has to happen."
Seitz indicated he would accept a streamlined version of his Senate bill, one that merely extended the freeze for at least three years. The House version would permanently suspend the mandates unless the General Assembly voted to restore them.
State Rep. Mike Dovilla, a Berea Republican, and chair of the House Public Utilities Committee, has also set a Wednesday hearing on Amstutz's bill.
Among the energy mandates that have been suspended is a requirement that power companies annually increase the share of power generated by renewable energy technologies, until renewables account for 12.5 percent of the power sold.
The House bill would simply require renewable energy to account for a straight 2.5 percent of the total kilowatt-hours of power annually sold annually through 2027. The bill also broadens the definition of what counts as renewable
For example, the legislation would allow a large industrial company to use its waste heat to generate electricity and sell that power to a utility as renewable energy.
Gov. John Kasich has repeatedly vowed that he would veto any legislation that permanently suspends the renewable mandates. He made that promise in response to questions from voters during his presidential campaign.
Ohio lawmakers approved the standards in 2008. They required power companies to supply an annually increasing percentage of electricity generated by wind, solar and other renewable technologies, and to help customers annually reduce electricity consumption by adopting energy efficient technologies. Only one lawmaker opposed the legislation.
Prompted by the state's utilities, lawmakers tried to permanently suspend the efficiency and renewable standards in late 2014 and again in 2015. Finally, after Kasich said he would veto any permanent suspension, lawmakers in June 2015 suspended the mandates for two years while they studied the issue. That deadline falls on Jan. 1, 2017, unless lawmakers take action before that date.
Seitz said lawmakers want to head that off by quickly passing an extended freeze of the standards.
The legislative effort comes as the fight over the Obama Administration's Clean Power Plan continues to work its way through a federal appeals court in Washington. Environmental groups have argued that Ohio would be able to meet the plan's mandatory CO2 reductions through the states renewable and efficiency standards. The appellate court is expected to issue its ruling this summer.Quote: George Omoregie
Hi:
In October, I had some $, so I wrote Pioneer if they could leak out any info about 2014 lines. The response was "Wait till January". The 2014 lines will be announced.
You know I got rid of my Susano? I have nothing at the moment. I wanted to go for the SC-79, thinking over it again, I decided to wait till CES.
I like the Yamaha separates, but will prefer Elite.
Take care,,
George Originally Posted byHi:In October, I had some $, so I wrote Pioneer if they could leak out any info about 2014 lines. The response was "Wait till January". The 2014 lines will be announced.You know I got rid of my Susano? I have nothing at the moment. I wanted to go for the SC-79, thinking over it again, I decided to wait till CES.I like the Yamaha separates, but will prefer Elite.Take care,,George
We'll have to wait and see. I also have talked to Pioneer US and that may for the std line but you could be right. I do know they will not be releasing any new Elites for sale until the usual time frame. but they could always announce them. and I was told that there would not be any new Elite AVR's shown at CES. I askedand the person I talked to would definitely know what their plans were; he wasn't just a phone CSRyes, I know you did. I don't know what I'd do in your shoes, wait more or get something now and sell it later. maybe they will announce - at least you'd know what to expect when they do come outBefore After
Hi Ewen Vowels, Senior Client Optimization Engineer here.
Recently the engineering team completed a complete rewrite of the shadow technology used for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™.
For those interested in the nitty-gritty details, here they are! The old shadow system used an incremental cascaded shadow algorithm – this system was primarily designed for older machines with slower graphics cards and had limitations with the number of dynamically moving objects it could handle. The replacement system is using a Fit To Cascade (FTC) shadow algorithm, which allows all objects to cast shadows and have them updated every frame.
Before After
The new system provides full dynamic shadows. Simply stated, all characters, trees, and moving objects cast shadows onto the game world in Game Update 1.4. The previous system only generated dynamic shadows for characters. Moving through heavily treed planets such as Tython, the player will now see the subtle moving shadows cast by the leaves and trees.
The new system supports realistic self-shadowing. As the player runs around in the game world, they will see their arms, Lightsabers, or blasters casting shadows onto themselves. Droids and gun turrets also cast realistic shadows as they animate in the game world.
The new system has been also upgraded to generate softer-edged shadows. The shadows (particularly those around the player) will be far less blocky and pixelated than in the previous system.
Before After
In addition to these functional changes, there have been numerous optimizations made to the underlying core technology to reduce the load on the player’s computer. In most cases, players should notice an improvement to framerate compared to the previous system. Players with high-end AMD CrossFire or Nvidia SLI machines should notice a large improvement when running the game with the new shadow system.
If you have been running with shadows disabled, please try re-enabling them with the new patch and let us know what you think! We hope you’ll enjoy the improved visuals (and performance)!
Ewen Vowels
Senior Client Optimization EngineerEvery vibrant technology marketplace needs an unbiased source of information on best practices as well as an active body advocating open standards. In the Application Security space, one of those groups is the Open Web Application Security Project™ (or OWASP for short). The Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) is a 501(c)(3) worldwide not-for-profit charitable organization focused on improving the security of software. Our mission is to make software security visible, so that individuals and organizations are able to make informed decisions. OWASP is in a unique position to provide impartial, practical information about AppSec to individuals, corporations, universities, government agencies, and other organizations worldwide. Operating as a community of like-minded professionals, OWASP issues software tools and knowledge-based documentation on application security. Everyone is free to participate in OWASP and all of our materials are available under a free and open software license. You'll find everything about OWASP here on or linked from our wiki and current information on our OWASP Blog. OWASP does not endorse or recommend commercial products or services, allowing our community to remain vendor neutral with the collective wisdom of the best minds in software security worldwide. We ask that the community look out for inappropriate uses of the OWASP brand including use of our name, logos, project names, and other trademark issues. There are thousands of active wiki users around the globe who review the changes to the site to help ensure quality. If you're new, you may want to check out our getting started page. As a global group of volunteers with over 45,000 participants, questions or comments should be sent to one of our many mailing lists focused on a topic or directed to the staff using the OWASP Contact Us Form.
Pick an OWASP Project - Find Your Local OWASP ChapterIn the latest move in Google’s attempt to spellbind the world into submission, the Internet search giant yesterday upped the ante in its art offerings. Specifically, it debuted a spiffy new version of Google Arts & Culture, a website and app that promises to give you access to the world’s museums at a click.
The official Google blog teased the relaunch like this (links are their own from the original):
Just as the world’s precious artworks and monuments need a touch-up to look their best, the home we’ve built to host the world’s cultural treasures online needs a lick of paint every now and then. We’re ready to pull off the dust sheets and introduce the new Google Arts & Culture website and app, by the Google Cultural Institute. The app lets you explore anything from cats in art since 200 BCE to the color red in Abstract Expressionism, and everything in between.
The sprawling new initiative is the latest extension of the Google Art Project, which got quite a bit of buzz back in 2011 when it brought virtual versions of 17 museums, plus zoomable high-res versions of a few superstar paintings, into the easy reach of web browsers everywhere. The Google Arts & Culture site first launched this past year with less fanfare.
Google Arts & Culture now boasts “more than a thousand museums across 70 countries,” from big partners like the British Museum (with close to 9,000 works) and LA’s Getty (a hefty 16,881 items), to the National Museum of Mongolia, in Ulaanbataar (with a modest 96 items to view) or the outdoor “Sculpture by the Sea” exhibit in Cottesloe, Australia (with 69 of its advertised 70 exhibits on view).
The whole thing is pretty fun to play around with, if still a bit clunky. It packs almost too many features together with the seeming grand ambition of becoming the one-stop web portal for art aficionados, and feels a bit like a palatial new trophy museum that you slowly realize was built by robots who aren’t totally sure what anything really means. One minute you are staring in awe at some cool virtual attraction, the next you wander into another digital dead end.
At its most basic and useful, though, it is an art search engine. You can parse the world’s art—or at least the world’s art that Google could get its hands on, which is substantial, but far from comprehensive—via keyword, quickly scanning the archive for, as an example, all the works featuring a “kiss” (which could be the iconic Rodin sculpture or a photo of the band). You can also look for specific “Artists” or “Art Movements.”
Interested in images related to the “War on Terror?” Well, that’s one of the categories discoverable via the “Historical Events” search. Be warned, though—for some dubious reason this gallery features a random mix of Time magazine covers and ancient artifacts from Northern Afghanistan from the LACMA collection.
You can also search by “Medium,” allowing you to see Google Arts & Culture has more than 36,000 “Engravings” on offer, but a mere 25 works in “Beeswax”—the exact same number, in fact, of items whose medium is listed as “Skin.”
Searches are organized in tiled rows, and can be sorted in a number of ways: by the vague metric of “Popularity” (it’s not clear what this means); by “Time,” which yields a nifty timeline view; and lastly by “Color,” a feature destined to thrill interior decorators everywhere looking to pillage art history for inspiration.
For the art student cramming for a test, loads of didactic material is available. These range from a really cool slideshow-cum-essay that walks you through the vivid details of Pieter Breugel the Elder’s Tower of Babel, to a rather inexplicable introduction to “Contemporary Art,” which posits that the “tactile ‘information’ of craft media spoke of a direct connection to an endangered humanity,” even as its timeline begins with a 1946 painting by British abstractionist Ben Nicholson. That’s a pretty broad definition of “contemporary.”
There are way, way, way more features to cover. You can, for instance, explore the interiors of hundreds of partner institutions in a museum-themed version of Google Street View. So, if you want to, say, know what it’s like to wander into a slightly distorted virtual version of the gift shop of the Egon Schiele Art Centrum in Český Krumlov, Czech Republic, go nuts.
In its app incarnation, the new initiative also touts (or is an ad for, depending on your POV) integration with Google Cardboard, the web giant’s no-frills, easy-to-use scheme for turning smartphone handsets into VR headsets via a cardboard visor. Google Arts & Culture thereby promises to enable you to “take a virtual tour of the street art scene in Rome; step inside a creation by famous street artist, Insa; or even travel 2,500 years back in time and look around the ancient Greek temple of Zeus.”
Finally, the least developed—but perhaps most ambitious—feature here is the snappily named Art Recognizer, available at only three partnered institutions: London’s Dulwich Picture Gallery, Sydney’s Art Gallery of New South Wales, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. In essence, Art Recognizer promises to let you point your phone at any picture in a museum, at which point it will recognize the work, and call up all the available information and multimedia material related to it.
Not being in London, Sydney, or DC, I’m unable to say exactly how well Art Recognizer does its art recognizing. I did point it at onscreen versions of various works from these collections, and it seemed to do the trick.
In effect, with its new initiative, Google promises to reinvent the museum wall label for the age of Pokémon GO. Interpret that sentence how you will.
Follow artnet News on Facebook:LONDON (Reuters) - Britain pledged 5 million pounds to Zimbabwe on Monday but made clear more reforms were needed before it would start large-scale development aid to the shattered country.
Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown (L) speaks during a news conference with his Zimbabwean counterpart Morgan Tsvangirai at 10 Downing Street in London, June 22, 2009. REUTERS/Lewis Whyld/Pool
Prime Minister Gordon Brown told visiting Zimbabwean counterpart Morgan Tsvangirai there were “great signs of progress” in Zimbabwe, but the power-sharing government still had to meet a number of tests on the road to democracy.
Brown announced 4 million pounds of food aid and 1 million pounds for school textbooks, bringing total British “transitional support” for the Zimbabwean government this year to 60 million pounds.
He held out the prospect of more aid if the government, in which Tsvangirai uneasily shares power with President Robert Mugabe, pressed ahead with economic and political reforms.
“We are prepared to go further in offering more transitional support if the reform programme on the ground gains momentum,” Brown said after the first meeting of British and Zimbabwean leaders at 10 Downing Street in more than 10 years.
Tsvangirai is on the final leg of a tour of Europe and the United States designed to drum up cash from donors, but the trip has yielded few contributions towards the $10 billion (6.1 billion pounds) Zimbabwe says it needs to rebuild the economy.
Most donors, like Britain, are choosing to channel money to Zimbabwe through charities or U.N. agencies rather than give it to a government where Mugabe still wields influence.
Related Coverage Zimbabwe activists can challenge charges - court
U.S. President Barack Obama promised $73 million in new aid for fighting HIV-AIDS and promoting good governance.
Germany pledged 20 million euros (17 million pounds) to a World Bank fund for promoting democracy in Zimbabwe and another 5 million euros for manure and seed. Sweden offered no aid.
Britain’s Africa Minister Mark Malloch-Brown said on Friday it was too early to lift sanctions against Zimbabwe.
REFORMS
Tsvangirai formed a coalition government with Mugabe in February. Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe since independence from Britain in 1980 and has often clashed with London.
Brown said he wanted to see “further rapid steps forward” in Zimbabwe in economic reform — including implementation of International Monetary Fund recommendations and reform of the central bank — and progress on human rights, freedom of the media and the repeal of repressive legislation.
He called for a new constitution within 18 months and elections as soon as possible afterwards, as well as an immediate halt to the seizure of white-owned farms.
Slideshow (4 Images)
“Our support for reform in Zimbabwe does not mean we will turn a blind eye to human rights abuses, corruption and bad governance. We will continue to speak up for those who are intimidated, threatened and exploited,” Brown said.
Tsvangirai said Zimbabwe had embarked on irreversible change, noting inflation had been brought down to about 3 percent. He said he would work hard to ensure the power-sharing government met its objectives.
Tsvangirai told a BBC interviewer that the broadcaster, banned from operating in Zimbabwe, should be able to send reporters there by July.Deer hunters want more access to Victorian wilderness, amid warnings of feral 'crisis point'
Posted
Shooters want more wilderness areas opened up to deer hunting, as conservationists warn the problem caused by the feral animal in Victoria has reached crisis point.
Recreational hunters are making their push for more land as part of the current state parliamentary inquiry into invasive animals on crown land.
They already have access to large swathes of public land across Gippsland, the alpine region and around the Grampians.
However, hunting advocates say they would like access to areas such as the Snowy Rivers National Park, Mount Buffalo National Park, Grampians National Park and will push for more areas in the Alpine and Baw Baw National Parks to be opened up.
"There's a lot of National Park estate that's closed to hunting without any logical reason," said Barry Howlett from hunting group, the Australian Deer Association.
"Anywhere where there's large areas of public land, [with] small visitation and deer it just make sense to allow us in there," he said.
Mr Howlett argued that opening up more public land to hunting would help control deer numbers, which have exploded in recent decades.
"The fact that hunting is not completely addressing the deer issues now doesn't mean that it can't play a really big role in it," he said.
Sambar Deer in Wilsons Prom for first time
Conservationists warn something needs to be done about Victoria's deer problem before it is too late.
Already open for deer hunting: Alpine National Park and Avon Wilderness Park
Baw Baw National Park
Gippsland Lakes Coastal Park
Lake Eildon National Park
Mitchell River National Park
Tara Range Park
Nooramunga Marine and Coastal Park Hunters' wish list: Snowy Rivers National Park
Grampians National Park
Mount Buffalo National Park
More areas of existing parks where hunting is permitted
It comes as Sambar deer — the most destructive species — were detected in Wilsons Promontory National Park for the first time in July.
Sambar deer graze on trees and clear areas of native habitat, and there are fears they could have a huge impact on the Prom's forests.
"They would greatly damage one of Victoria's finest national parks. We should absolutely be worried," said Phil Ingamells, from the Victorian National Parks Association.
It is not known how many deer there are in Victoria, but it is estimated it could be in the hundreds of thousands.
Sorry, this video has expired Video: Feral deer captured causing environmental damage (ABC News)
Government figures show hunters killed 58,000 deer in the state during 2013-14.
Mr Ingamells said expanding recreational hunting to more areas of crown land would not make a dent in the problem.
"[It also] starts to really impact on other visitors to our national parks. People don't really want their campground full of four-wheel drives with bleeding deer strapped to the roofs and things like that," he said.
He believes only proper research, biological controls and professional culls will curb the deer population - and that would take a significant financial investment from the Government.
He said at the very least, current trial partnerships between Parks Victoria and volunteer hunters being run in Wilsons Promontory National Park and Yellingbo Nature Conservation Reserve, had to be expanded to target more areas.
"We're dealing with our natural heritage. It's 500 million years of terrestrial evolution producing 100,000 remarkable native species in Victoria.
"We could be the generation that loses that. It's very frustrating."
Shooters and Fishers deny pressuring government
Conservationists believe the State Government is holding the inquiry to appease the Shooters and Fishers Party, which has two members in the Upper House.
Shooters and Fishers MP Daniel Young is also sitting on the parliamentary committee.
But Jeff Bourman, the other MP for the Shooters and Fishers Party, denied the Government had called the inquiry in exchange for his party's support on key issues.
"It may seem that way, but it's not really," he said.
"It's a case of, I actually think they've given this some thought, and one of the ways of doing this is to have an inquiry."
The party is strongly advocating for more public land to be opened up to hunters, especially for deer hunting.
"Locking these lands away or not allowing recreational hunters is not working. That's been seen by the rise in the deer population the rise in the feral pest population," he said.
Unlike conservationists, Mr Bourman believes recreational hunters alone can solve Victoria's deer problem if more areas are opened up.
"Poor old Parks Victoria is not doing a very good job, but they've had their budget slashed by a large amount, they're doing the best they can," he said.
"So the government's at a T-intersection: it can either spend more money, or it can allow people that want to help, to help, and do it for nothing."
Topics: animal-welfare, environmental-impact, environment, state-parliament, government-and-politics, vicCriminal trials in Japan have more than a 99% conviction rate Prisoners on death row in Japan are being driven towards insanity by harsh conditions, according to human rights group Amnesty International. The group is calling for an immediate moratorium on all further executions and for police interrogation reform. A total of 102 prisoners face execution in Japan. Many of them are elderly and have spent decades in near isolation. International human rights standards prohibit the imposition of the death penalty on the mentally ill. In Japan, where criminal trials have a 99% conviction rate, the death penalty has wide public support. AMNESTY REPORT Hanging By A Thread: Mental Health and the Death Penalty in Japan Most computers will open this document automatically, but you may need to download Adobe Reader Download the reader here But Amnesty's UK director Kate Allen called on the government to immediately halt executions. "Rather than persist with a shameful capital punishment system, the new Japanese government should immediately impose a moratorium on all further executions," she said. Ms Allen called the death-row system a "regime of silence, isolation and sheer non-existence". She said that the Japanese practice of informing prisoners that they would be killed with only a few hours notice was "utterly cruel". Isolation According to the report - which researchers said had been challenging to compile due to the secrecy of the country's justice system - the conditions faced by many death row prisoners are making them mentally ill. JAPANESE EXECUTIONS 102 prisoners currently on death row 15 people executed last year Hakamada Iwao has been on death row for more than 40 years According to Amnesty, some death row prisoners have no visitors for years Death row prisoners, according to Amnesty, are not allowed to speak to other inmates and are held in isolation. Apart from twice or thrice-weekly exercise sessions, they are not even allowed to move around their cells but must remain seated, the group says. As a result, many are now suffering from mental illnesses and are delusional. According to Japan's code of criminal procedure, if a person condemned to death is in a state of insanity, the execution shall be stayed by the justice minister. But, Amnesty says, executions of inmates who exhibit signs of mental illness - caused by the extreme conditions and the sheer length of their detention - continue. Between January 2006 and January 2009, the group says, 32 men were executed - including 17 who were older than 60. Five of this group were in their seventies, making them among the oldest executed prisoners in the world.
Bookmark with: Delicious
Digg
reddit
Facebook
StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable version• Those out of work and claiming unemployment benefits rose by 2,400 in January, against forecasts of a fall.
• Highest number of vacancies since three months to Jan 2009
Wages have fallen to a five-month low, the Office for National Statistics said. Average weekly earnings stood at just 1.8pc in December 2010, down from 2.1pc the month before. Workers were typically paid £456 a week in total in December.
Unemployment also rose by 44,000 in the three months to December 2010 to reach 2.49m, the figures revealed. The claimant count grew unexpectedly by 2,400 between December and January, to reach 1.46m, the ONS said.
The figures come as consumer prices index (CPI) inflation surged to 4pc in January, double the Government's target.
Millions of workers will be hit by the effective pay cuts amid the rising cost of living - its highest level in more than two years.
However, Howard Archer, chief economist at IHS Global Insight, said the slow down in wage growth was "rare good news" for the Bank of England. He said: "This indicates that higher inflation and rising household inflation expectations are so far not feeding through to push up wages."
He added: "The main test is yet to come with many of the pay agreements for 2011 yet to be settled - and future pay developments will play a critical role in determining exactly when and how quickly the Bank of England will raise interest rates. We expect wage growth will remain muted due to workers' weak bargaining position given high and likely to rise unemployment. This is a key factor underpinning our belief that the Bank of England will only raise interest rates gradually even if they act in the near term |
gains 4,600 feet with an easier grade. The Black Cloud Trail is much tougher, a Class 2 climb that gains 5,300 feet and takes more than 10 hours. It's known for some very steep sections and loose rock. Check with the Leadville Ranger District, San Isabel National Forest for current trail information.If anyone knows the thrill of getting rich, it’s gotta be the good folks at Nintendo! They’ve been on a hot streak the past gen with their blue ocean strategy. Time will tell if the Wii U is met with the same success or not.
I’m enjoying NSMB2, but I do have to echo the issues a lot of people have with the game–it does feel pretty “safe” in terms of presentation and (lack of) spectacle, especially compared to recent platformers like Donkey Kong Country Returns and Rayman Origins. On the plus side, the level design is as smart as ever, and the game as a whole is still good fun. Can we at least get some new music next time, though?
Okay, so, big announcement time! Longtime readers of BitF may remember me putting up a teaser photo of a tadpole a couple years back. The truth is, as a sort of side hobby, I’ve been working on a video game!
The game is called Tadpole Treble, and the concept for it actually predates BitF itself quite a bit. Art and music (and video games) are my passions, so I wanted to combine them in a fun way that hasn’t really been done before. I had wondered about sheet music itself, the layout of the notes, the way they flow and fill the five-line staff, and I thought it’d be cool for that layout to actually make for the basis of a game. Then I considered a water creature swimming through an auto-scrolling stage, dodging notes of the song as it played, and the basic game concept was born.
So you essentially play as this newborn tadpole, Baton, who’s trying to find her way home through a number of stages. And there are all sorts of nifty things going on while playing to give the game life–creatures blocking you or just moving around in the background, rhythm-based context-sensitive areas designed to multiply your score if activated, bosses, and so on.
My brother and I have worked on Tadpole Treble on and off for awhile now, with him handling sound effects, level design, and business stuff, while I’ve done the art, music, and general concept/game design stuff. Neither of us knows much about programming, so we’ve hired a Baton Rouge gaming company, Pixel Dash Studios, to help us form a single-stage demo! It should be available from BitF to play on your computer in September!
I’ll be posting updates regarding Tadpole Treble as they become relevant, but for now, if you’d like to read up a little more on it, you can check out this article! Look at my head.
-By MatthewA Mozambique government-backed survey showed a dramatic 48 percent decline in elephant numbers from just over 20,000 to an estimated 10,300, the WCS said in a statement (AFP Photo/Martin Bureau)
Poachers have killed nearly half of Mozambique’s elephants for their ivory in the past five years, the US based Wildlife Conservation Society said Tuesday.
A Mozambique government-backed survey showed a dramatic 48 percent decline in elephant numbers from just over 20,000 to an estimated 10,300, the WCS said in a statement.
“This decline is due to rampant elephant poaching in the country’s most important elephant populations,” the statement said.
Remote northern Mozambique, which includes the Niassa national Reserve, was the hardest hit, accounting for 95 percent of elephant deaths, reducing the population from an estimated 15,400 to an estimated 6,100.
The aerial survey found that in some parts of the country nearly half the elephants seen were already dead.
Across Africa, up to 30,000 elephants are estimated to be killed illegally each year to fuel the ivory trade, mainly to China and other Asian countries.
A total of 470,000 wild elephants remain in Africa, according to a count by the NGO Elephants Without Borders.This is a list of banks in Canada, including chartered banks, credit unions, trusts, and other financial services companies that offer banking services and may be popularly referred to as "banks".
The "Big Five" [ edit ]
Canada's "big five" banks, and a few statistics (2013):
The term "Big Six" is frequently used as well and includes the National Bank of Canada (2013 market cap of $8.9B), though its operations are primarily focused in the provinces of Quebec and New Brunswick.
Banks by legal classification [ edit ]
Banks in Canada are classified by their ownership as domestic banks, subsidiaries of foreign banks, or branches of foreign banks. For a greater explanation of the classifications, see Banking in Canada and Canada Bank Act.
Schedule I banks (domestic banks) [ edit ]
Under the Canada Bank Act, Schedule I are banks that are not a subsidiary of a foreign bank, i.e., domestic banks, even if they have foreign shareholders. There are 30 domestic banks as of September 2016.[2]
On November 10, 2014, Home Capital Group announced that it has applied to charter "Home Trust Bank" under Schedule I.[citation needed]
Schedule II banks (subsidiaries of foreign banks) [ edit ]
As of October 2015, there were 24 of these banks in Canada, including three in liquidation.[2]
Schedule III banks (branches of foreign banks) [ edit ]
Full service [ edit ]
The following banks are not authorized to accept deposits in Canada of less than $150,000. As of August 2016, there were 28 such banks in Canada.[2]
Lending only [ edit ]
The following banks are prohibited from accepting deposits or borrowing money except from financial institutions. There were four such banks in Canada as of August 2016.[2]
Government-owned financial institutions [ edit ]
Credit unions [ edit ]
Canada has a strong co-operative financial services sector, which consists of credit unions (caisses populaires in Quebec and other French speaking regions). At the end of 2001 Canada's credit union sector consisted of 681 credit unions and 914 caisses populaires, with more than 3,600 locations and 4,100 automated teller machines.[18] By 2018, consolidation reduced this number to 250 credits unions and caisses populaires outside Quebec.[19] Canada has the world's highest per capita membership in the credit union movement, with over 10 million members, or about one-third of the Canadian population. While the sector is active in all parts of the country, it is strongest in the western provinces and in Quebec. In Quebec 70 per cent of the population belongs to a caisse populaire, while in Saskatchewan close to 60 per cent belongs to a credit union.
Credit unions outside Quebec [ edit ]
As of second quarter 2018, the 265 credit unions and caisses populaires outside Quebec reported combined assets of $233.47 billion:[20]
Desjardins [ edit ]
Most caisses populaires in Quebec (and some outside the province) are part of a network which operates as the Desjardins Group. Desjardins Group owns and operates a range of subsidiaries, including a securities brokerage, a venture capital firm, and a bank based in Florida.[21]
As of December 31, 2015, Desjardins Group's consolidated assets totalled $248.1 billion CAD.[22]
Defunct and merged banks [ edit ]
The former Bank of New Brunswick Building in Saint John
Former Molson Bank head office, Montreal
Credit agencies [ edit ]
PayNet Inc.
Equifax Canada
TransUnion Canada
Echo Group
See also [ edit ]Figure 01: The illustration above is from “Through the Looking-Glass”. At the top of the hill, the Red Queen begins to run, faster and faster. Alice runs after the Red Queen, but is further perplexed to find that neither one seems to be moving. When they stop running, they are in exactly the same place. Alice remarks on this, to which the Red Queen responds: "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place".
There is every reason to embrace the recent additions of shale oil (from Bakken, Eagle Ford and other plays). These additions will help ease the present tight global oil supply situation and thus slow down the growth in oil prices.
After presenting, discussing and concluding the results from the study presented in this post, the reference to the Red Queen was found to be an apt analogy to describe why technology and/or price cannot overcome the inevitable fact that field size and well productivity declines in most plays, whether in shale or any other plays. Put in a different way: shale plays do not get a pass on the laws of physics or the history of play and basin developments.The potential and technology for extraction (production) of shale/tight oil has been around for several decades.
The reference in the title to the Red Queen from “Through the Looking-Glass” by the English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (perhaps better known as his pseudonym Lewis Carroll) who was also a mathematician and logician, is deliberate to create associations with the Red Queen’s statement "It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place".
In this post I present the results from an in-depth time series analysis from wells producing crude oil (and small volumes of natural gas) from the Bakken - Bakken, Sanish, Three Forks and Bakken/Three Forks Pools - formation in North Dakota. The analysis uses actual production data from the North Dakota Industrial Commission as of July 2012 from what was found to be a representative selection of wells from operating companies and areas.
The Oil Drum staff wishes a Happy New Year to all in our readership community. We are on a brief hiatus during this period, and will be back with our regular publications early in the new year. In the meantime, we present the top ten of best read Oil Drum posts in 2012. The eight in this series is a post by Rune Likvern on shale oil production in the US Bakken basin.
MAJOR FINDINGS FROM THE STUDY
All charts in this post are clickable for a larger version.
Findings from this in-depth study of time series for production from some individual wells:
Presently the estimated breakeven price for the “average” well in the Bakken formation in North Dakota is $80 - $90/Bbl In plain language this means that presently the commercial profitability for new wells is barely positive.
The “average” well now yields around 85 000 Bbls during the first 12 months of production and then experiences a year over year decline of 40% (+/-) 2%
The recent trend for newer “average” wells is one of a perceptible decline in well productivity (lower yields)
As of 2007 and also as of recent months, the total production of shale oil from Bakken, has shown exceptional growth and the (relatively high) specific average productivity (expressed as Bbls/day/well) has been sustained by starting up flow from an accelerating number of new wells
Now and based upon present observed trends for principally well productivity and crude oil futures (WTI), it is challenging to find support for the idea that total production of shale oil from the Bakken formation will move much above present levels of 0.6 - 0.7 Mb/d on an annual basis.
Authoritative research companies (like Bernstein Research) and widely acknowledged specialists/institutions like USGS and SPE have recently and in general arrived at identical conclusions by applying different sets of methodologies and from studying other areas.I am of course in no position to rule out that the required breakeven price in the future could be lowered driven by technological innovations and improvements in well design and operations. However recently there have been a flow of reports that casts a reasonable doubt that this will become a given.
The content for this post was first posted in two parts (with data as of June 2012) on my Norwegian blog; “Fractional Flow” Part 1 and Part 2.
As of July 2012, data from the North Dakota Industrial Commission documented extraction (production) from 4 319 wells in the Bakken formation (which includes Bakken, Sanish, Three Forks and Bakken/Three Forks basins). Total reported production in July 2012 was around 610 000 Bbls/day with a specific average of 141 Bbls/day/well.
The production of shale oil/tight oil (which is not to be confused with oil shale; kerogen) is proclaimed by many to constitute a “revolution” and/or “game changer” for the global supplies of crude oil. Shale oil has unquestionably added valuable supplies during a period of tight global crude oil supplies.
SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The scope of the study incorporated companies/areas that had a specific average production (Bbls/day/well) above the average for the Bakken formation, see also figure 06. Further the study concentrated on newer wells where there were reported starts of production as from January 2010 and later. This was also to make sure that effects from those newer wells with “state of the art” technologies (technological innovations/improvements like horizontal wells also with laterals, multistaged hydraulic fracking, to name a few) were incorporated. This was done to document recent trends. Normally it takes somewhere between 5 to 6 months from start of drilling of a well until it starts flowing. Then add time for planning and approvals.
Figure 03 could also create the illusion that growth in shale oil production from the Bakken is still continuing at a rapid pace.However if the time series of actual production data are studied in further detail and are presented in an appropriate manner it becomes easier to document and spot the true underlying trend. From figure 03 it may also be seen that the collapse of the oil price during the fall of 2008 led to a slowdown of activities and lower total production. As illustrated in figure 03 it was primarily the growth in the oil price together with technological innovations in recent years that caused production of shale oil to make economic sense.
Figure 04 shows that the specific average production (Bbls/day/well) had strong growth as from 2006 to 2008 and has since been sustained at around 140 Bbls/day/well. Start up of new wells shows an accelerating trend as from 2006. It is this accelerating start up of new wells that have resulted in growth in total production. Extraction/production of oil and gas from shale formations has its own distinct physics governed by geology and comprised of steep decline rates and challenging dynamics that define the rules to create overall growth, sustain a plateau and/or declines.
There are also considerable variations in the productivity between plays within the same play and normally the areas with the best production potential (sweetest spots) become developed first (harvesting the lowest hanging fruit first etc.). The development of shale plays thus follows exactly the same pattern as developments of other petroleum basins.
THE WELLS, AREAS AND COMPANIES COVERED BY THE STUDY
What follows is a presentation of some selected wells from the study and the wells from the areas/companies covered by the study.
The chart above illustrates that there is a huge spread in well productivity, cumulative and decline rates amongst individual wells. The well Sorenson 29-32 2-H (blue line) got attention from, amongst others, the Oil&Gas Financial Journal back in April 2011. Normally it is the exceptionally good wells that get the attention of media and its readers.
Figure 06 documents that the wells from the areas/companies that were subject to the in depth time series studies had productivity that was above the average for all reported wells in the Bakken play in North Dakota. Notice also the pronounced decline of more than 40% over 2 years in the average well productivity for the wells in Sanish.
The in-depth time series study was comprised of 478 wells (around 11%) of the 4 319 wells reporting production from the Bakken. These wells represent around 13% of the total production as of July 2012. The wells with reported start of production as of January 2010 and later and that had reported production for 12 months or more were subject to additional analysis which includes the wells with reported start of flow as of August 2011. In the period January 2010 and through August 2011 there was reported start of flow from a net addition of 1 417 wells of which 202 (or more than 14%) were subject to extensive statistical analysis. The statistical analysis formed the basis to define what is presently considered a pro forma well (or “average” well) for Bakken. The “average” (pro forma) well should not be expected to be static as it will continually change with time and presently the trend is one of declining productivity.
For this “average” (pro forma) well an economic analysis was performed which is presented further down.
Figure 07 is a suitable illustration of what is to be expected in developments of shale formations (or areas within shale formations) for both oil and natural gas. From the figure it should also be possible to perceive the development of well productivity with time.
The wells normally have a high production at start up that rapidly enters into steep declines.
To facilitate growth in total production an accelerating number of wells needs to be brought into production.
To sustain a plateau requires a continual addition of a high number of producing wells.
Note in figure 07 how total production declined between March 2011 and as of October 2011 while the reported number of total wells with production saw little change.
Figure 07 also shows how well productivity (note the arrows and height of columns) has shown a general decline for newer wells.
The chart in figure 08 also illustrates how an accelerating number of additional producing wells are needed to create growth in total production. Brigham was acquired by Statoil December 1st 2011 for a price of US$4.4 Billion.
The chart may also serve as an illustration to what in some circles presently is referred to as “the Red Queen” effect. It is not a given that total production will grow by adding new producing wells.
The chart above also illustrates that growth in total production requires accelerating additions of producing wells. The Marathon wells in the area above have recently seen some improvements in well productivity.
The purpose of including the chart above was to give a better feel of annual production declines from wells within an area.
THE STATISTICAL ANALYSIS
What follows are the results from the statistical analysis of the wells that were subject to the in depth time series analysis. If the trend described by the statistical analysis persists and the wells analyzed are representative for Bakken it should be expected that total production from the Bakken formation is about to experience what in some circles is referred to as “the Red Queen” effect.
In plain language this means that a high number of new wells needs to be brought to production to sustain total production.
The figure shows that there is a huge spread in the total production for the first 12 months amongst the wells. It may be challenging to perceive any trends for well productivity with time from the scatter chart, but as of now it appears as the spread in productivity has narrowed with time.
Figure 13 shows a worrying development for newer wells in the Bakken formation. Productivity as expressed by total first 12 month production has shown steep declines for newer wells. The productivity was growing until the summer of 2010 where it reached a high. Since the summer of 2010 to the summer of 2011 average first year productivity for newer wells in Bakken declined around 25%!
On a long enough timeline, the highs in well productivities for the Sanish area and Statoil/Brigham will melt into a point. To repeat, the wells for the companies/areas subject to these in-depth studies had all a specific well productivity (as expressed by Bbls/day/well) that was above the average for the Bakken formation, see also figure 06. The Sanish area in the Bakken formation is/was considered being one of the best and during a year (from the summer of 2010 to the summer of 2011) the well productivity (as described by total reported production during the 12 first months) declined about 40%. For Statoil/Brigham the well productivity declined about 10% in one year.
Do the above create associations to the law of diminishing returns?
THE ECONOMICS FOR THE PRESENT PRO FORMA (“AVERAGE”) WELL IN BAKKEN
What follows is a little about the economics for what the analyzed data presently describes as the pro forma (“average”) well in the Bakken formation.
The chart shows production profiles for pro forma (“average”) wells with respectively 70 000 (red lines), 85 000 (black lines) and 100 000 Bbls (blue lines) for the first operational year, and how these are forecast to develop with time.
Presently the data documents that the production trend for the “average” well is in slight decline.
NOTE: The “average” well also produces 0.5 - 1.0 Mcf/Bbl with associated natural gas. The natural gas may be flared or sold if there is available infrastructure. Presently the natural gas price in USA (Henry Hub) is around $3/Mcf. In other words the potential contribution from natural gas is marginal and well within the uncertainties for the estimates.
The profitability analysis shows that the “average” well for Bakken now requires $80 - $90/Bbl to make commercial sense. A requirement for a higher rate of return (than the 7% used here, which is moderate) will raise the commercial threshold. If the trend with declining well productivity persists (all other things remaining equal) the threshold for profitability will move higher. During the planning of drilling campaigns several assumptions are made with regard to well productivity (performance), oil price, financing and an associated package of risk assessments. If these evaluations show high uncertainties (as in high risk) and a potential for no or at best uncertain profitability, the wells under consideration are most likely to not be drilled. The exception will be wells that the licensee is contractually obligated to drill within a specified deadline to maintain the rights for mineral extraction, so-called “drill it or lose it!”
Normally before wells within shale areas are put into production, it is close to impossible to issue any guarantees that it will make commercial sense. After six months or more of production, data will be available that may support the profitability expectations. For a well in a conventional reservoir information about whether it is worth completing will be available at the end of drilling. For wells in shale plays (both oil and natural gas) the companies (operators) commit themselves to produce these long before they know if the wells make commercial sense. If production from a completed well after some time shows that it will underperform (that is yield less than expected) then the oil company/operator will continue production from it as long it generates a positive cash flow. As with regard to total well costs given by oil companies/operators there are presently some spread in these. These spreads should be considered to be real and rooted in geological particulars like depth to and thickness of the organic zones, applied technologies, laterals, number of hydraulic fracking stages, topography, costs for hook up for processing, storage and transport to name a few.
Production of crude oil and natural gas from shale is also a lot about growing shareholder value. As long as shareholders do not suffer any losses it does not matter if production from shales makes little or no commercial sense. These dynamics led to the boom in drilling for shale gas. The recent collapse of natural gas prices in North America has resulted in huge balance sheet impairments for several oil and gas companies.
In reality, it was the growth in the oil price to an apparent structurally higher level that secured commercial support for crude oil production from shales. In that respect it was the oil price that was the true game changer and unleashed the “shale/tight oil revolution”. There is a saying that goes like; “Do not listen to what they say. Look at what they are doing!”. This may as well go for the Bakken formation.
The oil service giant Baker Hughes recently expressed concerns about slowing activity levels in shale plays if oil prices moved below $80/Bbl. Further the oil companies Marathon and Occidental recently cut back on their activities in the Bakken formation. Oil and gas companies still care about the colors of the numbers at the bottom line for their projects.
Indicators to follow that may be a harbinger of emerging developments in activity levels in shale plays:
Number of drilling rigs, uncertain as there has been improvements to drilling.
Net added number of wells with reported start of production.
Changes to total reported production.
SOME RECENT REPORTS
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) recently published (recently as in a few days ago) the report: “Variability of Distributions of Well-Scale Estimated Ultimate Recovery for Continuous (Unconventional) Oil and Gas Resources in the United States”. USGS has revised their estimates for many U.S. shale plays (oil and natural gas) and their recent estimates ought to have a sobering effect.
For production (extraction) of shale oil in the Eagle Ford formation in Texas the study:”Eagle Ford Shale - An Early Look at Ultimate Recovery” (SPE 158207; SPE, Society for Petroleum Engineers) documented a trend of declining well productivity.
ROCKMAN is an experienced geologist and as close you get to an inexorable fountainhead for oil and gas field experiences on The Oil Drum.
ROCKMAN applied the same methodology as I did for Bakken on data from Texas Rail Road Commission (TRCC) for shale/tight oil in Eagle Ford and documented the same trend.
Does it appear as if shale oil production from Bakken is headed for a run with “the Red Queen”?Robin van Persie has indicated that he has no intention of signing his proposed new contract at Arsenal in the immediate future as he waits to see which of his suitors will make official offers for him.
Manchester City and Juventus are prominent among that group and sources at each club say their information is that Van Persie will not agree to fresh terms at the Emirates Stadium under any circumstances, increasing the likelihood of his departure this summer.
The striker opened negotiations with the Arsenal manager, Arsène Wenger, and the club's chief executive, Ivan Gazidis, in London on Wednesday and it was never likely that the meeting would end with Van Persie's signature on the new deal, which would pay him £130,000 a week, plus a £5m re-signing bonus. Van Persie's contract has a little over 12 months to run.
Arsenal maintain there is plenty of time for Van Persie to reflect and commit his remaining peak years to them and they also have the option of holding him for one final season, even if that policy would risk them losing a hugely saleable asset for nothing as a free agent next summer.
Van Persie travelled to the Netherlands on Thursday to join his national team for their Euro 2012 preparations and developments are not expected until after the finals in Poland and Ukraine, although Wenger will remain in contact with his captain and, as such, talks will be ongoing.
Van Persie, the Footballer of the Year, who is central to Arsenal's plans for the future, would favour a move to Barcelona while Real Madrid may also appeal. It is unclear how he would feel about a move to Manchester City, who are prepared to pay him £250,000 a week.
Patrick Vieira, City's football development executive, confirmed his club's interest in Van Persie, but expects the Dutchman to have plenty of suitors given the uncertainty surrounding his contract.
"I don't think it will only be City who would like these kind of players," he said. "I don't think you have so many good talents like Van Persie who have just one year left on his contract. There will be a lot of teams who will want a player like Van Persie."
If Van Persie does decide to leave, Vieira believes that it would be a huge setback for Arsenal and could even convince more star players that their futures lie elsewhere, especially after Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri left to join Barcelona and City respectively last summer.
"It will be as difficult as when they lost Fabregas or Nasri," said Vieira. "Then you knew that Robin was behind. If they lose Robin, who is behind? Of course it is going to be difficult to keep or to convince Robin.
"It was a shock for them to lose Nasri and Fabregas and if they lose Van Persie, it will be a drama. If Robin decides to leave, that means maybe next year it will be Walcott and the next year maybe it will be Wilshere. It will be difficult for Arsenal to keep all their top players. But if they keep Robin, they will send out a positive message to all the clubs around them."
With that in mind, Vieira, a former Arsenal captain, is surprised that his old club have not already resolved Van Persie's future. Last summer, Arsenal's plans in the transfer market were disrupted by holding on to Fabregas and Nasri for as long as possible, which played a major part in their shambolic start to the season.
"I think that is something they should have closed a long time ago but Arsenal don't need me to tell them that," Vieira added. "It is really difficult to find a player with the quality of Van Persie with one year left on his contract, so it is difficult to understand."
Vieira has no such worries at City, who won their first league title since 1968 last Sunday, and says that all anyone is concerned with at Eastlands is building on their success this season. As a player at Arsenal, Vieira won the title three times, but he was never able to retain it – in the Premier League era, the only side other than Manchester United to win back-to-back titles are José Mourinho's Chelsea in 2005 and 2006.
"I think it is really important for a team when you win the league back to back," said Vieira. "With Arsenal we never did that. If you want to dominate, it is really important to win the league back to back and improving our run in the Champions League is really important."Eddie DeBartolo Jr. and Charles Haley, two 49ers figures with enough Super Bowl rings to fill a hand, have been included among the 15 modern-era finalists for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
DeBartolo, whose five Super Bowl titles are the most by an individual owner in NFL history, is a finalist for the second straight year. In 2012, DeBartolo didn’t make the cut from 15 to 10 finalists. Under DeBartolo’s 23-year ownership, the 49ers won 13 division titles and had 16 straight 10-win seasons.
Haley, a defensive end, is a four-time finalist who was among the final 10 last year. The only player to earn five Super Bowl rings, Haley played 106 of his 169 career games in San Francisco, was a five-time Pro Bowler, a two-time All-Pro and played in seven NFC Championship games during an eight-season span (1988-95). His mid-career trade to the Cowboys helped swing the NFC’s balance of power. Dallas went on to win three Super Bowls in four years with Haley collecting 33 sacks in that span.
Two cup-of-coffee 49ers, guard Larry Allen (1996-97) and defensive end/outside linebacker Kevin Greene (1997), are among the finalists. Running back Roger Craig, one of 27 semifinalists, is not among the final 15.
The 2013 Hall of Fame Class will be selected on Feb. 2 in New Orleans. No more than five modern-day finalists can earn induction. The class could have a maximum of seven inductees if senior nominees Curley Culp and Dave Robinson are enshrined.
** The Pro Football Hall of Fame Selection Committee’s 17 finalists with their positions, teams, and years active:
· Larry Allen – Guard/Tackle – 1994-2005 Dallas Cowboys; 2006-07 San Francisco 49ers
· Jerome Bettis – Running Back – 1993-95 Los Angeles/St. Louis Rams; 1996-2005 Pittsburgh Steelers
· Tim Brown – Wide Receiver/Kick Returner/Punt Returner – 1988-2003 Los Angeles/Oakland Raiders; 2004 Tampa Bay Buccaneers
· Cris Carter – Wide Receiver – 1987-89 Philadelphia Eagles; 1990-2001 Minnesota Vikings; 2002 Miami Dolphins
· Curley Culp* – 1968-1974 Kansas City Chiefs; 1974-1980 Houston Oilers; 1980-81 Detroit Lions
· Edward DeBartolo, Jr. – Owner – 1977-2000 San Francisco 49ers
· Kevin Greene – Linebacker/Defensive End – 1985-1992 Los Angeles Rams; 1993-95 Pittsburgh Steelers; 1996, 1998-99 Carolina Panthers; 1997 San Francisco 49ers
· Charles Haley – Defensive End/Linebacker – 1986-1991, 1999 San Francisco 49ers; 1992-96 Dallas Cowboys
· Art Modell – Owner – 1961-1995 Cleveland Browns; 1996-2011 Baltimore Ravens
· Jonathan Ogden – Tackle – 1996-2007 Baltimore Ravens
· Bill Parcells – Coach – 1983-1990 New York Giants; 1993-96 New England Patriots; 1997-99 New York Jets; 2003-06 Dallas Cowboys
· Andre Reed – Wide Receiver – 1985-1999 Buffalo Bills; 2000 Washington Redskins
· Dave Robinson* – 1963-1972 Green Bay Packers; 1973-74 Washington Redskins
· Warren Sapp – Defensive Tackle – 1995-2003 Tampa Bay Buccaneers; 2004-07 Oakland Raiders
· Will Shields – Guard – 1993-2006 Kansas City Chiefs
· Michael Strahan – Defensive End – 1993-2007 New York Giants
· Aeneas Williams – Cornerback/Safety – 1991-2000 Phoenix/Arizona Cardinals; 2001-04 St. Louis Rams
* senior nomineesIf you have $10,000, forget the burgers and put your money down on a license to operate a Chick-Fil-A restaurant. On top of the low franchise fee, there's no threshold for net worth or liquid assets. But get in line, and be prepared to toe the line.
Requirements for a Chick-Fil-A Franchise
Chick-Fil-A gives only about 70 to 80 of the 20,000 applicants per year the right to operate a franchise, and along with this right comes to some very strict stipulations:
Your store will be closed on Sunday to give employees a day off to rest or worship, although you might have some discretion to allow work on Sundays when it comes to charitable activities.
You will not be allowed to select your location or to open multiple locations.
You will not own the property upon which the store is located, and you cannot sell it or pass it on to your heirs. If you want a business you can sell someday as part of an exit strategy, Chick-Fil-A is not for you.
You will not own or receive any equity in your business.
The franchisor will provide you with all your equipment, renting everything to you for 15 percent of your unit's sales.
You will also have to surrender a whopping 50 percent of your monthly net profits (pre-tax) to the franchisor. In comparison, other franchise brands charge from 5 to 10 percent of gross sales. That's a huge difference that may not be worth it for you.
It's not required that all operators be Christian, but in addition to closing the restaurant on Sundays, you must be willing to participate in group prayers during training and management meetings and publicly espouse Christian values.
Franchise Acceptance Process
Franchise investment information is conspicuously missing from the company’s website as well as the internet, but good credit with a proven business track record might get you considered for a franchise. Founder Cathy Truett describes typical Chick-Fil-A operators as responsible "family men" with track records of solid decision-making, and says, "We're seeking people with character rather than experience."
Should your initial application pass muster, Chick-Fil-A will interview you and your business partners as well as your family members and friends. If you're looking for a low-cost franchise and are low on cash, maybe Chick-Fil-A is the way to go. Though you might feel more like a Chick-Fil-A employee than a franchisee, you are probably only risking the $10,000 franchise fee.
Perhaps because franchisees who make it through the selection gauntlet tend to be like-minded, the franchisee turnover rate initiated by franchisees is very low with a 5 percent turnover, and many remain franchisees for life.
Potential Risks for Franchisees
In today's climate of concern about joint-employer issues, some investors might be cautious about Chick-Fil-A, whose level of control over franchisees has been challenged by several states, alleging that Chick-Fil-A franchisees are actually employees. Thus far Chick-Fil-A has prevailed, though should this change in the future, the franchisor would become subject to occupational rules and federal employment discrimination laws that don't apply to independent contractors. Chick-Fil-A has repeatedly been sued for employment discrimination, sometimes on religious grounds and sometimes based on gender in cases involving pregnant women.ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. -- Maybe the Buffalo Bills are finally catching a break.
After an offseason deflated by injuries to star receiver Sammy Watkins and top draft choices Shaq Lawson and Reggie Ragland, good luck finally found the Bills while running back LeSean McCoy laid on the turf -- apparently hurt -- during the second quarter of Sunday's 45-16 win over the San Francisco 49ers.
Bills RB LeSean McCoy has 470 yards rushing in his past four games. Brett Carlsen/Getty Images
Fortunately for the Bills -- and that's a rare phrase -- McCoy dodged injury on the play, returning to the game and avoiding catastrophe in Buffalo. With the blowout win, the Bills have now won four consecutive games for the first time since 2008. A victory next week in Miami would mean first place in the AFC East could be on the line Oct. 30 when the Bills host the New England Patriots.
It might be full steam ahead for the Bills, but their win Sunday didn't come without a scare. After McCoy caught a 2-yard pass from quarterback Tyrod Taylor in the second quarter and took a hard hit from 49ers linebacker Nick Bellore, the red-hot running back immediately grabbed his right knee. Some of his teammates were kneeling around him, |
harder for Greece to meet its debt targets. One official estimated that Greece’s debt-to-GDP ratio may only fall to 140 percent by 2020 given the latest figures, way above the targeted 120 percent.
For now, the central aim of euro zone finance ministers remains to push ahead with the second package as agreed last October, which would mean signing off on PSI in the coming week, possibly at a Eurogroup meeting set for Monday.Savalia savaglia, commonly known as gold coral, is a species of colonial false black coral in the family Parazoanthidae. It is native to the northeastern Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea where it often grows in association with a gorgonian. It is extremely long-lived, with a lifespan of 2,700 years, and develops into a large tree-like colony.
Description [ edit ]
Savalia savaglia forms a large, tree-like colony. The polyps secrete a horny brown or black skeleton from which they project. They are yellow and about 3 cm (1.2 in) tall. Each polyp has an oral disc at the top surrounded by about thirty tentacles. These are arranged in two whorls and are not pinnate, making it easy to recognise that this species is a zoanthid rather than an octocoral or a member of another order of Hexacorallia.[2]
Distribution [ edit ]
Savalia savaglia is found in the western Mediterranean Sea between the Straits of Gibraltar and Sardinia. It is also found in the Atlantic Ocean, its range including the Canary Islands, Madeira, and the Atlantic coasts of Spain and Portugal. The species is uncommon throughout most of its range, though rather more common in the Gulf of Corinth and the Sea of Marmara. Its depth range is usually between 10 and 120 m (33 and 394 ft).[2] Research has shown that its most suitable habitat is a rough sea floor with steeply sloping rocks which are slanting northeastward, at a depth in the range of 34 to 77 m (112 to 253 ft).[3]
Ecology [ edit ]
A colony of Savalia savaglia often starts by colonising the surface of a gorgonian such as Paramuricea clavata or Eunicella singularis. In time it engulfs these gorgonians and produces its own rigid skeleton, making it self-supporting. It can grow to a height of 2 metres (6 feet) with a trunk diameter of 14 cm (5.5 in). The skeleton is rich in histidine and contains the unusual ecdysterone, ajugasterone-C. The growth rate of the colony is slow and carbon-14 dating techniques have given an age of 2,700 years, giving this zoanthid one of the longest lifespans of any organism on Earth.[4] Because of its longevity and its large, rigid three-dimensional skeleton, it is considered to be a habitat modifier, reducing current velocity, stabilising sedimentation and increasing local deposition of fine particles. It also promotes biodiversity on the seabed.[4]
The polyps of S. savaglia feed by capturing plankton and other particles from the water, and can also absorb dissolved nutrients.[2]
Colonies of S. savaglia are either male or female. At a study site in the northwestern Mediterranean at 67 metres (220 ft), there were found to be more female colonies than male. Spawning took place in December when the seawater started to cool.[5] This zoanthid can also reproduce asexually.[2]
References [ edit ]AMMAN/BEIRUT (Reuters) - U.S.-backed Syrian rebels were pushed back from the outskirts of an Islamic State-held town on the border with Iraq and a nearby air base on Wednesday after the jihadists mounted a counter- attack, two rebel sources said.
Civilians inspect a burnt car at a site hit by an airstrike in the rebel-controlled city of Idlib, Syria June 29, 2016. REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah
The New Syria Army rebel group had launched an operation on Tuesday aimed at capturing the town of Al-Bukamal from Islamic State.
One rebel source said Islamic State fighters had encircled the rebels in a surprise ambush. They had suffered heavy casualties and weapons had been seized by the jihadists, the source said.
“The news is not good. I can say our troops were trapped and suffered many casualties and several fighters were captured and even weapons were taken,” he said.
A spokesman of the New Syria Army, Muzahem al Saloum, confirmed the group’s fighters had retreated. “We have withdrawn to the outlying desert and the first stage of the campaign has ended,” Saloum told Reuters.
Despite the retreat, Saloum said the fighters had at least succeeded in evicting Islamic State from large swathes of desert territory around the town.
Islamic State affiliated Amaq news agency had earlier said it had killed 40 rebel fighters and captured 15 more in a counter-attack at the Hamadan air base north west of the city.
The operation aiming to capture Al-Bukamal was meant to add to pressure on Islamic State as it faces a separate, U.S.-backed offensive in northern Syria aimed at driving it away from the Turkish border.
The New Syria Army was formed some 18 months ago from insurgents driven from eastern Syria at the height of Islamic State’s rapid expansion in 2014. Rebel sources say it has been trained with U.S. support.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the group’s offensive against Islamic State was being mounted with the backing of Western special forces and U.S.-led air strikes.
Islamic State’s capture in 2014 of Al-Bukamal, just a few kilometres (miles) from the Iraqi frontier, effectively erased the border between Syria and Iraq. Losing it would be a huge symbolic and strategic blow to the cross-border “caliphate” led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
The U.S.-led campaign against Islamic State has moved up a gear this month, with an alliance of militias including the Kurdish YPG launching a major offensive against the militant group in the city of Manbij in northern Syria. In Iraq, the government this week declared victory over Islamic State in Falluja.
Syrian rebel sources say the rebel force has received military training in U.S.-run camps in Jordan, but most of their training was now being conducted in a main base at al-Tanf, a Syrian town southwest of Al-Bukamal at the border with Iraq.
The New Syria Army’s base in al-Tanf was hit twice earlier this month by Russian air strikes, even after the U.S. military used emergency channels to ask Moscow to stop after the first strike, U.S. officials say.PWTorch has learned that FloSports has filed a lawsuit against WWN, which is the parent company of EVOLVE, FIP, Style Battle, Shine, and ACW. The lawsuit was filed on Sept. 15 in Travis County, Texas. PWTorch has obtained a copy of the lawsuit, which states that WWN misrepresented financial data from the events it was putting on in terms of iPPV and VOD buys. As a result of the misrepresentation of data, FloSlam claims they were induced into paying WWN hundreds of thousands of dollars.
You can view a PDF of the lawsuit here: D-1-GN-17-005152 PETITION
FloSports contends in the lawsuit filed that when they asked WWN for spreadsheets to back up their claims on their iPPV and VOD buyrates, that they were told that the data was lost. WWN eventually sent FloSlam the data requested, but FloSlam contends in the lawsuit that was filed that subscribers were listed more than once and DVD purchasers were included, which should not have been factored in with iPPV and VOD purchases.
In the lawsuit filed in Travis County, Tex., Floslam is seeking damages of 1 million dollars from WWN. The causes of action are listed as breach of contract and negligent misrepresentation.
PWTorch reached out to FloSports SVP and General Counsel Paul Hurdlow prior to obtaining a copy of the lawsuit. Hurdlow said that FloSports’s position would be made clear in the lawsuit. Hudlow did tell PWTorch that the hope from FloSports perspective is that lawyers from both sides can continue to work together and reach an agreement out of court. PWTorch tried to follow up with Hurdlow again and was referred to FloSport’s PR agency for further comment
WWN owner Sal Hamaoui was contacted by PWTorch for comment on the lawsuit, but he had no comment at the time and told PWTorch to contact his lawyer, Sam Heller for further comment on FloSlam’s lawsuit against WWN. At this time, Heller does not have an official statement on behalf of WWN, but this story will be updated once an official statement is made.
PWTorch reached out to multiple WWN sources for comment on the story. One source noted that WWN says the lawsuit is seen as a scare tactic from FloSports to get out of a legally binding contract. The source noted that WWN is planning on counter suing on multiple accounts. Another source told PWTorch that WWN is currently in negotiations to end their current agreement with FloSports early.
Radican’s Analysis: It’s going to be interesting to see how this lawsuit plays out over the next several months. It will definitely be an awkward weekend when FloSlam and WWN personel come together for the EVOLVE iPPVs this weekend. I can see why FloSports would be upset if their subscriptions numbers didn’t correlate with the numbers WWN gave them for their VODs and iPPVs before they entered into an agreement, but in my mind it’s not a perfect comparison when you compare one live buy to one FloSlam subscription.
FloSlam hasn’t done a good job of promoting EVOLVE or any of their other featured indies since Jeremy Botter was fired late last year. Both sides haven’t seemed happy with their arrangement for a long time, but this lawsuit is a surprise.
FloSports’s seemed to want to settle this matter out of court and continue to work together based on my conversation with Hurdlow on the phone earlier today. On the other hand at this point, WWN sources seemed more contentious today and are planning on counter suing FloSports and are currently working on reaching an agreement to get out of their long-term deal with FloSlam.
There’s a lot more to this story that hasn’t come out yet. EVOLVE was a hot brand when they signed with FloSports, but since that time, it has become clear that the relationship between WWN and WWE has cooled off, as WWE no longer promotes them on social media or their website. Other factors have played into EVOLVE cooling off as well, but promotions like Progress and ICW are clearly benefiting from WWE at this time via talent sharing and promotional benefits as well. This story will be updated as it develops.Many Costa Ricans and their most fervent fans have been sitting in the eye of a storm for the past few weeks, struck dumb by amazement, watching wide-eyed as accolades all over the world for “the little team that could” have whirled around us in dizzying splendor. But on Saturday, as Costa Rica was eliminated, words returned to me. Here’s why this matters so much, what I want to tell my baby daughter someday about everything she’s seen and not understood these past few weeks:
I don’t know what it’s like not to be big. I’m from the United States, a big country in every way – size, population, loudness, impact on the world for better and for worse. I’m also 5’10”, a giant in Costa Rica, hulking and lurching my way through San José. Years ago, a man behind me in line for an ATM said to no one in particular, “Jueeeeeeputa, qué gringa más grande.” When we took our group photo at the Office of the President, I was asked to bend down at the knees in the second row so I would fit in the shot. I have, not a bird’s-eye, but a tops-of-other-people’s-heads view of many rooms I enter.
On the other hand, it looks like you, my Tica daughter, might be teeny tiny. You are small for your age, and as you run around at top speed, saying “Hi!” and “¡Gracias!” to everyone, I’m often asked by confused strangers, “How old is that baby?” It’s odd for me, the one who’s always asked to get things off the high shelves, to think of having a petite daughter. You’re small in another way, too: You are from a country of fewer than 5 million people, a country without an army, a country known in part for its love of diminutives. Even though you’re half Gringa, you will always have been born in a tiny nation at the waist of the Americas, and that will always be a part of your worldview. (Thank goodness.)
“Grande” is one of the first words a Spanish student learns, but even a simple word like this has layers of meaning. It means big, of course, but also great. It means grown up: What do you want to be cuando seas grande, when you’re big? It can also mean old, as a little white-haired lady once explained to me after she referred to herself as “una señora bien grande” and smiled at my evident confusion.
Many Costa Ricans, lost for words as La Sele left low expectations in the dust again and again during this World Cup, turned to one word: “Grande.” Grande Keylor Navas, the impossibly valiant goalie. Grande Bryan, Joel, Yeltsin. Grandes todos, they said. Grande La Sele. Grande mi país. This Sele has shown us – Costa Ricans, and all of us – what it means for a little team from a little country to be big, to be great, to be grown up, to be fearless, to be prepared, to prove itself against all odds. It’s been breathtaking. It’s a lesson I want you, tiny one, to take to heart.
La Sele has also shown us how to be small again. Your father is grande, grown up, with all the cynicism that implies. He watches La Sele as any real sports fan watches his team: as if he is singlehandedly paying their salaries out of his own pocket. Even as this World Cup unfolded, he was still quick to criticize or sigh heavily, all a part of his attempt to distract himself from the sheer anxiety of unexpected hope. But as the games went on, I watched him lose his ability to doubt. I watched him turn into a 6-year-old boy before my eyes. He couldn’t help it. He was gobsmacked by joy. Only sports can do this to a person – or at least, only sports can do this to an entire nation at once. Only sports can fill a country with childlike pleasure in this particular way. (After Costa Rica’s elimination Saturday, instead of crying or wallowing, people took to the streets with just as much pride as before to celebrate how far they had come. La Sele will not come home with the Cup, but they’re the only team in the world that gets to come home to a country full of Costa Ricans.)
That’s why I want you to remember your first World Cup. That’s why I’ll cut out clippings and carefully fold up newspaper covers, store the little flag you waved after Saturday’s game as we walked around our neighborhood, save the scorecard on which your dad painstakingly noted the result of every game and proudly wrote “Costa Rica” in its quarterfinal bracket. That’s why we’ll tell you, like old-timers, about Bryan and Keylor and Pinto, who vanquished the Group of Death. They showed small people how to be big. They showed big people how to be small. They reminded everyone who was paying attention that anything can happen, that a football field is a blank canvas, that little can be mighty, that old can be young, that it’s always worthwhile to believe. That life is beautiful.
Katherine Stanley Obando is The Tico Times’ arts and entertainment editor. She also is a freelance writer, translator, former teacher, and academic director of the Costa Rica Multilingüe Foundation and JumpStart Costa Rica. She lives in San José. This piece was originally published in her blog, “The Dictionary of You,” where she writes about Costa Rican language and culture, and raising a child abroad.Not Big Enough: Finger Plates
It’s hard to manage nomming on h’or dourves if you’re double fisting cocktails at a fancy party. I mean, not that I would know. I’m not even invited to regular parties. I’m sure as hell not welcome at a black tie event — I only wear sweat pants and tube tops! For all you classy people with your fancy parties, there’s Finger Plates. They fit like a ring and are meant for finger foods. Yeah, you know what? These just reminded me exactly why I don’t even WANNA go to some party where all there is to eat is like snail butts and fish lips or whatever. If I’m gonna go out somewhere, I expect to be able to gorge on insanely large portions of pizza and beer without judgment. Which is exactly why I choose to stay home!
Via: www.thisiswhyimbroke.comIf your government gave you enough money every month to cover your bills, would you stay home and watch Orange is the New Black all day, or go out into the world and do meaningful things? This is the question behind a new social experiment in The Netherlands. Utrecht authorities are teaming up with the University College Utrecht to give people living on welfare a basic income. For nothing. Free money, no questions asked. They will then track recipients to determine whether a welfare system with no rules results in a happier, more productive society.
“Basic income is a universal, unconditional form of payment to individuals, which covers their living costs,” the Independent reports. “The concept is to allow people to choose to work more flexible hours in a less regimented society, allowing more time for care, volunteering and study.”
In theory, if our living expenses are covered and we have no financial worries, we would be free to do the things we always dreamed of, such as save the bees, provide shelter for the homeless, or eliminate food waste. But would we in practice? Or would we take the free meal ticket with an undisturbed conscience and play games all day long?
Related: Dutch company harvests Wi-Fi and electricity from living plants
Victor Everhardt, Alderman for Work and Income, told DeStad Utrecht, “One group will have compensation and consideration for an allowance, another group with a basic income without rules and of course a control group which adhere to the current rules.”
He adds that it is first necessary to determine whether providing basic income even works before entering into any kind of debate about whether or not that is the most principled approach. This is the purpose of this study. And if it does work, the city hopes other municipalities, such as Nijmegen, Wageningen, Tilburg and Groningen, will follow suit.
What would you do?
Via The Independent
Images via Shutterstock (1,2)WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Reserve is considering a proposal from life insurers that could delay the implementation of a costly nationwide capital framework for the $1 trillion industry, according to records of a recent meeting between the two sides seen by Reuters and people familiar with the matter.
The facade of the U.S. Federal Reserve building is reflected on wet marble during the early morning hours in Washington, July 31, 2013. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
More than a dozen senior insurance executives met Fed Governor Dan Tarullo on Feb. 6 to pitch a two-step process for launching nationwide insurance rules, according to records of the meeting by Dirk Kempthorne, who heads the American Council of Life Insurers, an industry group.
The group presented the plan under which the Fed would use the current system of state-based regulation for a period of time before writing a national framework that would likely require firms to boost capital buffers, according to the meeting records and people briefed on the matter.
Tarullo, the Fed’s top Wall Street regulator, did not indicate whether he was open to adopting the insurers’ proposal, the people said. But he did ask the companies to form a team to work with his staff in developing final details for such a scenario, the meeting records show.
The Fed has not committed to executing any plans submitted by the industry, a person briefed on the matter said.
A delay could give some relief to insurers from a new capital regime that analysts and investors fear would ramp up costs and stifle profits.
While precise estimates are lacking because the rules are still unknown, Bank of America has estimated that Prudential (PRU.N) and MetLife (MET.N) could see their capital levels drop by 50 percent in a worst-case scenario under the new rules.
A two-step process could also buy more time for the Fed, which has been slow in building insurance expertise, and only last year hired a former Connecticut state regulator to head the effort.
Insurance firms have lobbied Congress about how their industry will be regulated after the crisis, and politicians have often raised the issue with regulators on Capitol Hill.
Asked for a comment, the Fed said Tarullo has encouraged various industry representatives and state commissioners to offer suggestions on how it should set capital requirements for the industry.
“The Federal Reserve welcomes these views as it prepares to formulate consolidated capital requirements applicable to holding companies with insurance activities,” a spokesman said.
One of the people briefed on the matter said the Fed has noted in subsequent staff-level meetings that the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law does not prohibit it from adopting a two-step process.
“Tarullo was intrigued by these ideas and their potential as standards that could apply to both life and property-casualty companies,” Kempthorne said in a March 10 email sent to members of the American Council of Life Insurers.
Other attendees in the meeting, including Roger Ferguson, the chief executive of TIAA-CREF, MetLife President of the Americas Bill Wheeler, and Mark Grier, a member of Prudential’s board of directors, declined to comment or did not immediately return a request for comment.
The ACLI confirmed it had met with Tarullo to discuss capital standards.
The Dodd-Frank law mandated the Fed to write nationwide capital standards for the first time to help avoid another insurer failure such as the near collapse that prompted the $182 billion bailout of AIG (AIG.N) at the height of the financial crisis in 2008.
That is a marked shift for the industry, which has so far been overseen by state commissioners whose main goal is to protect policyholders rather than the wider financial system.
The industry has long expressed skepticism that the Fed does not have enough expertise or resources to regulate the sector. The central bank only has several dozen insurance experts spread throughout its organization, versus more than 400 banking experts in its Washington headquarters alone.
Tarullo told the insurance executives at the meeting that the Fed is looking to bring on more insurance experts, Kempthorne wrote in the email, but that he would not establish a separate insurance division.
Since the financial crisis, the Fed was put in charge of overseeing insurance holding companies that own thrifts, a type of bank that focuses on building up deposits and doling out mortgage loans, as well as insurance holding companies whose demise could jeopardize the wider financial system.
Insurers fear they could be treated too much like the heavily-regulated Wall Street banks, given the Fed’s history as a bank watchdog.BUFFALO, New York (Reuters) - Laicie Manzella lived in a rundown house on Buffalo’s east side when three of her children tested with dangerously high levels of lead in their blood. Her oldest son suffered nosebleeds, body rashes and a developmental disorder requiring speech therapy.
Checking her apartment, county health inspectors found 15 lead violations, all linked to old paint in this blue collar city plagued by lead poisoning.
A Reuters investigation found at least four city zip codes here where 40 percent of children tested from 2006 to 2014 had high lead levels, making Buffalo among the most dangerous lead hotspots in America. The rate of high lead tests in these areas was far worse – eight times greater – than that found among children across Flint, Michigan, during that city’s recent water crisis.
Federal support has helped Manzella and other families in Buffalo and beyond. This month, her family moved into a gleaming, lead-free apartment renovated by a local nonprofit with funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
This type of assistance may not last much longer. President Donald Trump is advocating deep federal budget cuts that would sap billions from programs used by state and local governments to protect children from the lifelong health impacts of lead exposure.
“If they go and snatch these funds away, where are we going to get help from?” Manzella said.
It’s a question being asked in cities across the United States bracing for cuts in programs that identify and eradicate lead poisoning hazards. Awareness of lead poisoning escalated following Flint’s crisis, and more recently from Reuters reporting that has identified more than 3,300 areas with childhood lead poisoning rates at least double those found in the Michigan city.
Some of the areas slated to be hit hardest supported Trump in November’s election, though he lost Erie County, where Buffalo is the county seat.
At least eight of the nine federal agencies sharing responsibility for lead poisoning prevention face potential budget cuts. But the heaviest lifting falls to HUD, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Environmental Protection Agency. Trump’s budget would cut at least $4.7 billion from programs at HUD and the EPA that support healthy housing and lead pollution cleanup efforts, a Reuters analysis found. Funding for a CDC program that assists states with poisoning prevention is uncertain.
Cuts would be felt across the country. The Trump administration would eliminate a $27 million program that trains private contractors on lead removal, and a $21 million program that funds lead abatement projects in Alaska, Illinois, Ohio, Oklahoma and California. It would kill a program that provided funds to a Rhode Island nonprofit to upgrade housing, and end a $970 million affordable-housing program that has fixed up dilapidated homes in hundreds of U.S. cities, including Flint.
If the cuts clear Congress, some experts fear the fight against lead could stall out for years.
“We are dooming future generations,” said Dr. Gale Burstein, health commissioner in Erie County. “Exposure to high lead levels causes brain damage to kids, learning disabilities and behavioral challenges.”
Instead of saving money, the cost of inaction could spiral, Burstein said. More children would be afflicted by learning disabilities and other neurological problems, leaving localities to foot the bill for treatment programs.
White House officials declined to comment.
Decades of lead abatement have sharply curbed childhood lead levels across the United States. But studies have shown no level of lead in the blood is safe, and poisoning persists in thousands of locales.
PINPOINTING HOTSPOTS
In December, Reuters used previously undisclosed data obtained from 21 states to pinpoint nearly 3,000 U.S. neighborhoods where poisoning rates among tested children were at least twice as high as in Flint.
Reporters have since obtained testing results covering eight additional states and expanded data from two more, including New York, Louisiana, New Jersey, Virginia, New Hampshire and California. The new data reveal another 449 neighborhoods with rates that high.
The communities stretch from affluent neighborhoods in the Los Angeles area to an impoverished quarter of Shreveport, Louisiana, to a rural town in Salem County, New Jersey, where Trump won 56 percent of the vote in November.
The data paints a partial picture. Reuters has not obtained neighborhood-level testing results for 21 states and the District of Columbia. These areas cited privacy concerns or said they do not have the data.
Still, the available results show the toxic metal remains a threat to millions of children.
Federal programs fund testing for children, cleanup of industrial lead hazards and poisoning-awareness efforts. Other programs require inspections or abatement in housing built before 1978, when lead was banned from residential paint.
The few planned funding increases under Trump may not be as beneficial as they appear. HUD’s Healthy Homes and Lead Hazard Control Program is slated to receive a $20 million boost, but the agency has proposed eliminating $4.1 billion worth of grant programs local officials say play a bigger role in reducing risks.
“I think you’re going to see more children, not fewer children, exposed to lead,” said Senator Jack Reed, a Democrat who has sought more funding for lead-abatement programs on the Senate subcommittee that funds HUD.
Congress, which controls federal spending, may not go along. A spokeswoman for Senator Susan Collins described lead-based hazards as “one of the most prevalent health issues facing children today.” She said the Maine Republican would use her position as head of the subcommittee that controls HUD’s budget to oppose cuts.
BUFFALO A HOTBED FOR LEAD
Buffalo has long fought a legacy of lead contamination. Blood data shows 17 city zip codes where the rate of tested children with high lead levels was at least double that of Flint – about 8,000 children over nine years.
“Nobody’s talking about Buffalo as ground zero for the lead problem, but when it comes to the levels of lead that’s been identified in children, it’s higher than what you see in Flint,” said Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz.
Buffalo’s problem stems from a simple equation: Old houses plus high poverty equal lead poisoning. Older homes are often blanketed with lead paint, and the water pipes and fixtures typically contain lead. In poorer neighborhoods, homes are frequently neglected, leading to exposure from peeling paint or dust. Fifty-eight percent of the city’s housing was built before 1940; nearly 40 percent of residents live below the poverty line.
Still, Buffalo and Erie County have made progress. In 2007, three city zip codes had 50 percent of tested children with high lead levels. By 2014, the prevalence in those zip codes dropped to an improved, but still worrisome, 30 percent.
Progress came thanks to millions of dollars in federal assistance flowing to local programs.
From 2012 through 2016, Buffalo was granted $27.7 million from the now-threatened HUD HOME Investment and Partnerships Program. HUD’s blessing brought far greater resources to bear, with city, county and nonprofits using the grant to attract another $200 million to revitalize or replace 1,125 housing units, making them all lead-safe.
Among those helped: The Chowdhurys, a family of five who moved to the east side of Buffalo in 2010, settling in a neighborhood with one of the highest lead poisoning rates in the country.
Within two months, their one-year-old daughter, Nabiha, was found to have a lead level about twice that of the elevated threshold set by the CDC, five micrograms per deciliter. Any child at or above CDC’s threshold warrants a public health response, the agency says.
MD Chowdhury, a restaurant waiter, and his wife, Nazneen Fatema, didn’t know how their daughter was poisoned or how to help her, but Buffalo and Erie County did.
Local officials dispatched housing inspectors, nurses and contractors to identify and repair the lead hazards in the family’s home. Replacing the lead-paint coated windows and siding and installing a new roof cost about $40,000. Federal grant programs footed the bill.
Erie County’s Health Department receives $244,000 a year from the CDC to help fund five full-time employees and three part-time employees who refer at-risk children for testing, investigate the causes of lead poisoning and conduct educational home visits. Those staffers helped the family.
MD Chowdhury (R) stands with Tom Muscarella of the Erie County Health Department and points to improvements made to his lead contaminated home during an interview in Buffalo, New York March 30, 2017. REUTERS/Lindsay DeDario
Chowdhury also took EPA-funded classes on how to safely remove lead-based-paint so he could do additional work himself.
Two years ago, the couple had another daughter. She has never tested high.
“Without these programs, it’s hard to know about lead, and my income is not enough to do all of the work we needed,” Chowdhury said.
Trump’s budget proposal would kill much of the funding that helped the family through its ordeal.
Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said the case illustrates the larger peril of potential funding cuts. “There would be people who would fall through the cracks,” he said.
CARSON’S MIXED MESSAGE
While working as a pediatric neurosurgeon in Baltimore, Dr. Benjamin Carson saw the irreversible damage lead can cause in the brains of children living in substandard housing.
At his confirmation hearing in February to serve as Trump’s secretary of HUD, Carson told the Senate Banking Committee he would be “vigorous” in his efforts to reduce the tally of hundreds of thousands of poisoned children across the country.
“I’m looking forward to, you know, the Safe and Healthy Homes Program at HUD and enhancing that program very significantly,” Carson said.
But even Carson’s requested $20 million increase for HUD’s lead removal program falls short of the $29 million his agency says is needed to comply with a new policy that requires lead remediation of HUD properties where children have tested above the CDC threshold.
Other housing programs that play a bigger, if more indirect, role in protecting children’s health would be eliminated altogether.
Among them: the $125 million Choice Neighborhoods program, which provided funding to remove lead paint from New Orleans’ aging Iberville housing project, and the $970 million HOME Partnerships program, which helped the Chowdhurys clean up their house in Buffalo.
The biggest casualty could be HUD’s $3 billion Community Development Block Grant program.
Local officials use CDBG grants to fund projects from curb construction to rehabilitating old housing, with only a small portion, $10 million, directly used for lead safety standards in the most recent fiscal year.
But CDGB is crucial to poisoning prevention, since housing-related projects it helps are required to meet HUD guidelines for lead safety, said Marion McFadden, who oversaw HUD’s grant programs under President Barack Obama.
“If (cuts are) enacted, it would be a huge step backward,” McFadden said.
CDBG funds went toward lead-paint removal in cities including Milwaukee, Syracuse and Shreveport, Louisiana. All three had neighborhoods with documented lead poisoning rates at least twice Flint’s.
BUDGET CUTS IN AMISH COUNTRY
Health officials in the small city of York, Pennsylvania, two hours west of Philadelphia in Amish country, know how budget cuts like this can play out.
The city and surrounding York County, where Trump won 70 percent of the vote in November, have a serious lead poisoning problem. From 2005 through 2014, at least 30 percent of children tested in all but one of York’s census tracts had elevated lead exposure, according to CDC data. In one census tract, more than half of all tested children had high lead levels.
Trump lost the city of York, but other patches of the county hit hard by lead poisoning, including the borough of Red Lion, where 21 percent of children tested had high levels, overwhelmingly supported him.
In the mid 1990s, York had seven full-time and part-time employees working in the city’s lead prevention program who conducted screening and investigated lead exposure sources. Since then, CDC cuts have left the program with one part-time employee and no ability to conduct screening.
The results are telling. In 2005, 1,641 city children were screened for lead. In 2014, 169 kids received a lead test.
Trump’s plan to eliminate the $375,000 in Home Partnership funds the city uses to develop lead-safe housing would have dire consequences, said James Crosby, deputy director of the city’s Bureau of Housing Services.
“It would mean we would be out of business,” Crosby said. “If he eliminates the home program, we would have absolutely nothing.”
A HUD spokesman declined to comment on the impact the cuts would have. “HUD will continue to work very closely with state and local health and housing officials through targeted investments in specific programs to reduce childhood lead poisoning,” he said.
CUTS AT THE EPA
A similar pattern is emerging at the EPA, where Administrator Scott Pruitt is highlighting some lead remediation efforts while pushing to gut funding to enforce pollution laws and clean up contaminated sites.
During the confirmation process, Pruitt told lawmakers he would work to reduce exposure to lead. On Wednesday he visited East Chicago, Indiana, where the EPA has secured $42 million from chemical companies to remove contaminated soil from neighborhoods near a former lead-smelting plant. In one neighborhood, up to 20 percent of tested children had elevated lead-blood levels.
Trump’s budget proposal would preserve funding for the EPA program that helps cities like Flint buy new water pipes.
But Pruitt would slash other federal efforts, including a one-third cut of EPA’s Superfund and Brownfield programs, leaving hundreds of millions of dollars less to clean up areas contaminated by lead mining in southeast Missouri, tainted yards and parks in Omaha and old school buildings on the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in North Dakota.
Pruitt would also eliminate a $27 million program that trains private contractors on safe lead removal from buildings, internal documents show.
An EPA spokesman said the agency is weighing strategies to save taxpayers money while protecting the environment. “We’re trying to restore some accountability to these and other programs so that we can examine what has worked – and most especially, what hasn’t,” wrote spokesman J.P. Freire.
Funding levels for the CDC, which spent $17 million last year through the Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention program to help state and local governments, have been the subject of great uncertainty.
Earlier this year Trump lobbied for a Republican health-care bill that would have repealed the Affordable Care Act. In the process, the bill would have eliminated the pool of public-health money that funds the CDC’s lead program. In March, the bill collapsed in the House of Representatives.
Last week, a White House official told Reuters the administration intends to keep funds flowing to the CDC program. By Monday, however, the official had backed away from that commitment and said the program’s fate is uncertain until the administration produces a more detailed budget proposal in May.
The last round of cuts to the CDC’s lead budget in 2011 slashed assistance to many state poisoning prevention programs.
Slideshow (3 Images)
Those cuts were a reason why Flint’s problems didn’t come to light sooner, said Mary Jean Brown, a public health specialist at Harvard University who directed CDC’s lead program at the time. Without the CDC lead program, Michigan conducted less monitoring of childhood blood levels from 2011 to 2014, and stopped reporting test results to the CDC.
This created “a big gap in data,” Brown said, contributing to Flint’s crisis going unchecked or being ignored by Michigan officials until a pediatrician, scientists and activists presented proof children had been sickened.Today’s Streaming |
Tachikoma. You have a Mastercoin transaction, simple send, test mastercoin with an amount of 0.00001000.For everyone else, let's break this down.So we have our reference address of 1J2svn2GxYx9LPrpCLFikmzn9kkrXBrk8B.We convert to bytes (UTF8) and SHA256 them, then take the resulting 32 bytes as hex (in this example said hex string is D42C390E52F1110412078A9DB148E7A306924666FB10AAAA9BFFCC2E2ECDE344). We then take the first 31 bytes of our hash and XOR with the 31 byte cleartext Mastercoin packet.For a cleartext Mastercoin packet (used in Tachikoma's example) of 01000000000000000200000000000003e80000000000000000000000000000 this would give us an obfuscated Mastercoin packet of D52C390E52F1110413078A9DB14A1D5386924666FB10AAAA9BFFCC2E2ECDE3. We then simply prepend the address identifer (02) and append a random byte before checking for ECDSA validity.Thus we have the obfuscated public key (02) d52c390e52f1110410078a9db148e7a0ee924666fb10aaaa9bffcc2e2ecde3 (00). Tachikoma, I noticed you used 00 but I think we should use random byte testing rather than sequencial for the ECDSA manipulation byte as that contributes to the obfuscation (random might cost a few more CPU cycles if we need to test 10 or 20 bytes but it's not expensive work & using sequential means most of our keys will end in 00 or 01).I'm also doing some thinking on supporting multiple OP_MULTISIG outputs to increase our packet count >2 and how we would order packets to know how many nested SHA passes to apply when decoding. At the moment I'm playing with having just the first byte of the packet (the sequence number) XOR with a fixed value across the transaction (say the last byte of the ref address) - that we we can always easily decode the sequence number as X, then we know we need to run X sha256 passes to decrypt the rest of the packet. Hopefully that makes sense!I'll update the appendix with this info when I get a mo.Thanks! Smart Property & Distributed Exchange: Master Protocol for Bitcoin
zathras
Offline
Activity: 266
Merit: 250
Sr. MemberActivity: 266Merit: 250 Re: 300 BTC Coding Contest: Distributed Exchange (MasterCoin Developer Thread) October 23, 2013, 03:37:40 AM
Last edit: October 23, 2013, 04:04:06 AM by zathras #126 Quote from: Tachikoma on October 22, 2013, 08:40:19 PM
Code: 13NRX88EZbS5q81x6XFrTECzrciPREo821, 1J2svn2GxYx9LPrpCLFikmzn9kkrXBrk8B, 1.337
13NRX88EZbS5q81x6XFrTECzrciPREo821, 1J2svn2GxYx9LPrpCLFikmzn9kkrXBrk8B, 0.00000013
13NRX88EZbS5q81x6XFrTECzrciPREo821, 1J2svn2GxYx9LPrpCLFikmzn9kkrXBrk8B, 0.00000011
1MCHESTbJhJK27Ygqj4qKkx4Z4ZxhnP826, 157L78NE1PB1CjRKnXKNWjwXzroyeA9dkt, 0.5
1MCHESTbJhJK27Ygqj4qKkx4Z4ZxhnP826, 15irickEziQ8qdTuT75adX15zDLrySM32W, 1.0
1MCHESTbJhJK27Ygqj4qKkx4Z4ZxhnP826, 1MCHESTxYkPSLoJ57WBQot7vz3xkNahkcb, 1.234
1MCHESTbJhJK27Ygqj4qKkx4Z4ZxhnP826, 1MCHESTptvd2LnNp7wmr2sGTpRomteAkq8, 2.0
1MCHESTbJhJK27Ygqj4qKkx4Z4ZxhnP826, 1MCHESTptvd2LnNp7wmr2sGTpRomteAkq8, 1.0
1MCHESTbJhJK27Ygqj4qKkx4Z4ZxhnP826, 1MCHESTxYkPSLoJ57WBQot7vz3xkNahkcb, 2.5
1MCHESTbJhJK27Ygqj4qKkx4Z4ZxhnP826, 1MCHESTptvd2LnNp7wmr2sGTpRomteAkq8, 1.234
1MCHESTbJhJK27Ygqj4qKkx4Z4ZxhnP826, 1MCHESTptvd2LnNp7wmr2sGTpRomteAkq8, 1.5
These are the valid multi-sig transactions, as you can see all of them are from Zathras and me. Just need to make sure Zathras didn't use any of these transactions for real.
I'm 95% sure it's safe to ignore them.These are the valid multi-sig transactions, as you can see all of them are from Zathras and me. Just need to make sure Zathras didn't use any of these transactions for real.
Nope, they're all self-to-self.
Also just so somebody doesn't come back in years to come and say we made this decision without looking at all the current multisig Mastercoin transactions, Masterchest has a few more than the above list so here is the full list from my implementation - note it does not change the conclusion that all of these transactions are those of myself & Tachikoma.
Code: be8f8ea4d88dff8b6c04aad1ef5e6d8e5b9d5cf637f0c7b9f98cbbcfeff00e98, 13NRX88EZbS5q81x6XFrTECzrciPREo821, 1J2svn2GxYx9LPrpCLFikmzn9kkrXBrk8B, 133700000, 2
7e57ac70cc0a1a4eacce92dfff9a1362a017433bb1d1167d654325dce76d9b7c, 13NRX88EZbS5q81x6XFrTECzrciPREo821, 1J2svn2GxYx9LPrpCLFikmzn9kkrXBrk8B, 11, 2
9de348c35488f4142f4e080a80737a3965d6de473360d974d361dd8ca107152a, 13NRX88EZbS5q81x6XFrTECzrciPREo821, 1J2svn2GxYx9LPrpCLFikmzn9kkrXBrk8B, 13, 2
3e3d345974ab7764830498694fa10ef2a9b688a4694556ee5a36d520fb5ff3ca, 1MCHESTbJhJK27Ygqj4qKkx4Z4ZxhnP826, 1MCHESTptvd2LnNp7wmr2sGTpRomteAkq8, 150000000, 1
72b135a3d97a478b4c3dc8766c39e9f758ad7b81a34f8ed092affcf603ff39bb, 1MCHESTbJhJK27Ygqj4qKkx4Z4ZxhnP826, 1MCHESTptvd2LnNp7wmr2sGTpRomteAkq8, 123400000, 1
4bdc8f5ee4906bb0723d48c390abff3ac8e15f00a6029266e32301b37bd8236c, 1MCHESTbJhJK27Ygqj4qKkx4Z4ZxhnP826, 1MCHESTxYkPSLoJ57WBQot7vz3xkNahkcb, 250000000, 1
6b8a15f5dcc2f7a463a795ab105abcadf442669a96ddb20021b383523155196d, 1MCHESTxYkPSLoJ57WBQot7vz3xkNahkcb, 1MCHESTptvd2LnNp7wmr2sGTpRomteAkq8, 100000000, 1
826c4eb686b7c8b31acb2cb6f62e3397ba881b989fe71d2a46f2debdecabd7de, 1MCHESTbJhJK27Ygqj4qKkx4Z4ZxhnP826, 1MCHESTptvd2LnNp7wmr2sGTpRomteAkq8, 100000000, 1
885fb185eeee351c992ea24fdf2cdd894226f2622ace944f7ba7a78a2c8b30b0, 1MCHESTbJhJK27Ygqj4qKkx4Z4ZxhnP826, 1MCHESTptvd2LnNp7wmr2sGTpRomteAkq8, 200000000, 1
da71fcbeb3b9b2e36b497bf31c27f4a5f8ced772762a9484164087370ff5e47a, 1MCHESTxYkPSLoJ57WBQot7vz3xkNahkcb, 1MCHESTbJhJK27Ygqj4qKkx4Z4ZxhnP826, 100000000, 1
dc87d24a1d5c490525dcb6162165c95cf4b1fbbb8bfcacb649962270dfd3d3f1, 1MCHESTbJhJK27Ygqj4qKkx4Z4ZxhnP826, 15irickEziQ8qdTuT75adX15zDLrySM32W, 100000000, 1
3418509f6e11e0c60ee777e1af3ed50c223ea70f520ec97e81ca9746ff9ede15, 1MCHESTxYkPSLoJ57WBQot7vz3xkNahkcb, 1MCHESTptvd2LnNp7wmr2sGTpRomteAkq8, 20000000, 1
fc442e22d1d54333cd73a006195bef85a004bf3ee8b896a090c1f8f910268e7c, 1MCHESTbJhJK27Ygqj4qKkx4Z4ZxhnP826, 1MCHESTxYkPSLoJ57WBQot7vz3xkNahkcb, 123400000, 1
7fd9422f4ba0ac216581fa4f2d5f1f10575e1596691f5ac20a958ac1a6c07284, 1MCHESTxYkPSLoJ57WBQot7vz3xkNahkcb, 157L78NE1PB1CjRKnXKNWjwXzroyeA9dkt, 112345678, 1
9db8fb5171b586baa73754720644e3ad600f82dfa336985e9d8eafe39ead065d, 1MCHESTbJhJK27Ygqj4qKkx4Z4ZxhnP826, 157L78NE1PB1CjRKnXKNWjwXzroyeA9dkt, 50000000, 1
As such my vote would be to scrub compatibility for these clear-text transactions while we have no transactions in the wild to provide backwards compatibility for. (Note I would be adamantly against this if we had any transactions we couldn't identify as ours, but since we know with certainty they're all ours I'm satisfied with dropping support for them).
EDIT: Tachikoma, I checked a few transactions against mastercoin-explorer and the reason your list is shorter is there are some transactions that my implementation flags as valid where yours does not. An example would be 7fd9422f4ba0ac216581fa4f2d5f1f10575e1596691f5ac20a958ac1a6c07284. Please don't spend too much time on it if we're dropping support for them anyway, but if you have the info to hand I'd be interested to know the reason for the invalid flags? Thanks Nope, they're all self-to-self.Also just so somebody doesn't come back in years to come and say we made this decision without looking atthe current multisig Mastercoin transactions, Masterchest has a few more than the above list so here is the full list from my implementation - note it does not change the conclusion that all of these transactions are those of myself & Tachikoma.As such my vote would be to scrub compatibility for these clear-text transactions while we have no transactions in the wild to provide backwards compatibility for. (Note I would be adamantly against this if we had any transactions we couldn't identify as ours, but since we know with certainty they're all ours I'm satisfied with dropping support for them).EDIT: Tachikoma, I checked a few transactions against mastercoin-explorer and the reason your list is shorter is there are some transactions that my implementation flags as valid where yours does not. An example would be 7fd9422f4ba0ac216581fa4f2d5f1f10575e1596691f5ac20a958ac1a6c07284. Please don't spend too much time on it if we're dropping support for them anyway, but if you have the info to hand I'd be interested to know the reason for the invalid flags? Thanks Smart Property & Distributed Exchange: Master Protocol for Bitcoin
Paleus
Offline
Activity: 236
Merit: 100
www.diginomics.com
Full MemberActivity: 236Merit: 100www.diginomics.com Re: 300 BTC Coding Contest: Distributed Exchange (MasterCoin Developer Thread) October 23, 2013, 06:57:09 AM #130
I have a few questions I wanted to ask before I commit to joining the development team here. I've been reading the various articles and white papers on Mastercoin relentlessly over the last few days and I feel I have a good understanding of the objectives and vision behind the currency.
In regards to the currency coding contest, making an exchange, do we plan on hosting the site on mastercoin.org or where and who would the exchange be run by?
I'm very interested in working on a BTC to MasterCoin exchange, however do we plan on making this the monopoly exchange or is there going to be room for competitors to move in once Mastercoin is more established? Any details about the plans we have moving forward to build an exchange would be excellent. I want to make sure I understand how a distributed exchange would work completely.
Also, if we need a grounds for development and testing, I have an awesome domain space at
I will await the opinion of JR & co., but I am willing to put my best foot forward and help this project realize potential in any way possible.
Cheers,
Paleus Hello Guys,I have a few questions I wanted to ask before I commit to joining the development team here. I've been reading the various articles and white papers on Mastercoin relentlessly over the last few days and I feel I have a good understanding of the objectives and vision behind the currency.In regards to the currency coding contest, making an exchange, do we plan on hosting the site on mastercoin.org or where and who would the exchange be run by?I'm very interested in working on a BTC to MasterCoin exchange, however do we plan on making this the monopoly exchange or is there going to be room for competitors to move in once Mastercoin is more established? Any details about the plans we have moving forward to build an exchange would be excellent. I want to make sure I understand how a distributed exchange would work completely.Also, if we need a grounds for development and testing, I have an awesome domain space at Diginomics.com we could use. Perhaps this would be a suitable location for developing the exchange or a similar project?I will await the opinion of JR & co., but I am willing to put my best foot forward and help this project realize potential in any way possible.Cheers,Paleus BTC 101 Introduction To Bitcoin [FREE COURSE]Luis Suarez equalled Robbie Fowler's 28-goal record for a Liverpool Premier League season with a hat-trick as they kept the pressure on leaders Chelsea by seeing off Cardiff.
Cardiff twice took the lead, through Jordon Mutch and Fraizer Campbell.
Suarez levelled after Mutch's opener and Martin Skrtel did the same after Campbell struck.
Media playback is not supported on this device Cardiff 3-6 Liverpool: Ole Gunnar Solskjaer questions player injury rule
Skrtel headed another, Daniel Sturridge and Suarez added one each, before Mutch's consolation and Suarez's third.
After twice going behind in the first half, Liverpool underlined their credentials as title contenders by remaining composed and confident against a side battling against the serious threat of relegation.
With most of their fellow strugglers also losing, Cardiff ended the day no worse off than they started at second from bottom.
Feelings among some protesting home fans also remained the same over the club's continued rebrand from blue to red under Malaysian owner Vincent Tan.
With former Swansea boss Brendan Rodgers' side arriving in the Welsh capital on the back of a 3-0 win at Manchester United, the form book was heavily-weighted against Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's men.
Shankly's Cardiff baptism Cardiff City marked Bill Shankly's first game in charge of Liverpool by beating them 4-0 in what was then Division Two in December, 1959. Cardiff City were promoted to the top flight that season.
The hosts took the game to Liverpool and were rewarded with Mutch's well-taken opener after former Swansea City midfielder Joe Allen gifted the Cardiff attacker possession.
Mutch's low, left-footed drive gave Simon Mignolet no chance.
Liverpool's response was swift as Suarez latched on to Glen Johnson's cross to beat David Marshall from close range.
The visitors were guilty of giving Mutch too much space in the build-up to Cardiff's second.
Campbell was equally free to gather Mutch's through ball to hit home from almost the identical spot from which Mutch had scored.
Given the gulf in league positions and winning run it was no surprise that Liverpool's confidence remained unshakeable.
And when Brazilian Philippe Coutinho's cross allowed Skrtel to add the deft scoring touch late in the opening period, Cardiff were left to discover whether their self-belief was as well-founded as Liverpool's.
That test became even more stern after Coutinho crossed following a corner for Skrtel to head home his second in the 54th minute.
Media playback is not supported on this device Cardiff 3-6 Liverpool: Brendan Rodgers explains attacking philosophy
The Bluebirds were down to nine men at that point as Kevin Theophile-Catherine and Mutch were receiving treatment on the sidelines.
And when Sturridge sent through the pass that allowed Suarez to stylishly add his second, the contest was all-but over.
Johnson then found Suarez, whose pass gave Sturridge the chance to score from close range.
Mutch gave the home side late hope with his header and the announcement of five minutes of added time gave Solskjaer's side another boost.
But when substitute Wilfried Zaha hesitated under a long ball before falling to the floor, Suarez had the time and space to tease home goalkeeper Marshall before putting the finishing touch to Liverpool's impressive display with a hat-trick.
Cardiff manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer:
"We had them exactly where we wanted.
"We tested them defensively and we scored some fantastic goals, and maybe we conceded two poor goals. Liverpool didn't have a lot in the first half, chances wise.
"[Suarez] is a top, top striker. He is on the move all the time. But for long periods, I thought we dealt well with him, especially in the first half."
Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers:
"[Suarez's] determination, his desire, his will is at such a big level. He is a world-class player who is enjoying his football, and long may it continue.
"The mental resilience is how we've grown over the past 18 months, and that confidence to know we can get back in the game.
"You look at our imagination and creativity today. I think the crowd felt that every time we were in their half, we could score. We've got footballers, technicians, who can open up a game for us."That ultra-hot block of Logan Square is getting a double shot of weed and booze. The man behind Emporium Arcade Bar is opening a bar and marijuana dispensary at 2367 N. Milwaukee Avenue, sectioning the space that was once earmarked for Mindy Segal's scrapped Hot Chocolate Bakery. The dispensary—only the second in the city—is named Modern Cannabis and will open "within a couple weeks," owner Danny Marks says. It's in the rear of the space and will have its main entrance on Fullerton.
Details on the bar, which is in the front and will take up the majority of the 6500 square-foot space with a Milwaukee Avenue entrance next to The Radler and doors north from Emporium Logan Square, are still in its infancy. Marks says it will have a "small food component" and hopefully open by the summer. And, surprisingly, it won't have a gaming aspect. "We're all going to find out if I'm a one-trick pony," Marks, who opened the third Emporium at the beginning of the month, says. "It's going to be pretty cool."
Marks' snatching of the space means the block, which was filled with manufacturing plants just two years ago, is now nearly full of bars and restaurants, including newer spots Slippery Slope, The Radler, Chicago Distilling Company, Owen + Alchemy, Q-Tine, and Marks' own Emporium Logan Square. Watch this space for more details.BRATISLAVA, Slovakia — The world seems to think Mike Gogulski is crazy. People on his blog have told him so. He suspects his own mother in the US thinks he’s nuts.
The 39-year-old freelance translator, who has at various times called himself a radical libertarian or anarchist, was an American until 2008. Now he’s stateless. On purpose. And happy about it.
“I like it this way,” Gogulski says while sipping a beer at the Café Laguna on a busy Bratislava street corner. “It’s really not bad at all.”
Many have burned their passports as a form of political protest. But Gogulski is one of only two Americans known to be ballsy enough to have filed the paperwork needed to officially become stateless. And he’s hoping to inspire others to do it, too.*
In the modern world, nationality is key to identity, and opens up access to government services. For many people, statelessness is a nightmare scenario. According to UN statistics, about 12 million people suffer from such territorial limbo. They’re mainly from troubled places like Somalia or Palestine.
Renunciation, experts say, is incredibly risky.
Read more: The gray area of gay refugees
There are “people who are desperate to have any nationality at all,” says Brad Blitz, an expert on statelessness at the Kingston University London. “This situation can make life very hard. Accessing basic services like healthcare or education can be practically impossible.”
For Gogulski, however, making himself stateless was as easy as walking into the US embassy in Bratislava, filling out some forms and handing over his passport.
He says it’s been liberating.
More than 1,000 Americans irrevocably renounce their citizenship each year, according to US Department of State statistics. (Update: the number of wealthy Americans abandoning their citizenship has more than doubled in 2011, as the New York Times points out in a blog today.)
Most have relatively benign motives, such as lowering their tax burdens or wanting to return to their country of origin.
A few, like Gogulski, have political motivations.
A longtime activist against US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, among other causes, Gogulski viewed the extreme step of renouncing his citizenship as the only way to truly repudiate a system he hates.
“It makes me feel like I’m rejecting it, like I’m doing my part to fight back against what I see as [what’s] wrong with the world,” he says.
But in practically all cases, those who renounce have a second citizenship to fall back on. Otherwise they enter the weird and wacky world of having no nationality at all. Unlike most Western countries, the US will allow its former citizens to become stateless.
Read more: Mexico's drug-war refugees
No one knows how many people choose to do this. The US government doesn’t track such data or discuss specific cases, a State Department spokesman told GlobalPost. But it strongly discourages statelessness in a memo that it hands out to those contemplating renouncing citizenship.
Indeed, becoming stateless on purpose can create some pretty nasty difficulties with authorities.
Just ask Garry Davis, the only other person definitively known to have intentionally become stateless. Davis renounced his US citizenship in France in 1948, and created his own “World Passport.” He has since been jailed dozens of times while trying to cross international borders. He says the last time he was given a hard time was at Washington DC’s Dulles airport. He asserted his human rights and world citizenship, and eventually, he says, the authorities got tired of him and let him in.
He says it’s still been worth it to prove his point that citizenship as a concept is ridiculous. “We have the right to claim sovereignty over ourselves,” says Davis, 90, who lives in Vermont. (Here’s a YouTube video of him purportedly crossing the Canadian border.) “It’s the right of freedom of choice, of self-determination. But challenges come with exercising those rights.”
In theory, Slovakia is the perfect place for someone like Gogulski to exercise his statelessness. It’s signed on to three UN conventions protecting refugees and stateless people.
Blitz, however, says practice could be very different. Slovakia has a poor record of dealing with its many stateless Roma (also known as gypsies) that live within its borders, he said.
“A stateless person there is likely to run into serious problems in the future,” he said.
Problems? Gogulski says he hasn’t really encountered them.
Well, there were the troubles immediately after he renounced his citizenship when he had no valid ID and the bank didn’t know what to make of him. And he says he was once detained by Slovak police outside a bar, beaten and had no one to turn to for consular help.
“The US embassy?” he laughs. “They wouldn’t have done anything to help me even if I was a citizen.”
He now carries a special identification document for stateless people, issued by Slovakia under a 1954 United Nations convention
But then there’s the fact that he might never be able to travel to the United States to see his elderly mother again. In order to do that he’d have to apply for a visa – but he suspects he may be persona non grata, especially because he stopped paying his income taxes before he decided to emigrate to Eastern Europe about six years ago.
But just like Davis in Vermont, Gogulski says it’s all been worth it. It’s all about proving a point, he says — that the system can’t control him and that citizenship is a silly, anachronistic construct.
He could apply for Slovak citizenship but he likes being stateless. For one thing, it certainly is quite the conversation starter.
Gogulski’s ultimate goal: To start a revolution of sorts in which Americans begin giving up their citizenship and become stateless en masse. Maybe, he says, he can be the symbolic beginning of this movement.
“I know the chances of that are about this small though,” he says, holding his index finger and thumb together in the air.For years we’ve been hearing about the looming global food crisis caused by climate change and overpopulation. But the world continues to refuse to cooperate. This morning, Bloomberg reports the world is likely to have a third consecutive record year for rice production:
Farmers will harvest 466.4 million metric tons in the 2012-2013 season, boosting stockpiles by 0.7 percent to 104.9 million tons, the largest since 2001-2002, says the U.S. Department of Agriculture… “There is enough supply to meet all the demand in the world,” said Concepcion Calpe, a senior economist at the UN’s Food & Agriculture Organization, where’s she is also secretary of the Rome-based group’s inter-governmental body on rice. “There will be ground for a further slide in prices.”
We heard about a new “study” on how “extreme heat hurts wheat yields.” Meanwhile, world wheat yields hit a record last year, and this year’s is currently projected to be the fourth largest in history. What about corn? A USDA report from May says “Global corn production for 2012/13 is projected at a record 945.8 million tons, up 75.3 million from 2011/12, and the 6th straight year that world corn output has set a new record.” Oilseed? “Global oilseed production for 2012/13 is projected at a record 471.5 million tons.”
Now I should be accused of cherry-picking if I didn’t tell you that every commodity is not in record territory, or that prices have risen on most of these commodities in recent years even as yields hit records, suggesting that demand has risen even faster – indeed, high food prices probably caused last year’s Arab Spring. Additionally, dry weather and other suboptimal conditions constantly threaten crops around the world, and yields could suffer at any time (bad weather in parts of the globe partly prevented wheat from having the same record year expected by corn and rice).
Yet the Bloomberg article says global food prices have fallen “10 percent since reaching a record in February 2011.” As the prices of different products rise in response to changes in supplies and demand, farmers around the globe change the foods they plant to increase their profits, and the world maintains healthy supplies of all kinds of edible commodities.
Climate change hasn’t even begun to reduce global crop yields, much less do so on the pace of alarmist predictions. Three years ago, “food policy experts” predicted rice yields would fall 20% by 2050. It could still happen, but so far rice yields have reached higher levels every year since. (Besides, rising CO2 may actually be helping.)
As a result, the world now has more obese people than hungry people. At least for now, predictions about the threat of global starvation are not only wrong, they’re getting wronger.See the first report in the series: USD 277.3 billion: India’s 2014 fossil fuel subsidy bill
See the second report in the series: Subsidies for poor are stolen by the rich
Between 1990 and 2012, India’s energy mix changed sharply, with coal becoming the dominant fuel. Traditional biomass — such as wood used in heating and cooking — lost share to coal, which increased to almost 45% in 2012, up from 33% in 1990.
There are three reasons why coal is a preferred energy source in India: Firstly it is cheap, secondly it is reliable, and thirdly India has 60.6 billion tonnes of coal deposits, although some of them are not accessible.
The biggest player in the coal market is the government. It owns a bit under 80% of Coal India Limited (CIL), the public sector mining company headquartered in Kolkata in eastern India. The largest coal producing corporate conglomerate in the world, CIL produces about 82% of the coal mined in India. This amount is set to increase dramatically, as India plans to more than double its coal output from 490 million tonnes to a billion tonnes by 2020, according to energy minister Piyush Goyal. He suggested that “the envisaged growth is possible in brown-field as well as green-field areas and is expected to be achieved through timely completion of new railway infrastructure projects, faster environment clearances and improvement in the law and order situation, apart from technology improvement in mining and related infrastructure.” This will need an investment of USD 20-25 billion.
Coal subsidies
The International Monetary Fund’s 2015 country profile places India’s post-tax subsidies on coal at USD 196 billion. The government also supports coal mining through research and development funds and several tax breaks to benefit exploration activities. The government also subsidises coal transport, mostly by the country’s nationalised railway network.
In emerging and developing Asia, coal subsidies accounted for USD 2 trillion (2.7% of global GDP or more than 40% of global post-tax subsidies) in 2013 and were predicted to have reached USD 2.5 trillion in 2015 (3.1% of global GDP or nearly 50% of global subsidies), with all its collateral damage to human health and the environment.
Oil and gas
Coal is, of course only a fraction of the problem. India also has 5.7 billion barrels of oil and 1.4 trillion cubic feet of gas, with considerable government “support” provided for oil and gas exploration. The capital outlay by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, including the exploration and production of crude oil and natural gas, was USD 45.7 million in 2012.
Research conducted by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) reveals that in 2013 and 2014 as well, the capital outlay targeting the extraction and production of crude oil, natural gas, coal and the development of fossil-fuelled power projects constituted the largest share of India’s national subsidies to fossil fuel production, averaging around USD 64 million per year.
Perverse subsidies
The situation in the petroleum sector also indicates the perverse effect that subsidies can have. As explained in the first report in this series, up to 41% of the kerosene distributed is lost, possibly stolen, to be mixed with more expensive fuels, such as petrol or diesel. Kerosene, domestic LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) and diesel (until November 2014) were sold for less than international market prices with subsidies covering the gap.
However the entire deficit is not bridged by subsidies: a part of the difference between the cost price — including marketing costs — and the regulated selling prices of these three petroleum products is borne by the oil marketing companies (OMC). This is the difference between the cost price and the regulated price at which petroleum products are finally sold by the OMCs to the retailers. The rest of the difference is paid by the government to the OMCs as subsidy.
The oil ministry expects a subsidy burden of INR 50-60 billion (USD 788-946 million) for state-run oil and gas producers during the current fiscal year ending on March 31, 2016, if world oil prices stay at current levels.
The ministry has been changing the subsidy sharing formula between oil producers and the government. The new formula, following the changed subsidy mechanism for diesel and LPG in 2014 when the government freed diesel from subsidies and began paying LPG subsidies through direct benefit transfers (DBT), meant that the OMCs were only bearing a loss on account of selling subsidised kerosene.
This was supposed to spare the OMCs the burden of any subsidy costs if the crude oil price each quarter averaged less than USD 60 a barrel. Only when prices went beyond USD 60 a barrel were they to bear 85% of the incremental cost above USD 60, or 90% if oil price exceeded USD 100 a barrel. All these calculations have now become obsolete with international prices of crude oil collapsing below USD 30 a barrel mark in the last week of January 2016.
In July 2015, it was clear that the previous formula had been junked. The ministry of finance reportedly said that it would pay INR 12 in the form of cash subsidy for a litre of kerosene sold while the two large public sector domestic crude oil and gas explorers and producers, the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Oil India Limited (OIL) would bear the remaining burden. The actual subsidies given in 2014-15 to the two upstream oil companies, ONGC and OIL, cannot be clearly ascertained.
The problem is compounded by the clear overestimation of the government’s success rate with subsidy reductions. Having been hailed as |
test was affected by operator error, so that we can ensure the operator errors didn't unfairly impact any OUI prosecutions; and so that prosecutions of those suspected of operating under the influence can go forward based on all of the available evidence, including breath tests," Public Safety Secretary Daniel Bennett said.
Hampden County District Attorney Anthony Gulluni had said that nine OUI cases in Hampden County may have been impacted by a breathalyzer error.Would these robots competing in the 2014 RoboCup German Open tournament even qualify for the robot olympics? Photo by Jens Schlueter/Getty Images
It’s fun to follow the Olympics, but something is missing. It’s certainly not human narratives or drama. It’s not excitement. It’s robots. Where are the robots? Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has the same question, and since Japan is hosting the 2020 summer games in Tokyo, he’s in a position to do something about it.
Agence France-Presse reports that Abe is laying groundwork. He announced last week that Japan is putting together a task force to expand the country’s robotics industry as well as the market for robots. Japan’s Jiji Press agency reports that Abe said, “We want to make robots a major pillar of our economic growth strategy.”
But most importantly, he said he wants to organize a Robot Olympics. “In 2020 I would like to gather all of the world’s robots and aim to hold an Olympics where they compete in technical skills,” Abe said, according to the AFP. Between robot-assisted parathletes at Cybathlon and the Robot Olympics, this is going to be the decade of robot sports. Finally.
(Hat-tip: IEEE Spectrum’s Automaton blog)Just as he did after President Donald Trump’s trip to Europe, former President Barack Obama will make a tour of Asia, weeks after Trump returned from his first official state visit abroad to Japan and China.
The “shadow president,” apparently concerned that his successor will somehow make the results of Obama-era foreign policy worse, will visit China’s president and make an extra stop in India, potentially as a way of countering any Trump-related damage there (First Daughter Ivanka is in India this week promoting educational initiatives for girls).
The trip is probably not a coincidence. Shortly after Donald Trump made his first trip abroad as president, visiting Italy and France as well as several other nations, Obama just happened to schedule follow up trips where he visited many of the same nations and dined privately with leaders who’d spoken to Trump just days before.One of the savviest picks of last year's NBA draft was made by the Milwaukee Bucks, when they grabbed Giannis Antetokounmpo with the 15th overall pick. The Greek Freak was just a bundle of springy limbs and a fresh face at the time, but he quickly became a player who matters. There is another baby-faced, athletic freak from Europe lurking at the bottom of this year's draft boards, and he may very well end up becoming this year's answer to Antetokounmpo. Call him the Swiss Freak, if you'd like.
His name is Clint Capela. He's a 6-foot-11, 20-year-old power forward who plays in the French Pro A League, and he's projected to be selected somewhere in the 20s during tonight's draft. You should begin orienting yourself with Capela by checking out this article by Kevin Pelton, whose WARP projections have Capela as the second-most valuable player in the draft.
Pelton is high on Capela because the young forward has shown himself to be an elite rebounder (rebound rate: 26.4 percent), shot blocker (block percentage: 7.5), and finisher at the rim (field goal percentage: 63.8) against European competition. Those gaudy numbers are expected to translate into the kind of NBA stats that would put Capela on par with a 20-year-old Tyson Chandler or Andre Drummond.
You don't need to rely solely on stats to get excited about Capela, though. Spend a few minutes watching the highlight reel at the top of the page, and you'll come away convinced that he'd be a top-1o pick in a less-loaded draft.
Sure, he's not playing against NBA talent, and there are a lot of easy alley-oops in that clip, but there's also a lot of footage of a 6-foot-11 dude running the floor like a guard, swallowing layups whole, and dunking on fools with impunity. And that nifty little off-hand tip-in he converts off the alley-oop at the 1:30 mark isn't a move that a guy who is destined to be a stiff can pull off.
Advertisement
And here he is proving that he can just about touch the rim with his head:
There's also this:
Advertisement
The Raptors front office is helmed by one of the smartest GMs in the game, and the Spurs have a perennial habit of drafting guys that make NBA fans say things like, "How the hell did that guy fall all the way to the Spurs?!" come December. If one of those teams wants him, there's a good chance that Clint Capela is going to be an NBA player to be reckoned with.Using a microscope designed to image the arrangement and interactions of electrons in crystals, scientists have captured the first images of electrons that appear to take on extraordinary mass under certain extreme conditions.
The technique reveals the origin of an unusual electronic phase transition in one particular material, and opens the door to further explorations of the properties and functions of so-called heavy fermions. Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, McMaster University, and Los Alamos National Laboratory describe the results in the June 3, 2010, issue of Nature.
"Physicists have been interested in the 'problem' of heavy fermions -- why these electrons act as if they are hundreds or thousands of times more massive under certain conditions -- for thirty or forty years," said study leader Séamus Davis, a physicist at Brookhaven and the J.D. White Distinguished Professor of Physical Sciences at Cornell University. Understanding heavy fermion behavior could lead to the design of new materials for high-temperature superconductors. Superconductivity allows materials to carry current with no energy loss.
In the current study, the scientists were imaging electronic properties in a material composed of uranium, ruthenium, and silicon that itself has been the subject of a 25-year scientific mystery. In this material -- synthesized by Graeme Luke's group at McMaster -- the effects of heavy fermions begin to appear as the material is cooled below 55 kelvin (-218 °C). Then, an even more unusual electronic phase transition occurs below 17.5K.
Scientists had attributed this lower-temperature phase transition to some form of "hidden order." They could not distinguish whether it was related to the collective behavior of electrons acting as a wave, or interactions of individual electrons with the uranium atoms. Alexander Balatsky, a Los Alamos theoretical physicist at the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, provided guidance on how to examine this problem.
With that guidance, Davis' group used a technique they'd designed to visualize the behavior of electrons to "see" what the electrons were doing as they passed through the mysterious phase transition. The technique, spectroscopic imaging scanning tunneling microscopy (SI-STM), measures the wavelength of electrons on the surface of the material in relation to their energy.
"Imagine flying over a body of water where standing waves are moving up and down, but not propagating toward the shore," said Davis. "When you pass over high points, you can touch the water; over low points, you can't. This is similar to what our microscope does. It images how many electrons can jump to the tip of our probe at every point on the surface."
From the wavelength and energy measurements, the scientists can calculate the effective electron mass.
"This technique reveals that we are dealing with very heavy electrons -- or electrons that act as if they are extremely heavy because they are somehow being slowed down," Davis said.
The detection of "heavy electron" characteristics below the second transition temperature provides direct experimental evidence that the electrons are interacting with the uranium atoms rather than acting as a wave.
To visualize this, imagine a team of football players running up the field after a kickoff. If each player were free to run unimpeded, the whole team would appear to operate as a wave of relatively independent "electrons." But imagine instead that the field is strewn with an array of chairs, and each player has to sit for an instant every time he encounters a chair before continuing up the field. In this case the chairs are analogous to the uranium atoms. Those interactions between players and chairs (or electrons and uranium atoms) clearly slow the progress.
In the case of the uranium material, the electron slowdown lasts only a tiny fraction of a second at each uranium atom. But because kinetic energy and mass are mathematically related, the slowdown makes it appear as if the electrons are more massive than a free electron.
Besides revealing these interactions as the source of "hidden order" in the uranium compound, Davis' study shows that the SI-STM technique can be used to visualize heavy electrons. That in turn opens the door to more ways to investigate and visualize this phenomenon.
The research team is continuing to probe a variety of related compounds with this new approach to further their understanding of heavy fermion systems.
"Heavy fermions remain mysterious in many ways, and it's our job as scientists to solve the problem," Davis said.
This research was funded in the United States by the DOE Office of Science and in Canada by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. At Brookhaven, this research was supported as part of the Center for Emergent Superconductivity, an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science.Samsung’s reputation took a hit because of the Galaxy Note 7. The handset’s faulty battery made it a fire risk so it was quickly banned from airplanes. The airlines actually started making announcements that the Galaxy Note 7 was not allowed in the cabin. The company bounced back with the Galaxy Note 8. The great response it has received for the new handset shows that the Note faithful are loyal to this lineup.
Samsung Spain decided to remind people of last year’s unfortunate events and highlight how the Galaxy Note 8 has truly been the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. It handed out free Galaxy Note 8 units to 200 unsuspecting passengers on a domestic flight in Spain.
Free Galaxy Note 8 Units
Passengers on a late night Iberia flight from Madrid to A Coruña, Galicia were probably not expecting to get a free gift that cost more than their ticket. This surprise move came after Iberia started promoting the Galaxy Note 8.
There were 200 passengers on that flight and all of them were given a free Galaxy Note 8 unit by the crew. The box carried the following text: “A year ago we asked you to turn it off, we welcome you today on board,” according to a translation.
It’s a tongue-in-cheek reminder from Samsung about the disaster that it suffered last year. Some might find it odd that the company is using that to promote its new product. Those passengers won’t mind though. Who doesn’t love a free flagship smartphone?The City of Toronto has four fewer fire trucks on the road and one fewer fire hall as of Monday morning. The pumpers are being taken out of service and the station closed due to cuts in the city's 2013 budget.
Two of the engines previously served in Scarborough, as well as one in Etobicoke. The fourth engine will be decommissioned from Fire Station 424 on Runnymede Road near Bloor Street West, which is closing permanently.
According to Frank Ramagnano of the Toronto Professional Fire Fighters' Association, the loss of the trucks will lead to longer response times in some neighbourhoods.
Fire Station 424, on Runnymede Road, has been permanently closed. A pumper based at the station has been put out of service, as well. (CBC)
Ramagnano says that a typical commercial or residential blaze can double in size as little as three minutes, so every second firefighters are on the scene counts.
"If you were relying on that fire truck you’ll have to wait one or two more minutes for another truck to respond," he said.
"The more people you have on scene, the sooner they’re on scene, the more capable you are to fight that fire."
Since amalgamation in 1998, Toronto has added about 2,000 new buildings to its cityscape and additional 300,000 people are being served by Toronto Fire Services, but the fire department has had to cope with a series of cuts, Ramagnano says.
Approximately 84 firefighters will be affected by the changes, but none are expected to lose their jobs. They will likely be reassigned to positions left vacant after about 70 senior firefighters retired in the first three months of 2014.
'Premature' closing
Neighbourhood resident Audrey Robinson circulated a petition last year in an effort to save Fire Station 424 after city council voted to shutter the fire hall.
"It makes me feel like we're losing a big part of our street actually... like losing a loved neighbour," she said.
She's concerned about how closure might affect the safety of residents, and what kind of structure will replace the station.
"First and foremost the safety of the community having one less station... secondly, what is going to happen to that building and what could be put in place of it down the line?"
Ward 13 Coun. Sarah Doucette, who called the closing "premature," says that nearly 4,000 condos are going be built in the area in the coming years and it remains unclear how the city will ensure the safety of new residents moving to the neighbourhood.
Out in Scarborough, Heather Wilkinson worries what will happen now that Pumper 215 is out of service.
That was the truck that responded when a fire broke out next to her home over the weekend.
"Whenever you’re decreasing a service, there’s no way that you can say that safety isn’t a factor because there’s no way to measure that until something like this happens," Wilkinson said.
But Coun. Denzil Minnan-Wong says response times won’t increase and safety won’t be affected.
"We've been able to find efficiencies without affecting service in any significant or substantial way. This has been reinforced by the underwriters," he told CBC News in an interview on Monday.
Minnan-Wong points out that the insurance body that rates the city's ability to fight fires says the cuts aren’t an issue.
"We're increasing the number of fire prevention officers, which is what they're recommending," he said. "So I think on balance, if you put all the facts on the table, it’s a wise and appropriate decision."
But Wilkinson said the city should reconsider the cuts.
"It doesn’t have to do with politics, it has to do with having first-class services in a first-class city," she said.
Firefighters' union vs. the mayor
The closure of the fire station and the decommissioning of the four fire trucks is the latest development in ongoing public dispute between the firefighters' union and Toronto Mayor Rob Ford.
On Monday morning, someone had posted a series of paper signs blaming Mayor Rob Ford for the closure of Fire Station 424. It is unclear who posted the message. (CBC)
On Monday morning, a series of paper signs displayed on the garage door windows of Fire Station 424 read "Closed by Rob Ford."
The TPFFA have been outspoken critics of city hall's cuts to the fire service. The dispute peaked in January, when the TPFFA released a short ad criticizing budgetary cuts and implying that the cuts put lives at risk.
Fire Chief Jim Sales condemned the ad after it was released and said that response times would not be affected.
Sales is due to speak to the media on Tuesday about the decommissioning of the four fire trucks.
The union has also criticized Ford's use of a fire truck during his 2014 mayoral campaign amidst the budget cuts. Ford's campaign manager, his brother Doug, has said the truck is not a Toronto Fire Service engine and that his brother Randy purchased the truck privately for $4,000.The careers of big wave surfers are built around a life of boundary pushing amongst massive volumes of water. But every now and then Mother Nature serves a swift, hard reminder of who calls the shots and the consequences can be huge.
We tracked down the best of the best in the realms of big wave surfing to discuss being just moments away from meeting their maker.
Grant 'Twiggy' Baker
I've had a few scary moments over the years but a wipeout while towing at Jaws still stands out:
Someone shouted to me as I got up on the rope, saying “Merry Christmas Twig.” It was this big, big A-frame, but I could also see the West Bowl coming towards it, and I thought This is the one. This is the one I've been waiting for. I Let go of the rope real early, did a couple of S turns coming into it. Skipping down the face, I could feel the board was all wrong, something wasn't quite right there and I kind of edged off the bottom and the whole thing stood up behind me. I saw that the west bowl was moving away from me, so I pulled up to do kind of like a high line turn to get the speed to rush through the West Bowl and I almost had it under control, but not really.
As I came out of that check-top turn I knew oh shit, way too much speed, I can’t control the board, I could feel the tail cavitating, and I was thinking oh shit, you’re not gonna make it, but still give it your best shot. As I headed into the bowl, I could see these two wind chops and I knew I had to make them. I just got over the first one and boom, the board just stopped dead on the second wake, and from there I knew it was pretty much over. I’d fallen in the worst place, on the worst wave to fall and I was in big trouble.
It was so Violent. It took me straight to the bottom, as I hit the bottom I was on my hands and knees, like a cat.
I went over and landed on my chest and it knocked all the wind out of me, and at that moment I thought OK you’re dead, it’s over. Full panic, You're dead, it's finished. I felt myself in slow motion as you do, in the lip, going up and the whole time thinking to myself, you’re dead, you've got no breath.
As I come up and go over, I feel my head pop up and I just took the biggest breath you can imagine. As I take that breath everything changes. I’m just like you’re gonna survive. From their I just enjoyed the ride. I went on an amazing roller-coaster ride over the falls, and I could see everyone out the back. It was an insane descent over the waterfall. Boom. It was so Violent. It took me straight to the bottom, as I hit the bottom I was on my hands and knees, like a cat. I kind of crawled across these huge boulders. I was down there a long time.
We’d been wearing double vests, a medium and then a xxxl on top. As soon as the turbulence subsided I could feel the vests engaging. I went from being on the bottom on all fours to almost like a cork on the surface. I looked up to see the next wave and the lip was like 5ft from impacting and I was another 10ft in front of it. It kept me down for a really long time and pulled me probably 100m.
Mark Mathews
I hit the reef at Shipsterns and got knocked unconscious years ago. I woke up and thought my neck was broken. That was easily the scariest experience. In the end I was fine but it took me a long time to get over it mentally. It was probably the most well documented wipeout I’ve had too [Fighting Fear is based around the injuries I sustained that day and my comeback].
As usual with injuries they happen when you least expect them, that moment when you drop your guard. It wasn't the biggest wave I caught that day, 10-12ft, and I’d thrown on a Gath Helmet with a camera mounted [pre GoPro days] to it to get some POV shots. It was my first wave with the helmet and as soon as I let go of the rope, I knew it was going to be a sketchy one because of the foam from the bigger wave before it.
I regained consciousness as the flotation device attached to the body of the camera pulled me to the surface
I was distracted by the bumps and foam on the face and slightly miss calculated the steps, before I knew it, the board nose-dived and threw me hard over the front of the board. It's at that point I don’t remember much. I was knocked out when my head impacted the reef, blowing a hole in the helmet. I regained consciousness as the flotation device attached to the body of the camera pulled me to the surface. Luckily the ski was right there to get me out of trouble.
What followed was the scariest 6 hours of my life. I was in a neck brace with searing pain and pins and needles down my arms and legs on the bumpy boat ride back to the dock. I was really lucky in the end that there was no critical damage to my neck. The most difficult part of my recovery was getting over the mental trauma and regaining my confidence in big waves.
James Hollmer Cross
Scariest experience to date was 5 months ago, at a wave called Pedra Branca. It's a big wave location 35 kilometres out to sea off the southern mainland of Tasmania. The conditions weren't perfect and there was the odd bomb. I broke my leg in a few spot and tore ligaments in my right knee, it also squeezed me so hard that it made me soil my wetsuit I'd already had a couple waves but wasn't content. After being too deep on a big set I lost my board so I was really keen to just sit and wait for a behemoth, one eventually came and I was in the perfect position. As I was coming down the face and fading for the bottom turn something didn't feel right with my board and it started to plane and bounce which it had never done out there before. As I nursed it and started to lean on my toe side my board felt like it hit thick mud and just stopped and I went over the handle bars.
I instantly got engulfed and went up and over the falls into the most savage wipeout my body has ever endured. I got pushed and shaken so hard I burst an ear drum. I broke my leg in a few spot and tore ligaments in my right knee, it also squeezed me so hard that it made me soil my wetsuit. Heavy but lucky also.
Mark Healey
There’s a lot of them, but a long time ago, the first time I went to Jaws. I surfed all day and was really tired. It was the first time I've ever towed there and it was still the biggest I've seen it so far. I barely stayed conscious and I took about four more really really really big waves on the head. I ended up getting absolutely smashed on a really, really big wave and it ripped my vest in half and pulled it off me. I was so spun out and really tired, it was the end of the day and my whole body was cramping up. I barely stayed conscious and I took about four more really really really big waves on the head, barely pulling it off the whole time. I lost like 15 minutes of time after that. Yeah that was probably the worst. But you know it happens, it's part of the deal.
Andrew Cotton
I got caught inside at Nazaré on the big swell last October, the swell that Maya nearly drowned. It wasn't just the fact I was about get get the biggest wave I've ever seen on my head but also I was right in front of the light house which is probably the worst place you can be. It was possibly the scariest few seconds of my life facing that wave with millions of thoughts whizzing through my brain, but it ended up not being that bad. Of course I got smashed and held down for quite a while but as soon as I came up Hugo Vau was there on the back up rescue ski and pulled me to safety.
Shane Dorian
It happened on my first trip to Mavericks. I had a great first day and the next day I was confident and wanted to catch a huge one. That wave came to me and I ended up wiping out really bad and having a two-wave hold down. It was a super close call.
Garrett MacNamara
All my experiences have been amazing. Never had a near death experience but so many injuries. I remember the scariest was breaking an eardrum at Sunset and again at Lani's. They were both the scariest because you don't know which way is up and you seem to swim down instead of up I remember swimming into the reef and the only way I found the surface was climbing the leash. As you get to the surface it seems and feels like you are in the eye of a hurricane, it is so loud and you are spinning and then the next wave rolls over and your going through it all over again. So scary because you feel totally out of control, you have control of your bodily functions but everything is spinning so you can't figure out what is going on. If it is your first time especially because you really don't understand what's going on or what to do.
Cover shot by Callum MacaulaySlicker liquor: Oil spill easier to take with local cocktails
The Tar Ball, made by Anvil Bar & Refuge owner Bobby Heugel. The Tar Ball, made by Anvil Bar & Refuge owner Bobby Heugel. Photo: Johnny Hanson, Chronicle Photo: Johnny Hanson, Chronicle Image 1 of / 4 Caption Close Slicker liquor: Oil spill easier to take with local cocktails 1 / 4 Back to Gallery
When life hands you lemons, the smart thing to do is make lemonade. But what about when life hands you tar balls?
Well, you could get very upset (and rightly so). You could rage against the situation. You could find someone to sue. You could start pitching in to clean. Or you could turn a blind eye.
Or you could have a drink. Several drinks.
The tar balls that washed ashore in Galveston — identified earlier this week as having come from the BP well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico — are wicked things, ugly reminders of a still-unfolding tragedy.
But in the spirit of making lemonade, we asked a handful of local bartenders to concoct a tar-ball cocktail. Not so much as a way to drink away the oil disaster but as a social commentary on a shared public event.
Some may regard a drink called the Tar Ball (or the Slick) as an unsavory ooze of poor taste. But Bobby Heugel, the gentleman bartender of Anvil Bar & Refuge, sees it differently. People are talking about what's happened in the Gulf and about the tar balls, he said — no way around that. A drink to mark the event, however upsetting, is part of a historical cocktail tradition, he said.
"Cocktails have always been named after current events. Bars in the day were gathering places for politics and social commentary. Naturally, drinks got named after events," Heugel said. "It's pretty commonplace."
Evan Turner, managing partner/sommelier at Branch Water Tavern, said the Gulf situation continues to resonate with his customers, who are asking whether shrimp, oysters and fish are safe to eat (yes, they are). "We're all dealing with a really awful situation," he said. "It's definitely becoming an issue we experience on a daily basis."
Anthony Montz, bar manager and mixologist of Hearsay Gastro Lounge downtown, said that talk at the bar about the Gulf disaster often takes on very personal tones because the city is tied so much to seafood and the oil industry. "Customers are naturally going to be talking about it," he said.
And if they're not, a drink with a politically incorrect name always makes for "lively discussion," he said. "You have to keep things interesting."
So sip on your slicks and pound back your tar balls (all the drinks below will be served at their respective bars). Think of them as a way to reclaim your beach, save your shorelines and thumb your nose at black globs. Go ahead, savor your lemonade.
THE TAR BALL
Courtesy of Bobby Heugel, Anvil Bar & Refuge
2 ounces Cruzan Black Strap Rum
½ ounce Del Maguey Cichicapa Mezcal
½ ounce Taylor's Velvet Falernum
2 dashes Angostura Bitters
Pour ingredients in a highball glass. Stir gently. Fill with crushed ice. Garnish with a lime wedge.
Heugel's take on the Tar Ball: "It's a modern riff on a classic cocktail called Corn N' Oil," he said. The cocktail is marked by deep, dark, smoky flavors with a bit of spice courtesy of the falernum and the bitters. The "oil" is an obvious reference, and the black strap rum echoes the viscous nature of the stuff that makes a tar ball.
SLICK OF THIS
Courtesy of Evan Turner, Branch Water Tavern
1 ounce Citadel gin
1 ounce Campari
1 ounce Crism Organic Hibiscus Liqueur
½ ounce fresh lime juice
Pour into a cocktail shaker, fill with ice. Stir. And strain into a cocktail glass. Served up with a lime twist.
Turner's take on Slick of This: Reading day after day about the disaster, Turner found himself "sick of this" - hence, Slick of This. "It's bitter, cynical and tongue-in-cheek at the same time. So I thought it would be an appropriate way to give it a name and at the same time scold the situation." The drink, he said, is refreshing, "but there's a slight edge of bitterness to it, which is apropos."
THE SLICK
Courtesy of Anthony Montz, Hearsay Gastro Lounge
2 ounces Double Cross Vodka
1 black truffle mousse-stuffed olive
Pour vodka in a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Stir. Pour into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with olive.
Montz's take on The Slick: Double Cross is a new Slovakian vodka that is seven times distilled and filtered (the bottle also looks as sturdy as an oil tanker). Hearsay stuffs green olives with its own black truffle mousse, and the olives are stored in an unctuous mix of olive and truffle oil. The olives create a sheen of oil on top of the martini that also provides a powerful aromatic whiff.
greg.morago@chron.comPolice in Washington, D.C., are asking the public's help to identify two women accused of sexually assaulting a man by twerking against him and fondling his genitalia.
The incident happened Oct. 7 around 4 p.m. at a store on the 1700 block of New York Avenue.
Surveillance video shows a man talking on the phone while getting money from an ATM.
In the footage, two African-American women in short dresses come into the store. One of the women, wearing a silver dress, rubs her butt against the front of the man while purchasing something.
When the victim backs away, her friend, in a short red dress makes several attempts to cozy up to the man, including trying to touch his pants inseam.
It appears the man did not know the women and had no interest in getting better acquainted.
The two women left the store, but police are now trying to find them.
The twerking might seem like fun and games to some, but DC police believe the two women should be charged with third-degree sexual assault.
That charge includes inappropriate touching and “involves actual force, threats putting the person in fear of death, bodily injury or kidnapping, or rendering the person unconscious,” according to WTVR.com.
Anyone who recognizes either of the two persons of interest is asked to contact DC police at (202) 727-9099.
These aren't the first women whose twerking has run afoul of the law.
In April 2014, three women in Beaverton, Oregon, were arrested after two of them began "twerking" near the town courthouse while the other filmed it.
This past April, three women in southern Russia were sentenced to brief jail terms after making a twerking video on the site of a World War II memorial.Hundreds of ‘black hat’ accounts on English Wikipedia were found to be connected during the investigation. The usernames (green) and IP addresses (yellow) have been removed from the image. Graph by James Alexander, freely licensed under CC-by-SA 3.0.
After weeks of investigation, volunteer editors on the English Wikipedia announced today that they blocked 381 user accounts for “black hat” editing.[1] The accounts were engaged in undisclosed paid advocacy—the practice of accepting or charging money to promote external interests on Wikipedia without revealing their affiliation, in violation of Wikimedia’s Terms of Use. The editors issued these blocks as part of their commitment to ensuring Wikipedia is an accurate, reliable, and neutral knowledge resource for everyone.
The community of volunteers who maintain and edit Wikipedia vigilantly defend the Wikimedia sites to ensure that content meets high editorial standards. Every day, volunteer editors make thousands of edits to Wikipedia: they add reliable sources, introduce new topics, expand articles, add images, cover breaking news, fix inaccuracies, and resolve conflicts of interest. Wikipedia is the encyclopedia anyone can edit, and its open model makes it a rich and reliable resource for the world.
Neutrality is key to ensuring Wikipedia’s quality. Although it does not happen often, undisclosed paid advocacy editing may represent a serious conflict of interest and could compromise the quality of content on Wikipedia. The practice is in conflict with a number of English Wikipedia’s policies, including neutrality and conflict of interest, and is a violation of the Wikimedia Foundation’s Terms of Use.
With this action, volunteer editors have taken a strong stand against undisclosed paid advocacy. In addition to blocking the 381 “sockpuppet” accounts—a term that refers to multiple accounts used in misleading or deceptive ways—the editors deleted 210 articles created by these accounts. Most of these articles, which were related to businesses, business people, or artists, were generally promotional in nature, and often included biased or skewed information, unattributed material, and potential copyright violations. The edits made by the sockpuppets are similar enough that the community believes they were perpetrated by one coordinated group.
Community opposition to undisclosed paid advocacy editing on English Wikipedia has a long history, reaching back to at least 2004 when the first conflict of interest guidelines were introduced. Since then, the English Wikipedia community has been vocal about its opposition to this practice. In October 2013, Wikipedia volunteers blocked hundreds of accounts related to the consulting firm Wiki-PR. The Wikimedia Foundation responded with a formal statement, which described undisclosed paid advocacy as “violating the core principles that have made Wikipedia so valuable for so many people,” and sent a cease and desist letter. The Foundation later amended its Terms of Use to clarify and strengthen its ban on the practice.
Not all paid editing is a violation of Wikipedia policies. Many museum and university employees from around the world edit by disclosing their official affiliations, and several prominent public relations firms have signed an agreement to abide by Wikipedia’s paid editing guidelines. Editing Wikipedia is completely free, and only requires compliance with the project’s editorial guidelines. If someone does have a conflict of interest or is uncomfortable editing the site directly, there are several other options to bring the subject to a volunteer’s attention.
Readers trust Wikipedia to offer accurate, neutral content, and undisclosed paid advocacy editing violates that trust. Sadly, it also deceives the subjects of articles, who may simply be unaware that they are in violation of the spirit and policies of Wikipedia. No one should ever have to pay to create or maintain a Wikipedia article. Wikimedia volunteers are vigilant, and articles created by paid advocates will be identified in due time. The Wikimedia Foundation stands with the Wikipedia community in their efforts to make reliable, accurate knowledge available for everyone.
More information about this case is available in the community announcement, and editor community discussion is ongoing.
Ed Erhart, Editorial Associate
Juliet Barbara, Senior Communications Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
[1] Wikipedia editors are referring to this case as “Orangemoody” after the first sockpuppet identified during the investigation.The powers of Presidents are often over-exaggerated. They are not, as many people seem to believe, king of the country. Our 3 branch separation of powers places firm limits on what the President can unilaterally do or change. This means that even if a President wants to change something, he may not have the “political capital” – that is, the support of those in Congress – to get it done alone. Still, we rightly look to the President as the most powerful person on Earth and at least hope he will try to change things for the better. In that vein, here are 25 things that President-elect Barack Obama should at least try to change.
1. Get us out of Iraq
Though many Democrats have overstated the necessesity to end the Iraq war, it does need to end. What began as a noble quest to depose a terrible and potentially dangerous dictator has metastasized into an open-ended sinkhole of American lives, time, and money. Unlike past legitimate wars like World Wars 1 & 2 (or even Desert Storm) there appears to be no clear goal or end-game in Iraq. No one knows what we are waiting for to declare victory or defeat. President Obama should either define such a goal and promptly meet it, or begin withdrawing our troops. If Republican pundits want to call that “cutting and running”, so be it. As John T. Reed writes, “adults do not make life-and-death policy based on whether “one of the other kids” will call them chicken.
2. Jump start the economy following the financial meltdown
Obama spent the latter part of his campaign stating that the current 2008 financial meltdown is the worst economic problem since the Great Depression. Maybe. Regardless, the onus is clearly on President-elect Obama to help jump start the economy and rebuild consumer confidence. One of his plans for doing this is offering tax cuts for “working families”, which Obama defines as the 95% of Americans earning under $250,000 per year. His “Making Work Pay” tax credit would give $500 in tax relief to singles or $1,000 to married couples filing jointly. Most economists agree that tax cuts do indeed boost economic activity, so hopefully, these will become law.
3. Eliminate capital gains taxes (at least for small businesses)
Another specific proposal for jump starting the economy is eliminating capital gains taxes, which |
FC slated to select first at the 2017 MLS SuperDraft in January.
Atlanta won the Expansion Priority Draft coin flip, giving them the first choice of priority across six different player acquisition methods up for grabs on Sunday. Atlanta club president Darren Eales opted for the Expansion Draft, during which both expansion clubs will pick five unprotected players from current MLS rosters.
Minnesota sporting director Manny Lagos then chose to claim the first overall pick in January’s SuperDraft. Atlanta will pick second at the SuperDraft.
With the third pick, Atlanta selected to hold first position in the league’s Allocation Ranking Order. Minnesota followed by choosing to have first priority in the USL/NASL Player Priority Ranking.
The draft then ended with Atlanta choosing the higher ranking (21st) for the 2016 Waiver Draft and Re-Entry Draft, while Minnesota wound up with the 21st spot in the MLS Discovery Player Ranking.
Expansion Priority Draft Results
Atlanta:
Expansion Draft - No. 1 pick
SuperDraft - No. 2 pick
Allocation - No. 1 pick
USL/NASL Priority - No. 2 pick
Waiver/Re-Entry - No. 21 pick
Discovery - No. 22 pick
MinnesotaTheresa May is prepared to lift the requirement on city regions to have directly-elected mayors in order to be granted devolution deals from the Government, it has been reported.
George Osborne was one of the leading advocates of metropolitan mayors to give more democratic accountability as groups of local authorities took over more powers from Whitehall.
Elections for the mayoralties of Greater Manchester, Liverpool and the West Midlands are due to go ahead next May.
But The Times reports that future devolution deals may not be contingent on the local authorities agreeing to the new mayoralties.
“There is a debate now going on in No 10 about whether to drop the need for them or not,” a source told the newspaper.
“The case for dropping it is because it has caused huge angst in some parts of the country.
“In Greater Manchester there is neat geography but in other parts the problem is you are cutting councils in half like Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Hampshire and that is a big challenge to agree to a mayor.”
Another source said that the prospect of helping the Labour party could be a factor in the policy.
“One issue is that although the Labour party is in meltdown [mayors] do allow the acceptable face of the party a safe haven and a platform for the next few years,” they said.0 Shares
This year the WWE Hall of Fame inducted the Fabulous Freebirds. It appears like WWE Hall of Famer Bret Hart thinks that there were some more deserving names that should have went in first. In a recent interview with Forbes, Bret talks about some notable omissions from the Hall of Fame.
Bret Hart mentions: Rick Rude, The Fabulous Rougeaus and Demolition as names that should be into the Hall Of Fame before the Freebirds:
“Why have they been overlooked when you can induct the Freebirds, who never did squat in WWE? Ever. Never drew any money, never did anything. When I remember the Freebirds, they were all drunk and passed out at the gate at one of the airports in my first day in WWF. None of them even made the show that day, they were too drunk to make their plane” (Source: Forbes).
[irp posts=”16402″ name=”Bret Hart Tells A Funny Story About ‘The British Bulldog’ Davey Boy Smith”]
On the Freebirds being inducted before Owen Hart:
“I’ve always gotten along with [Michael Hayes], but as far as their contribution to wrestling, gimme a break. They were all pill heads and, for lack of a better word, they were all screw-ups. They’re not picking the cream of the crop, they’re picking whoever the first person they see on the list and they go ‘he would be easy to fly in. If you’re going to have a Hall of Fame, you’ve got to have Owen Hart in the Hall of Fame” (Source: Forbes).
You can find the full interview at the source link.
Bret’s point is more regarding the WWE Hall of Fame should be based on your accomplishments in WWE first. The Freebirds had an incredible impact on the wrestling world but in different companies.
Let us know what you think of his comments.Slovaks have began voting in the first round of a presidential election that Prime Minister Robert Fico is poised to win, sparking concern that his party could monopolise power.
Victory on Saturday for the ex-Communist Fico would mean the presidency, parliament and government is controlled by the same party, the Social Democrats, for the first time since Slovakia won independence in 1993.
Fico, 49, has earned valuable political capital during his two terms as prime minister with an anti-austerity agenda tempered by fiscal discipline, according to the AFP news agency.
He commands around 35 percent support in opinion polls and is most likely to face non-partisan millionaire-turned-philanthropist Andrej Kiska in a possible runoff vote set for March 29.
Kiska, 51 and without a Communist party past, has scored 24 percent support in pre-election polls and is seen as politically untainted.
Other, less popular contenders include actor Milan Knazko, a leading figure from the 1989 Velvet Revolution that peacefully dismantled Communism in what was then Czechoslovakia; Radoslav Prochazka, a constitutional lawyer; and former parliament speaker Pavol Hrusovsky, a Christian Democrat.
Presidential system
Fico would need to get more than 50 percent of votes cast on Saturday to avoid a runoff.
The prospect of Fico consolidating his power has galvanised both the political class and voters in the country of 5.4 million, which joined the European Union in 2004 and the eurozone in 2009.
The election has become "a referendum on Robert Fico's government and the concentration of power", Grigorij Meseznikov from the Bratislava-based Institute for Public Affairs told AFP.
A Fico win would trigger a reshuffle in his one-party government, but it would still control a comfortable 83-seat majority in the 150-member parliament until the 2016 general elections.Standing before the cheering throngs at the Republican National Convention last summer, Donald Trump bemoaned how special interests had rigged the country’s politics and its economy, leaving Americans victimized by unfair trade deals, incompetent bureaucrats and spineless leaders.
He swooped into politics, he declared, to subvert the powerful and rescue those who cannot defend themselves. “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.”
To Trump’s faithful, those words were a rallying cry. But his critics heard something far more menacing in them: a dangerously authoritarian vision of the presidency — one that would crop up time and again as he talked about overruling generals, disregarding international law, ordering soldiers to commit war crimes, jailing his opponent.
Support our journalism Become a subscriber today to support editorial writing like this. Start getting full access to our signature journalism for just 99 cents for the first four weeks.
Trump has no experience in politics; he’s never previously run for office or held a government position. So perhaps he was unaware that one of the hallmarks of the American system of government is that the president’s power to “fix” things unilaterally is constrained by an array of strong institutions — including the courts, the media, the permanent federal bureaucracy and Congress. Combined, they provide an essential defense against an imperial presidency.
Yet in his first weeks at the White House, President Trump has already sought to undermine many of those institutions. Those that have displayed the temerity to throw some hurdle in the way of a Trump objective have quickly felt the heat.
Consider Trump’s feud with the courts.
He has repeatedly questioned the impartiality and the motives of judges. For example, he attacked the jurists who ruled against his order excluding travelers from seven majority Muslim nations, calling one a “so-called judge” and later tweeting:
Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system. People pouring in. Bad! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 5, 2017
It’s nothing new for presidents to disagree with court decisions. But Trump’s direct, personal attacks on judges’ integrity and on the legitimacy of the judicial system itself — and his irresponsible suggestion that the judiciary should be blamed for future terrorist attacks — go farther. They aim to undermine public faith in the third branch of government.
The courts are the last line of defense for the Constitution and the rule of law; that’s what makes them such a powerful buffer against an authoritarian leader. The president of the United States should understand that and respect it.
Other institutions under attack include:
1The electoral process. Faced with certified election results showing that Hillary Clinton outpolled him by nearly 3 million votes, Trump repeated the unsubstantiated — and likely crackpot — assertion that Clinton’s supporters had duped local polling places with millions of fraudulent votes. In a democracy, the right to vote is the one check that the people themselves hold against their leaders; sowing distrust in elections is the kind of thing leaders do when they don’t want their power checked.
2The intelligence community. After reports emerged that the Central Intelligence Agency believed Russia had tried to help Trump win, the president-elect’s transition team responded: “These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.” It was a snarky, dismissive, undermining response — and the administration has continued to belittle the intelligence community and question its motives since then, while also leaking stories about possibly paring and restructuring its ranks. It is bizarre to watch Trump continue to tussle publicly with this particular part of the government, whose leaders he himself has appointed, as if he were still an outsider candidate raging against the machine. It’s unnerving too, given the intelligence services’ crucial role in protecting the country against hidden risks, assisting the U.S. military and helping inform Trump’s decisions.
3The media. Trump has blistered the mainstream media for reporting that has cast him in a poor light, saying outlets concocted narratives based on nonexistent anonymous sources. In February he said that the “fake news” media will “never represent the people,” adding ominously: “And we’re going to do something about it.” His goal seems to be to defang the media watchdog by making the public doubt any coverage that accuses Trump of blundering or abusing his power.
4Federal agencies. In addition to calling for agency budgets to be chopped by up to 30%, Trump appointed a string of Cabinet secretaries who were hostile to much of their agencies’ missions and the laws they’re responsible for enforcing. He has also proposed deep cuts in federal research programs, particularly in those related to climate change. It’s easier to argue that climate change isn’t real when you’re no longer collecting the data that documents it.
In a way, Trump represents a culmination of trends that have been years in the making.
Conservative talk radio hosts have long blasted federal judges as “activists” and regulators as meddlers in the economy, while advancing the myth of rampant election fraud. And gridlock in Washington has led previous presidents to try new ways to circumvent the checks on their power — witness President George W. Bush’s use of signing statements to invalidate parts of bills Congress passed, and President Obama’s aggressive use of executive orders when lawmakers balked at his proposals.
What’s uniquely threatening about Trump’s approach, though, is how many fronts he’s opened in this struggle for power and the vehemence with which he seeks to undermine the institutions that don’t go along.
It’s one thing to complain about a judicial decision or to argue for less regulation, but to the extent that Trump weakens public trust in essential institutions like the courts and the media, he undermines faith in democracy and in the system and processes that make it work.
“ He sees himself as not merely a force for change, but as a wrecking ball. ” Share this quote
Trump betrays no sense for the president’s place among the myriad of institutions in the continuum of governance. He seems willing to violate long-established political norms without a second thought, and he cavalierly rejects the civility and deference that allow the system to run smoothly. He sees himself as not merely a force for change, but as a wrecking ball.
Will Congress act as a check on Trump’s worst impulses as he moves forward? One test is the House and Senate intelligence committees’ investigation into Russia’s meddling in the presidential election; lawmakers need to muster the courage to follow the trail wherever it leads. Can the courts stand up to Trump? Already, several federal judges have issued rulings against the president’s travel ban. And although Trump has railed against the decisions, he has obeyed them.
None of these institutions are eager to cede authority to the White House and they won’t do so without a fight. It would be unrealistic to suggest that America’s most basic democratic institutions are in imminent jeopardy.
But we should not view them as invulnerable either. Remember that Trump’s verbal assaults are directed at the public, and are designed to chip away at people’s confidence in these institutions and deprive them of their validity. When a dispute arises, whose actions are you going to consider legitimate? Whom are you going to trust? That’s why the public has to be wary of Trump’s attacks on the courts, the “deep state,” the “swamp.” We can’t afford to be talked into losing our faith in the forces that protect us from an imperial presidency.
This is the third in a series.BART Police ID suspect wanted in gunpoint robbery on train
BART Police identified Fredachi Stone, 37, as the suspect pictured here in a Sept. 11 gunpoint robbery of a woman riding on a train between the Hayward and South Hayward stations. BART Police identified Fredachi Stone, 37, as the suspect pictured here in a Sept. 11 gunpoint robbery of a woman riding on a train between the Hayward and South Hayward stations. Photo: BART Police / / Photo: BART Police / / Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close BART Police ID suspect wanted in gunpoint robbery on train 1 / 1 Back to Gallery
BART Police released a new photo of a man suspected of robbing a woman aboard a Fremont-bound train last month.
The suspect, Fredachi Stone, is wanted in connection with a Sept. 11 gunpoint robbery of a woman on a train between the Hayward and South Hayward stations, police said. He approached the victim on the train and showed what looked to be a black semi-automatic handgun before grabbing the victim’s purse and getting off the train at South Hayward station. The victim was uninjured in the encounter.
Police described Stone as 5-foot-9-inches tall and 187 pounds. He has no known address, police said, but is known to frequent the area around 81st Avenue in Oakland.
The newly released photo clearly shows Stone’s face. An earlier photo, taken from a surveillance camera, helped investigators identify Stone via an anonymous tip.
Police said Stone should be considered armed and dangerous. Anyone with information on the suspect can contact police by calling (510) 464-7040.
Annie Ma is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: ama@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @anniema15Valentino Rossi will start Sunday's German MotoGP from sixth on the grid after declaring there was'something wrong' with his second new tyre in qualifying.
"Fortunately I did quite a good lap with the first tyre," said Rossi, who inked a new two-year Yamaha contract earlier this week.
"Usually you can go faster with the second tyre by two or three tenths, but there was something wrong with the second tyre. It didn't have any grip and it was also very difficult to get the bike back to the pit box. There was something wrong, so unfortunately I couldn't push.
"Anyway I'm on the second row and the second row is the limit for a good race. Today we worked well on the bike, we're not so bad, but for tomorrow it will be hard. The three Hondas are very fast so we have to improve.
Rossi added: "This is a Honda track for three or four seasons. In 2012 I remember Pedrosa and Stoner were 10 seconds in front of Jorge because there are tight corners with acceleration from slow speed. And there are two-third hard braking, especially at turn one, where the Honda is better than us.
"For us it is a difficult track. It is flowing but maybe a bit too tight for the M1. We are not so far away and I am close on the rhythm. For me Marquez is faster but I am close to Dani and today me and Jorge have the same speed."
Team-mate Jorge Lorenzo, who will start from fifth position, described a similar tyre problem in qualifying.
Yamaha team manager Massimo Meregalli confirmed: "Unfortunately we weren't able to improve on the lap time in qualifying with the second tyre as for some reason the grip provided by it was not at the same level as the first, making it almost impossible for the riders to improve."
Rossi heads into Sunday's race joint second with Dani Pedrosa in the world championship standings. Pedrosa qualified in second place, between Repsol Honda team-mate Marc Marquez and LCR Honda's Stefan Bradl.The right to own weapons in America is under ever-increasing scrutiny and pressure, with constant demands for a blockade against such an antiquated notion. The recurrent specter of massacres which are endlessly replayed upon mainstream news stations only add to the sense that the US Constitution is an old instrument completely out of tune with the modern tenor.
And yet when one ponders the hundreds of millions murdered arbitrarily, in just the last century, by governments refusing to accept civil rights—it gives one pause. Further, certainly guns stop a large number of crimes each year, with one writer estimating upwards of 12 million serious crimes in America. Certainly the number of stopped crimes is in the millions. And is this not better than being defenseless at home when a burglar breaks in and the police are many minutes away? Further, if we claim the Right to Life, Liberty and Happiness does not at least include the right to defend one’s own person against attack, could we possibly be correctly interpreting the Founder’s intent in the Constitution and Declaration? Did these brilliant men really expect law-abiding Americans to flush their rights down the commode and refuse to defend themselves to the point of suicidal non-resistance?
Amendment II
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
But what does the Second Amendment really mean? And what is its history? This essay attempts a brief outline of these questions.
I. English Foundation of Right to Bear Arms
One cannot understand the American Constitution’s 2nd Amendment without first outlining the British theory of citizen arms. It was an ancient practice in England for the people to be allowed weapons, according to Joyce Lee Malcolm in To Keep And Bear Arms, The Origins of an Anglo-American Right. Moreover, it was a demand by the crown that citizens be available for militias, both armed and trained. In fact, there was popular resistance to standing armies, whom did not arrive until the conclusion of the Civil Wars of the mid-17th century. Even afterward, there was a longstanding resistance to them.
There was originally no “right” of British subjects to possess or carry arms. Instead, there was a duty, which existed to the king from time immemorial. Writes Malcolm,
From “time out of mind” the Englishman had been obliged to add to his other civic duties the dangerous chore of law enforcement. His first responsibility was to defend himself. He was also expected to protect his family and his property against attack. It was assumed he would have the means at hand to do this; and he was held legally blameless for any harm inflicted upon his assailants.
Further, Englishmen were also expected to protect their neighbors, as well. Says Malcolm,
It is natural to expect a man to defend himself and his loved ones, but the Englishman was obliged to protect his neighbor as well. From at least the early Middle Ages, whenever a serious crime occurred villagers, “ready appareled,” were to raise a “hue and cry” and, under the supervision of the local constable or sheriff, pursue the culprit “from town to town, and from county to county,” on “pain of grievous fine.”
The 2nd Statute of Winchester (1285) codified the demand for Englishmen to bear arms to defend themselves and others, stating:
Whereas every day robbery, homicide, and arson are committed more frequently than used to be the case, and felonies escape…it is commanded that every man shall have in his house arms for keeping the peace according to the ancient assize….
In brief, all able-bodied men were held responsible to have arms and be trained in their use for defense of themselves, their family and neighbors, and the homeland. Henry VIII fined those families who had not bought their sons a bow and two arrows, and trained them how to use them, by age 7. Historian F.W. Maitland describes in The History of English Law before the Time of Edward I, how virtually all Englishmen were expected to bear arms: “The state in its exactions pays little heed to the line between free and bond, it expects all men, not merely all freemen, to have arms.” Therefore, England wanted all its men people to be armed and assembled into militias.
The Statute of Winchester became the foundational document creating English law enforcement. But the first explication of the armed citizen as a bulwark against tyranny is found in James’ Harrington’s The Commonwealth of Oceana (1656). Harrington called for an armed citizenry and denoounced government by army. English historian John Pocock described his idea: “only the armed freeholder was capable of independence and virtue.” This theory was grounded in brave landowners who defended their plot of English soil, while those refusing were moral failures: “citizens who do not defend themselves abandon a vital part of their power and virtue.”
Harrington’s model was what Pocock describes as a hardy soul, autonomous in his own defense, who could be described as an “agrarian warrior.” Such a person would undoubtedly be welcomed by our own Founders, who likewise tended to be independent men of the soil, happy to mind their own business until liberty was at stake.
II. British Militias
The militia clause in the 2nd Amendment is derived from the English habit of using private citizens to protect the land, as opposed to standing armies. The English employed militias for centuries as an alternative to armies, which they viewed as un-virtuous and dangerous. England was better able to avoid the need for permanent armies since it was an island nation, not as at risk from its borders. Mercenaries were detested. In fact, in Magna Carta, King John had been required to remove them:
51. As soon as peace is restored, we will banish from the kingdom all foreign born knights, crossbowmen, serjeants, and mercenary soldiers who have come with horses and arms to the kingdom’s hurt.
Militias were funded by a tax levied upon anyone with an income, even the clergy and the poor. A lower class person or family might be expected to locate a modest armament or supplies, whereas someone of means was expected to produce a more formidable offering. At any time in the 17th century, there were at least 90,000 militia members between England, Scotland and Wales.
The idea of a trained-to-arms populace was championed by various thinkers, such as Sir Walter Raleigh, who pointed out that the goal of a tyrant was “...to unarm his people of weapons, money and all means whereby they resist his power.” Likewise, Sir Thomas More, in Utopia, urged the training of all men and women to defend their homeland and friends. The militia was ordered to train on a regular basis, employing “butts,” or targets, for bow and arrow, and gun practice. The militia was a defensive force, not available for use outside the homeland.
Overall, militias were more than sufficient for defense of the realm for over a thousand years.
III. American Right to Bear Arms: Second Amendment
Any study of the Second Amendment demands a preliminary question: If the Declaration of Independence (the introduction to our Constitution) declares “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”—How can guns used merely for self-protection of the owner’s life be unconstitutional? Further, how could the same Constitution which defends life, and forcefully gives rights for arms, not allow personal use of guns for self-defense?
Before venturing into defining the Second Amendment, we must first accept an obvious, albeit neglected point—that only by studying the British legal history that gave rise to America’s Constitution can we hope to understand its points. This position was already affirmed in the Supreme Court case of EX PARTE GROSSMAN, 267 U.S. 87 (1925):
The language of the Constitution cannot be interpreted safely except by reference to the common law and to [267 U.S. 87, 109] British institutions as they were when the instrument was framed and adopted. The statesmen and lawyers of the Convention who submitted it to the ratification of the Convention of the Thirteen States, were born and brought up in the atmosphere of the common law, and thought and spoke in its vocabulary. They were familiar with other forms of government, recent and ancient, and indicated in their discussions earnest study and consideration of many of them, but when they came to put their conclusions into the form of fundamental law in a compact draft, they expressed them in terms of the common law, confident that they could be shortly and easily understood.
The American history of guns and citizens predates the writing of the Declaration, Constitution, and Bill of Rights. According to Leonard Levy in Origins of the Bill of Rights, during the tense days of the American Revolution, and conversations regarding drafting the Constitution, Thomas Jefferson urged principal author James Madison to include a Bill of Rights. Madison resisted because he and many others believed rights theory was so omnipresent in America as to need no explanation, or defense. Madison relented, then glossed the States’ bills of rights, gleaning the cream from the crop, while adding a few novel and ingenious twists.
The Second Amendment was an innovation upon the English duty to bear arms. Madison gives the colonists a Right to bear arms, which cannot be removed by government fiat. One argument over the meaning of the Second Amendment involves whether arms can only be used by militia members or in a militia. This argument is rejected by both Levy and Malcolm.
To prove that early Americans even even demanded gun ownership, Malcolm shows how arms were a desired aspect of life in the earliest States. The State’s Constitutions, Bills of Rights, and also the Articles of Confederation—the precedent before the Constitution, prove her point. For example, in the law of the 1623 Plymouth Colony, was a demand all persons be armed: “In regard of our dispersion so far asunder and the inconveniences that may befall, that every inhabitant provide himself a sufficient musket or other or other serviceable piece for war.” Again, a 1639 Newport, Virginia law stated, “Noe man shall go two miles from the Towne unarmed, eyther with Gunn or Sword; and that none shall come to any public Meeting without his weapon.” These examples could be expanded liberally.
It is clear that the American colonial impulse was for having more armed residents, not less. Further, restrictions upon those who could, or could not, own a weapon as regards class, income or gender, were not carried across the Atlantic from England to the States.
The anti-tax revolts stirred up a general distrust of English government, and especially over King George’s high-handed manner. This caused an upsurge in gun ownership as Americans began to fear they may be forced to defend their land, property and lives. The standing armies left behind after the French And Indian War infuriated Americans who saw such a maneuver as a sign of subjugation. In fact, the tax proceeds from the hated Stamp Act were used to provision this force which caused fear of government by army.
The intellectuals who most influenced the colonists also supported gun rights. For example, the most quoted British writer in the States, William Blackstone, was cited by Madison:
Instances of the licentious and outrageous behavior of the military conservators still multiply upon us, some of which are of such nature, and have been carried to such lengths, as must serve fully to evince that a late vote of this town, calling upon its inhabitants to provide themselves with arms for their defence, was a measure as prudent as it was legal… It is a natural right which the people have reserved to themselves, confirmed by the [English] Bill of Rights to keep arms for their own defence; and as Mr. Blackstone observes: it is to be made use of when the sanctions of society and law are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.
Early state constitutions reveal that the colonists and Founders well understood the need for arms to defend not just the state, but also individuals, as the Pennsylvania constitution states: “Section 21. Right to Bear Arms—The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be questioned.” While John Locke and Thomas Jefferson are both well-known as defending the right to revolt against tyranny, the New Hampshire constitution goes farther, stating that to not resist tyranny is the hallmark of the slave:
[Art.] 10. [Right of Revolution.] Government being instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security, of the whole community, and not for the private interest or emolument of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, whenever the ends of government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought to reform the old, or establish a new government. The doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power, and oppression, is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind.—June 2, 1784
Conclusion
In an age of increasing lawlessness, in both society and government, it is prudent for Americans to study and remember our right—and keep them neatly tucked into our belts, for ready access in times of emergency.
Here are some quotes from the Founders on the right to be armed:
“A free people ought to be armed.”—George Washington
“A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government.”—George Washington
“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”—Benjamin Franklin
“No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.”—Thomas Jefferson
“I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.”—Thomas Jefferson
“The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes…. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”—Thomas Jefferson (quoting 18th century criminologist Cesare Beccaria)
“A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.” - Thomas Jefferson
“The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.”—Thomas Jefferson
“On every occasion [of Constitutional interpretation] let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying [to force] what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, [instead let us] conform to the probable one in which it was passed.”—Thomas Jefferson
“I enclose you a list of the killed, wounded, and captives of the enemy from the commencement of hostilities at Lexington in April, 1775, until November, 1777, since which there has been no event of any consequence... I think that upon the whole it has been about one half the number lost by them, in some instances more, but in others less. This difference is ascribed to our superiority in taking aim when we fire; every soldier in our army having been intimate with his gun from his infancy.”—Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Giovanni Fabbroni, June 8, 1778
“Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at individual discretion in private self defense.”—John Adams
“To disarm the people is the most effectual way to enslave them.”—George Mason
“I ask sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people except for a few politicians.”—George Mason (father of the Bill of Rights and The Virginia Declaration of Rights)
“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe.”—Noah Webster
“The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops.”—Noah Webster
“A government resting on the minority is an aristocracy, not a Republic, and could not be safe with a numerical and physical force against it, without a standing army, an enslaved press and a disarmed populace.”—James Madison
“Americans have the right and advantage of being armed, unlike the people of other countries, whose leaders are afraid to trust them with arms.”—James Madison
“The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country.”—James Madison
“The ultimate authority resides in the people alone.”—James Madison
“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.”—William Pitt
“To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.”—Richard Henry Lee
“A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves... and include all men capable of bearing arms.”—Richard Henry Lee
“Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined…. The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun.”—Patrick Henry
“This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty…. The right of self defense is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.”—St. George Tucker
“... arms... discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property…. Horrid mischief would ensue were (the law-abiding) deprived the use of them.”—Thomas Paine
“The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.”—Samuel Adams
“The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.”—Joseph Story
“What, Sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty.... Whenever Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins.”—Rep. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts
”... for it is a truth, which the experience of all ages has attested, that the people are commonly most in danger when the means of insuring their rights are in the possession of those of whom they entertain the least suspicion.”—Alexander HamiltonRamsey Orta, who filmed a police officer fatally choking a Staten Island man during an arrest, was arraigned on gun charges yesterday. Orta is convinced the arrest was NYPD-style retribution, telling the Staten Island Advance that he's "100% sure" the cops set him up.
Police say that Orta tried to hide a gun on a 17-year-old girl on Saturday. Orta has been in the spotlight since the Daily News obtained his video documenting the July 17 arrest of Eric Garner, who died while the police were trying to restrain him and put him in a chokehold. Last week, Garner's death was ruled a homicide.
Orta insisted the gun wasn't his, "When they searched me, they didn't find nothing on me. And the same cop that searched me, he told me clearly himself, that karma's a bitch, what goes around comes around," Orta said, adding later, "I had nothing to do with this. I would be stupid to walk around with a gun after me being in the spotlight." He also explained what he was doing out:
My wife asked me to go get a Yoo-hoo and a Tylenol PM, so that's what I decided to do. I knew that they were following me from my house to KFC (on Victory Boulevard near Bay Street). When I went inside the bathroom in KFC and I came back out, they were still following me. So I walked up the hill towards Central Avenue, next thing I know, they jump out on me. "They searched me, they didn't find nothing. They searched the girl, they found the gun on her. Then all of a sudden, they're telling me to turn around."
Orta's family also said the police have been following him around since his incriminating video was shown. His wife said, "He called me and said, 'babe, hurry up and come over here. They’re trying to pin something on me.' The day after they declare it a |
primitive and intrinsically violent. White fears were further fed by a string of slave rebellions, from present-day Haiti to Nat Turner’s Virginia. For many whites, these seemed to confirm not the injustice of slavery but blacks’ “innate” propensity for violence. As a result, some white customers began to cast a wary eye on their barbers, who commanded resources and occupied positions of authority within their communities. Few seemed better poised to lead an insurrection.
These fears were made powerfully manifest in American fiction, where the figure of the murderous black barber became a fixture during the 19th century. Among the character’s more vivid appearances was a little-known 1847 vignette entitled “A Narrow Escape,” in which a wandering sailor enters an Alabama barbershop and watches helplessly as the shop’s barber slashes the throat of a customer. But the figure also appeared in better-known works of fiction, including Herman Melville’s Benito Cereno The results of these fears were dramatic. Between the turn of the century and 1850, American elites abandoned black-owned barbershops in considerable numbers. In major American cities, the number of barbers relative to the populations they served declined dramatically, as demand for their services plummeted. Ambitious young African-American men began to view barbering as a dead-end career. Meanwhile, at the other end of the social spectrum, immigrant barbers—many of them Germans—catered to a growing population of working-class customers: men too poor, and in many cases too resentful of black barbers’ success, to patronize the best black-owned barbershops. Thus, while whites, according to Douglas Bristol, constituted a mere 20 percent of Philadelphia’s barbers in 1850, by 1860 they represented a near majority. A handful of elite black barbers continued to prosper, but the days when African-Americans dominated the trade were coming to an end.
***** At the same time black barbers were falling out of favor, many elite white men were radically changing their views on grooming. Where the enlightened 18th century had favored a civilized, clean-shaven look, men of the mid-19th century preferred the untamed appearance of the rugged conqueror. But while facial hair ultimately became a potent symbol of mastery, it didn’t start out that way. If anything, men first adopted beards in a desperate attempt to alleviate the painfulness of their morning toilet. Without the assistance of their former barbers, shavers had to contend with the 19th-century straight razor. A delicate and temperamental tool, its paper-thin blade required regular, careful maintenance. Even the simplest misstep could ruin it, turning the morning shave into a tug-of-war between men and their facial hair. Still, this was preferable to the alternatives. Men were known to die of tetanus after using an ill-kept blade—Henry David Thoreau’s brother John was one of them. And many lived in fear of cutting their own throats. Even those who mastered the razor faced other trials. Despite the proliferation of pamphlets on the subject, straight-razor shaving remained a craft secret, largely confined to barbers. And home-shavers lacked many of the materials necessary for a comfortable shave—from clean water and good lighting to quality accoutrements like creams, oils, and brushes.
So it should come as little surprise that many men began avoiding shaving. Between 1800 and 1810, a mere 23 percent of grooming-related articles featured complaints of painful shaving. By the 1840s, that figure had ballooned to 45 percent. What had once been a mere annoyance turned into a veritable scourge. It was time for radical solution: Men eschewed razors in numbers and embarked, for the first time in centuries, on an era of beard-wearing. In an 1853 Punch magazine sketch satirizing the "beard movement," an old lady is approached by helpful railway guards and "concludes she is attacked by Brigands." The beards of the mid-1800s were different from earlier styles of facial hair, including the mutton chops sported by Presidents John Quincy Adams and Martin Van Buren. They were more unruly than the waxed mustaches and “wreath beards” of the 1820s, trends that had been inspired by the French aristocrat Count d’Orsay. Mid-19th-century facial hair was big and robust, reflecting a near-total independence from scissors and razor. At first, these untamed beards proved controversial. Many Americans continued to harbor 18th-century fears that beards marked maniacs, fanatics, and dissimulators. But by the late antebellum period, they were more widely accepted, thanks partly to a strenuous public relations campaign that reimagined the beard as a symbol of white, masculine supremacy.A little less than one year ago, I called the OnePlus One "the best flagship phone you can't buy" in my initial review. The phone had some impressive hardware at an amazing price, and in many ways it still does, but the system of invitations and qualifications built around actually buying the One made obtaining the device an exercise in frustration. It's taken them eleven months (and what seems like dozens of separate promotions and half-measures), but you can finally order a OnePlus One without an invitation of any kind starting today.
The announcement was made on the OnePlus website, forum, and Facebook page. There's a big red "buy" button on the main store, and both the 16GB white and 64GB black versions ($299 and $349, respectively) are currently in stock. You don't have to wait until Tuesday, you don't have to beg the official Twitter accounts, you don't have to spend time sucking up on the forums. You can exchange your legal tender directly for an electronic device. What a novel idea. OnePlus is offering discounts on various accessories to celebrate.
Of course if OnePlus had done this a little earlier, the company might have earned a little less scorn from frustrated would-be buyers. Most of the promotions for the last few months have simply focused on limited direct sales, and the less said about some of the company's ill-advised social media activities, the better. It doesn't help that a reliable report from Bloomberg is already drumming up interest for two new OnePlus devices to be released later this year, though whether or not those phones will be offered for direct sale isn't known.
One more thing: a scheduled over-the-air update for the One has been put on hold so that the company can implement a new feature. OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei had this to say on Twitter:
OTA rollout was paused due to new "OK OnePlus" feature being added. Should resume mid week. — Carl Pei (@getpeid) April 20, 2015
Pei later clarified that this is specifically for the recently-released CyanogenMod 12S, not the company's in-house Oxygen OS. "Okay OnePlus" is almost certainly a voice activation feature similar to "OK Google," which is now built into the Google search application - Pei even told Twitter followers that "it will work even when the screen is off." From context, it sounds like the voice activation may simply replace the "OK Google" phrase and activate the search function. It's basically just a bit of vocal branding. Those who currently have CyanogenMod 12S will receive an OTA update to enable the feature, and presumably it will come to Oxygen OS eventually.The judge does not specify whether new district lines need to be drawn for the elections. Judge tosses Fla. congressional map
A Florida judge ruled the state’s congressional map unconstitutional Thursday evening, a decision that could upend Republicans’ advantage in the state’s House delegation and leaves open the possibility of redrawing the districts in time for the 2014 elections.
Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis blasted the GOP-controlled state Legislature for working with political consultants to make a “mockery” of Florida’s Fair Districts amendments — passed by voters in 2010 — that call for the decennial redistricting process to be conducted without taking into account partisan makeup or incumbent advantage.
Story Continued Below
“Republican political consultants or operatives did in fact conspire to manipulate and influence the redistricting process,” Lewis writes in the opinion. “They made a mockery of the Legislature’s proclaimed transparency and open process of redistricting by doing all of this in the shadow of that process, utilizing the access it gave them to the decision makers, but going to great lengths to conceal from the public their plan and their participation in it.”
( Also on POLITICO: The summer sideshow)
Despite his harsh words for the GOP, Lewis does not specify whether new district lines need to be drawn for the 2014 elections. The court will have to order further motions to determine the next steps, but it’s unclear when those motions will be delivered. The Legislature is also expected to appeal the ruling to the state Supreme Court.
“Everyone in Florida is holding their breaths,” said Michael McDonald, an associate professor at George Mason University and redistricting consultant who has worked in several states. “It’s possible it could affect 2014. The scenario would be that he would order a remedial map in place. The primaries would possibly be moved back. At the same time, there will be appeals. … It’s a lot that has to happen. For that reason, I think it might not happen in time for 2014, but it could.”
The state’s filing deadline passed in early May, and the primary is scheduled for Aug. 26.
The two districts that violated the Fair Districts amendment covering congressional redistricting were the 5th and 10th Districts in central Florida — represented by Democrat Corrine Brown and Republican Dan Webster, respectively — according to Lewis, who ordered that they be redrawn. But changing the lines for two districts would also change the lines for every district they touch.
( Also on POLITICO: The verdict is in: ACA lowers uninsured)
Even though one of the districts that runs afoul of the state constitution is represented by a Democrat, Rep. Steve Israel, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, called the judge’s decision “a good day for Florida voters” in a statement. Depending on how the districts are redrawn, Democrats are still poised to pick up seats; Republicans currently hold a 17-10 advantage in the House delegation, despite an overall registration edge for Democrats.
“We applaud the courts for standing up for fairness by recognizing that the congressional map is partisan and unconstitutional. We will wait to see what the judge says about a new map, but it’s a good day for Florida voters,” he said.
The National Republican Congressional Committee did not immediately comment on the decision.
The judge’s ruling Thursday comes after a 12-day trial in May. Top state legislators and Republican consultants testified during the trial, as Democrats tried to show that political consultants were actively involved in helping the legislators draw the maps to give their party an advantage in several districts.
( Also on POLITICO: Employer mandate at heart of GOP-Obama suit)
The plaintiffs in the case — the League of Women Voters, Common Cause of Florida and other Democratic-aligned groups — were largely funded by National Democratic Redistricting Trust, which was formed to fund the party’s efforts to combat Republicans who sought to solidify their historic win in 2010 through the redistricting process.
Justin Levitt, a redistricting expert at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles who also worked as the Democratic National Committee’s National Voter Protection counsel in 2008, said even if the the judge’s decision does not affect 2014, it will have a huge impact.
“He took the new constitutional amendment really seriously,” said Levitt. “I’d suspect that the 2014 election would go as planned, but there would certainly be changes for 2016 and beyond — and the beyond is important because it puts into place a new process for how districts will be drawn.”
This article tagged under: FloridaA recently married MTA worker who just bought a new home in Brooklyn penned a suicide note to his wife before fatally shooting himself in a Greenwich Village subway station on Monday.
A colleague discovered revenue collector Jaime English, 53, face-up with a bullet wound to his chest in an employer locker room at the 14th Street and 7th Avenue stop just before 10 p.m., sources said.
Sources said he had been having marital problems before he took his life with his service weapon.
Revenue agents collect and delivery money from MTA facilities like subway stations. They carry heavy bags of money, and often stand for long periods.
The agents also stock MetroCard machines, and provide security for technicians who work on the machines.
Colleagues were stunned by his death, and said he had been working in Manhattan for six months. Before, he worked in Brooklyn.
“Everybody’s shocked that he did it,” said a transit source. “He was the happiest guy you’d ever meet… He was a guy you didn’t forget because he was so happy. He gave off no signs that this was coming.”
English’s daughter declined to comment because she was so distraught.
His neighbors remembered his warm, cheerful presence.
“He was always so happy go lucky,” said Robin Ross. “It’s so sad. He was always friendly and would always say hello. I can’t believe it.”
Additional reporting by Rebecca HarshbargerWith vSphere 5.5 Orchestrator now ships as an appliance. I had quite a few problems implementing it and wanted to document my process, mostly in case I need to do this again.
When you deploy the OVA/OVF for Orchestrator 5.5 you will be prompted to accept the EULA and enter a bunch of parameters including passwords for the default “root” and “vmware” users. In my experience skipping any of the fields will blow up the installation and specifying a non-complex password will cause problems later. Neither of those issues is called out during the deployment.
After the appliance deploys and powers up you can connect to it using http://<ipaddress> (NOT https://<ipaddress>) which will then redirect you to https://<ipaddress>:8281/vco which server as the “home page” providing links to log into the application (the three links under “Getting Started with..”) or configure the application (“Orchestrator Configuration”).
Note that none of those links will let you configure the appliance itself, which is https://<ip>:5480
Purpose Link User Appliance Mgt https://<ip>:5480 root App Service https://<ip>:8283 vmware App Admin https://<ip>:8281/vco/client/client.jnlp tbd* App User https://<ip>:8281/vco/vmo/weboperator tbd*
tbd* – you are required to configure the application to authenticate to an outside identity source before these links can be used.
To configure the service to authenticate users as well as connect to vCenter servers you will need to connect to https://<ip>:8283/ with a user name of “vmware” and the password you set for that user during the install.
Select Authentication and configure it to authenticate your users.
Note that “Root Element” refers to the domain the LDAP server provides names for, “User name” accepts many formats – I use the “username@domain” format. The OUs listed for User and Group Lookup Base must exist. And my favorite, the vco admin group must exist and must contain users.
Once Authentication is configured you can test it from the Test Login tab. In my experience you should then restart the service from the Startup Options on the left hand column before trying to authenticate users with the application.
At this point you can authenticate users who connect with any of the options under the “Getting Started with Orchestrator” section of the home page. However you will not be able to access vCenter servers.
You add a vCenter server from the vCenter Server option on the left hand menu. Note that your first step is to add the SSL certificate, which can be started using the “SSL Certificates” option on the vCenter Server menu – or just go to Network / SSL Trust Manager (which is where the “SSL Certificates” link will direct you to)
Add the IP address or FQDN of your vCenter server and select “Import”
Click “Import” to save the certificate.
Return to the vCenter Server menu option and select the “New vCenter Server Host” tab
Enter your vCenter server information and select “Apply Changes”
If you receive a message similar to:
com.vmware.vim.vmomi.client.exception.SslException: com.vmware.vim.vmomi.core.exception.CertificateValidationException: Server certificate chain not verified
You skipped the previous step to add the vCenter SSL Cert to Orchestrator.
You can now ensure Java is installed and connect to Orchestrator as a user with either of the App Admin or App User links above. Note that if you have added Active Directory as your identity source you do not need to specify the domain when you login (ie “Joe” not “domain\Joe”).
Happy Orchestrating!Inventor and author Ray Kurzweil, who currently runs a group at Google writing automatic responses to your emails in cooperation with the Gmail team, recently talked with WIRED Editor-in-Chief Nicholas Thompson at the Council on Foreign Relations. Here’s an edited transcript of that conversation.
Nicholas Thompson: Let’s begin with you explaining the law of accelerating returns, which is one of the fundamental ideas underpinning your writing and your work.
Ray Kurzweil: Halfway through the Human Genome Project, 1 percent of the genome had been collected after seven years. So mainstream critics said, "I told you this wasn't gonna work. You're at seven years, 1 percent; it's going to take 700 years just like we said." My reaction at the time was: "Wow we finished 1 percent? We're almost done." Because 1 percent is only seven doublings from 100 percent. It had been doubling every year. Indeed, that continued. The project was finished seven years later. That's continued since the end of the genome project—that first genome cost a billion dollars and we're now down to $1,000.
I'll mention just one implication of the law of accelerating returns because it has many ripple effects—and it's really behind this remarkable digital revolution that we see—is a 50 percent deflation rate in information technology. So I can get the same computation, communication, genetic sequencing, and brain data as I could a year ago for half the price today. That's why you can buy an iPhone or an Android phone that's twice as good as the one two years ago for half the price. You put some of the improved price performance into price and some of it into performance. So when this girl in Africa buys a smartphone for $75, it counts as $75 of economic activity, despite the fact that it's literally a trillion dollars of computation circa 1960, a billion dollars circa 1980. It's got millions of dollars in free information apps, just one of which is an encyclopedia far better than the one I saved up for years as a teenager to buy. All that counts for zero in economic activity because it's free. So we really don't count the value of these products.
All of that is going to change: We're going to print out clothing using 3-D printers. Not today; we're kind of in the hype phase of 3-D printing. But the 2020s, early 2020s, we'll be able to print out clothing. There will be lots of cool, open-source designs you can download for free. We'll still have a fashion industry, just like we still have a music and movie and book industry, coexisting with free, open-source products, which are great levelers and proprietary products. We'll be able to create food very inexpensively using vertical agriculture: using hydroponic plants for fruits and vegetables, in-vitro cloning of muscle tissue for meat. The first hamburger to be produced this way has already been consumed. It was expensive, it was a few hundred thousand dollars, but it was very good. But that's research costs. All of these different resources are going to become information technologies. A building was put together recently, as a demo, using little modules snapped together Lego-style, printed out of 3-D printers in Asia, put together a three-story office building in a few days. That'll be the nature of construction in the 2020s. 3-D printers will print out the physical things we need.
NT: Let's talk about intelligence, like the phone in my pocket. It's better than I am at math. It's better than I am at Go. It's better than I am at a lot of things. When will it be better than me at holding a conversation? When will the phone interview you instead of me?
RK: We do have technologies that can have conversations. My team at Google created smart replies, as you know. So we're writing millions of emails. And it has to understand the meaning of the email it's responding to even though the proposed suggestions are brief. But your question is a Turing-equivalent question—it's equivalent to the Turing Test. And I'm a believer that the Turing Test is a valid test of the full range of the human intelligence. You need the full flexibility of human intelligence to pass a valid Turing Test. There's no simple Natural Language Processing trick you can do to do that. If the human judge can't tell the difference then we consider the AI to be of human intelligence, which is really what you're asking. That's been a key prediction of mine. I've been consistent in saying 2029. In 1989, in The Age of Intelligent Machines, I bounded that between early-2020s and late-2030s; In The Age of Spiritual Machines in '99 I said 2029. The Stanford AI department found that daunting, so they held a conference and the consensus of AI experts at that time was hundreds of years. Twenty-five percent thought it would never happen. My view, and the consensus view or the median view of AI experts have been getting closer together, but not because I've been changing my view.
In 2006, there was a Dartmouth conference called AI@50. And the consensus then was 50 years; at that time I was saying 23 years. We just had an AI ethics conference at Asilomar, and the consensus there was around 20 to 30 years, and I'm saying, at that time, 13. I'm still more optimistic, but not by that much, and there's a growing group of people that think I'm too conservative.
A key Issue I didn't mention with the law of accelerating returns is: not only does the hardware progress exponentially, but so does the software. I'm feeling more and more confident, and I think the AI community is gaining confidence that we're not far off from that milestone.
We're going to literally merge with this technology, with AI, to make us smarter. It already does. These devices are brain extenders and people really think of it that way, and that's a new thing. People didn't think of their smartphones that way just a few years ago. They'll literally go inside our bodies and brains, but I think that's an arbitrary distinction. Even though they're outside our bodies and brains, they're already brain extenders, and they will make us smarter and funnier.
NT: Explain the framework for policymakers and how they should think about this accelerating technology, what they should do, and what they should not do.
RK: There has been a lot of focus on AI ethics, how to keep the technology safe, and it's kind of a polarized discussion like a lot of discussions nowadays. I've actually talked about both promise and peril for quite a long time. Technology is always going to be a double-edged sword. Fire kept us warm, cooked our food, and burned down our houses. These technologies are much more powerful. It's also a long discussion, but I think we should go through three phases, at least I did, in contemplating this. First is delight at the opportunity to overcome age-old afflictions: poverty, disease, and so on. Then alarm that these technologies can be destructive and cause even existential risks. And finally I think where we need to come out is an appreciation that we have a moral imperative to continue progress in these technologies because, despite the progress we've made—and that's a-whole-nother issue, people think things are getting worse but they're actually getting better—there's still a lot of human suffering to be overcome. It's only continued progress particularly in AI that's going to enable us to continue overcoming poverty and disease and environmental degradation while we attend to the peril.
And there's a good framework for doing that. Forty years ago, there were visionaries who saw both the promise and the peril of biotechnology, basically reprogramming biology away from disease and aging. So they held a conference called the Asilomar Conference at the conference center in Asilomar, and came up with ethical guidelines and strategies—how to keep these technologies safe. Now it's 40 years later. We are getting clinical impact of biotechnology. It's a trickle today, it'll be a flood over the next decade. The number of people who have been harmed either accidentally or intentionally by abuse of biotechnology so far has been zero. It's a good model for how to proceed.
It's only continued progress particularly in AI that's going to enable us to continue overcoming poverty and disease and environmental degradation while we attend to the peril.
We just had our first Asilomar conference on AI ethics. A lot of these ethical guidelines, particularly in the case of, say, biotechnology have been fashioned into law. So I think that's the goal. It's the first thing to understand. The extremes are all, "Let's ban the technology," or "Let's slow it down." That's really not the right approach. Let's guide it in a constructive manner. There are strategies to do that, that's another complicated discussion.
NT: You can imagine some rules that Congress could say that everyone working on a certain kind of technology has to make her data open, for example, or has to be willing to share his data sets and at least to allow competitive markets over these incredibly powerful tools. You can imagine the government saying, "Actually, there's going to be a big government-funded option that we're going to have, kind of like OpenAI, but run by the government." You can imagine a huge national infrastructure movement to build out this technology so at least people with public interest at heart have control over some of it. What would you recommend?
RK: I think open-source data and algorithms in general are a good idea. Google put all of its AI algorithms in the public domain with TensorFlow, which is open source. I think it's really the combination of open source and the ongoing law of accelerating returns that will bring us closer and closer to the ideals. There are lots of issues, such as privacy, that are critical to maintain, and I think people in this field are generally concerned about these issues. It's not clear what the right answers are. I think we want to continue the progress, but when you have so much power, even with good intentions there can be abuses.
NT: What worries you? Your view of the future is very optimistic. But what worries you?
RK: I've been accused of being an optimist, and you have to be an optimist to be an entrepreneur because if you knew all the problems you'd encounter you'd probably never start any project. But I have, as I say, been concerned and written about the downsides, which are existential. These technologies are very powerful and so I do worry about that, even though I'm an optimist. And I am optimistic that we'll make it through. I'm not as optimistic that there won't be difficult episodes. World War II, 50 million people died and that was certainly exacerbated by the power of technology at that time. I think it's important though for people to recognize that we are making progress. There was a poll taken of 24,000 people in 26 countries recently. It asked, "Has poverty worldwide gotten better or worse?" Ninety percent said, incorrectly, that it's gotten worse. Only one percent said correctly that it's fallen by 50 percent or more.
NT: What should the people in the audience do about their careers? They're about to enter a world where the career choices are career choices mapped onto a world with completely different technology. So in your view, what advice to give the people in this room?
RK: Well it really is an old piece of advice, which is to follow your passion because there's really no area that's not going to be affected or that isn't a part of this story. We're going to merge with simulated neocortex in the cloud. So again we'll be smarter. My view is not that AI is going to displace us. It's going to enhance us. It does already. Who can do their work without these brain extenders that we have today. And that's going to continue to be the case. People say, "Well, only the wealthy are going to have these tools," and I say, "Yeah, like smartphones, of which there are three billion." I was saying two billion, but I just read the news and it's about three billion. It'll be six billion in a couple of years. That's because of the fantastic price-performance explosion. So find where you have a passion. Some people have complex passions that are not easily categorized, so find a way of contributing to the world where you think you can make a difference. Use the tools that are available. The reason I came up with the law of accelerating returns literally is it was to time my own technology projects so I could start them a few years before they were feasible—to try and anticipate where technology is going. People forget where we've come from. Just a few years ago, we had little devices that looked like your smartphone, but they didn't work very well. So that revolution, and mobile apps, for example, hardly existed five years ago. The world will be comparably different in five years, so try to time your projects to meet the train at the station.
Audience Question: So much of the emphasis has been on the lovely side of human nature, on science and exploration, and I'm curious about the move more toward our robot partners. What about the dark side? What about war and war machines and violence?
RK: We're learning a lot about how these platforms can be used to amplify all kinds of humans inclinations and be manipulated, and a lot of this is fairly recent information that we're learning. So AI learns from examples. There's a motto in the field that life begins at a billion examples and the best way to get examples is to learn from people, so AI very often learns from people. Not always. AlphaGo Zero just learned from itself by playing Go games against itself, but that's not always feasible particularly when you're trying to deal with more complex, real-world issues. There's a major effort in the field, it's going on in all the major companies and in open-source research as well, to de-bias AI because it's going to pick up biases from people if it's learning from people and people have biases, so to overcome gender bias and racial bias. That can actually be a goal. As humans, we pick up biases from all the things we've seen, a lot of it's subconscious. We then learn, as educated humans, to recognize bias and try to overcome it, and we can have conflicts within our own mind. There's a whole area of research to de-bias AI and to overcome the biases that they pick up from people. So that's one type of research that can overcome problems with machine intelligence. In these ways, machine intelligence can be actually less biased than the humans that it learned from. Overall though, despite all the promise and peril that's intertwined in social media, it's overall been a very beneficial thing. I walk through airports and every child over the age of two is on their devices. It's become a world community and I think the generation now growing up, moreso than any other generation, feels that they are citizens of the world because they're really in touch with all the cultures of the world.
NT: In the last year in this country, we have not grown closer to the rest of the world, and a lot of people would say our democracy has not gotten better. Is this a blip in the ongoing continuing progress and mankind coming together, or are many people misinterpreting it?
RK: The polarization in politics in the United States, and in other places in the world, is unfortunate. I don't think it is an issue for the kinds of things that we've been talking about today. I mean we've had major blips in the world. World War II was a pretty big blip and actually didn't affect these trends at all. There may be things that we don't like in certain government officials, or the government. But there's a discussion. We're not in a totalitarian era where you can't voice your views. I'd be more concerned if we moved in that direction, but I don't see that happening. So not to diminish the importance of government and who's in power and so forth, but it's at a different level. The kinds of issues we're talking about are not really affected by these issues. There are existential risks that I worry about because technology is a double-edged sword.
Intelligence is inherently uncontrollable. My strategy, which is not fool-proof, is to practice the kind of ethics and morality and values we'd like to see in the world in our own human society.
Audience Question: My question is about inequality. There are a lot of phases through most of human history where economic inequality is quite high. I'm wondering whether you think the 20th century is an anomaly in that sense, and how the diffusion of technology is going to impact that inequality.
RK: Economic equality is getting better. Poverty in Asia has fallen by over 90 percent, according to the World Bank, in the last 20 years They've gone from primitive agrarian economies to thriving information economies. Africa and South America have growth rates that are substantially higher than the developed world. Any snapshot you take, there's inequality, but it's dramatically moving in the right direction. Poverty worldwide has fallen 50 percent in the last 20 years. And there's many other measures of that. People say "the digital divide," but no. The internet, smartphones, are very strong in Africa. That's a change in just the past few years. So we're moving in the right direction. At any one point in time there's grave inequality and people are suffering, but the numbers are growing in the right direction.
Audience Question: I hear from your remarks that you're making a prediction that artificial general intelligence is 12 years out, and you've mentioned a couple times that notwithstanding your optimism you are concerned somewhat about existential risks, so I was wondering if you could elaborate a little bit more about what you mean by that, and what is the most important thing you think technologists should be doing to reduce those risks?
RK: I mean existential risks are risks that threaten the survival of our civilization. So the first existential risk that humanity ever faced was nuclear proliferation. We have had the ability to destroy all of humanity some number of times over. With these new technologies, it's not hard to come up with scenarios where they could be highly destructive and destroy all of humanity. Biotechnology for example. We have the ability to reprogram biology away from disease. Immunotherapy, which is a very exciting breakthrough in cancer—I think it's going to be quite revolutionary, it's just getting started—it's reprogramming the immune system to go after cancer, which it normally doesn't do. But bioterrorists could reprogram a virus to be more deadly and more communicable and more stealthy and create a superweapon. And that was the specter that spawned the first Asilomar conference 40 years ago. And there have been these recurring conferences to make these ethical guidelines and safety protocols and strategies more sophisticated, and so far it's worked. But we keep making the technology more sophisticated, so we have to reinvent them over and over again. We just had our first Asilomar conference on AI ethics. We came up with a set of ethics which we all signed off on. A lot of them are somewhat vague. I think it's an important issue to give a high priority to. We're finding we have to build ethical values into software. A classic example is the self-driving car. The whole motive for self-driving cars is they'll eliminate 99 percent of the 2 million deaths from human drivers, but it will get into a situation where it has to make an ethical decision: Should it drive toward the baby carriage or toward the elderly couple or toward the wall and perhaps kill your passenger. Do you have an ethical guideline to not kill your passenger who might own you? You can't send an email to the software designers in that circumstance and say, "Gee, what do I do?" It's got to be built into the software. So those are practical issues and there's a whole area of AI ethics growing over this.
But how do we deal with the more existential risks: weaponization of AI, which is not something in the future. Defense departments all over the world have been applying AI. There was a document going around asking people to agree to ban autonomous weapons, which sounds like a good idea, and the example that's used is "We banned chemical weapons, so why not autonomous AI weapons." It's a little more complicated because we could get by without anthrax and without smallpox. It's okay to just ban them. But an autonomous weapon is a dual-use technology. The Amazon drone that's delivering your frozen waffles or medicine to a hospital in Africa could be delivering a weapon. It's the same technology, and kind of the horse is already out of the barn. Which is just to say that it's a more complicated issue, how to deal with that. But the goal is to reap the promise and control the peril. There are no simple algorithms. There's no little sub-routine that we can put into our AIs, "Okay, put this subroutine in. It'll keep your AIs benign." Intelligence is inherently uncontrollable. My strategy, which is not fool-proof, is to practice the kind of ethics and morality and values we'd like to see in the world in our own human society. Because the future society is not some invasion from Mars of intelligent machines. It is emerging from our civilization today. It's going to be an enhancement of who we are. So if we're practicing the kind of values that we cherish in our world today, that's the best strategy to have a world in the future that embodies those values.Bangladeshi forces stormed an upscale Dhaka restaurant to end a hostage-taking by heavily armed militants early Saturday, killing six of the attackers and rescuing 13 captives including foreigners.
The military said 20 of the hostages had been killed during the 12-hour standoff.
About 35 people were taken hostage, including about 20 foreigners, when gunmen stormed the popular Holey Artisan Bakery in Dh |
framework.
Hence, using AngularJS as a framework enables developers to build a high-performance web application which is easy to maintain and scalable as well.
Features of AngularJS
A few of the important features of AngularJS are mentioned below:
Data-binding − It enables the synchronization of data between the view components and the model, automatically. Scope –It helps in binding the controller and view. These objects refer to the model. Controller − The JavaScript functions which is bound to a particular scope, is known as controller. Services — There are several built-in services which come along with AngularJS, for example $https: to make a XMLHttpRequests. These objects are generally instantiated only once in an application. Filters — This feature is used to select specific data from an array and return it in a new array. Directives — This feature can be used to create custom HTML tags which can be used as new customer widgets. AngularJS comes with built-in directives like ngBind and ngModel. Templates — This feature helps is creating a single view based on the information from the controller and model. It can be used as a single file (like index.html) or can be used as multiple views in one page using “partials”. Routing — This feature is used for switching views. Model View Whatever — This feature is nothing but the traditional MVC architecture, used for designing an application into different parts, each serving different purpose, in the application.In AngularJS, the traditional format of MVC has been modified to Model View Whatever. Deep Linking — This feature allows the state of application to be encoded in an URL so that it can be bookmarked and restored when needed. Dependency Injection –This feature helps the developer to easily develop an application, understand it and test it.
Angular 2: The Better Angular
Angular 2 is practically a completely new framework but based on the same concepts which helped the Angular 1 to gain the popularity among the developers, incorporated with new ideas and technologies which emerged in the recent years.
Features of Angular 2
Few notable features of Angular 2 are mentioned below:
• Components − Angular 1 was more focused on the Controllers but now in Angular 2, the focus has changed from controllers to components, as components helps in building the application and also help the developers to maintain the application.
• TypeScript –Angular 2 is based on TypeScript, which is an enhanced version of JavaScript and maintained by Microsoft.
• Services — Angular 2 provides an option to create codes that can be shared by different components of an application. These codes are termed as Services.
In addition to the above-mentioned features, Angular 2 has powerful templates, better event-handling capabilities and better support for application for mobile devices, making the life of the developers easier.
Components of Angular 2
The major components that comprise Angular 2 are mentioned below:
• Modules — Each module is created to perform a specific task in the application.
• Component — Components are used to bind the modules together.
• Templates — Template defines the views of the application.
• Metadata — Metadata is used to add additional data in the class, created in Angular JS.
• Service — Reusable component which can be created and can be shared across the entire application
Angular 4
Around 6 months after the Angular 2 was released, the next version of the Angular, Angular 4, has been released. The reason for this release was to ensure that new features are introduced and updating the features of older versions, which became incompatible over the time.
Features of Angular 4
Few important features related to the Angular 4 are listed below:
Smaller and Faster — Applications developed in Angular 4 consume less space and run quicker as well, when compared to the previous versions
— Applications developed in Angular 4 consume less space and run quicker as well, when compared to the previous versions View Engine — The change helped the developers to decrease the size of the generated code by almost 60 percent.
— The change helped the developers to decrease the size of the generated code by almost 60 percent. Animation Package — The animation has been removed from the Angular core, so that if animations are not used, the additional code won’t end up in the application package.
— The animation has been removed from the Angular core, so that if animations are not used, the additional code won’t end up in the application package. Improved *ngIf and *ngFor — The improved feature enables the developer to utilize the if/else design syntax.
— The improved feature enables the developer to utilize the if/else design syntax. Angular Universal — It is kind of a repository containing the results of various external and internal work done by the Universal team.
— It is kind of a repository containing the results of various external and internal work done by the Universal team. TypeScript 2.1 and 2.2 Compatibility — The TypeScript version has been upgraded improving the rate of ngc.
Source Maps for Templates — For any error caused in any template, source map can be created to provide a meaningful context concerning the original template.“In supposing the existence of a permanent reality, or ‘substance’, beneath the shifting series of phenomena, whether of matter or of mind, the substance of the cosmos was ‘Brahma’, that of the individual man ‘Atman’; and the latter was separated from the former only, if I may so speak, by its phenomenal envelope, by the casing of sensations, thoughts and desires, pleasures and pains, which make up the illusive phantasmagoria of life. This the ignorant, take for reality; their ‘Atman’ therefore remains eternally imprisoned in delusions, bound by the fetters of desire and scourged by the whip of misery. ”
—Thomas Huxley on the worldview of Vedanta
In studying the genealogy of Brahminism from the onset of the primary Vedas (Rig, Yajur and Sama) through its transition to the Upanishads and Puranas, keen insight will at times observe and marvel at how it has morphed progressively from its ritualistic origins to assume more and deadly forms, where caste, religion and spirituality were used as tools in the real scheme of power grab and exploitation of large sections of society.
Given that such a conclusion is not totally unwarranted by historical and sociological analysis, the overwhelming tide of reverence for and fetishistic following of the Upanishads or the Vedanta is a paradox that is a thorny challenge for critical refutation.
In one of my earlier articles concerning the folly of current fashions in the exposition of Bhagavad Gita, which is a particularly vicious and diabolical form of Upanishadic evangelism, I had represented its vision in a mocking vein thus:
“The central conception of Advaita philosophy and its current evangelism, is more or less, building of elaborate ‘castles in the air’ around the definition of the Brahman as the one and only unchanging ultimate reality beneath which lies the illusion of constantly changing appearances and motions of the physical and transient world, where the ‘rope and the snake’ play the game of ‘snakes and ladders’ with our deluded senses, where Rishis, Gurus and Swamis play the great ‘Indian rope trick’ or tighten the hangman’s noose of ‘Self-Realization’ on bewildered devotees and followers, who are made to walk the ‘tight rope’ of avoiding ‘sense-objects’ and senseless objects in crossing the ‘transmigratory ocean of existence’, then selling such spiritual snake oil concoctions through speeches, books, seminars, study sessions and what not and misguiding and cheerleading innocent, gullible and earnest seekers of religion alike into a grand ‘wild-goose chase’ of the Brahman.”
The few critics of Vedanta and their incisive observations
Radicals of India’s pre-freedom era like BR Ambedkar and Lala Hardayal were even more scathing and unsparing in their denunciation of the Upanishadic spiritual tom-foolery. Ambedkar spoke in these unrelenting terms quoting from the observations of Thomas Huxley and Lala Hardayal:
“Of what use is this philosophy of the Upanishadas? The philosophy of the Upanishadas meant withdrawal from the struggle for existence by resort to asceticism and a destruction of desire by self-mortification. As a way of life it was condemned by Huxley in scathing terms: “No more thorough mortification of the flesh has ever been attempted than that achieved by the Indian ascetic anchorite; no later monarchism has so nearly succeeded in reducing the human mind to that condition of impassive quasi-somnambulism, which, but for its acknowledged holiness, might run the risk of being confounded with idiocy.”
But the condemnation of the philosophy of the Upanishads is nothing as compared to the denunciation of the same by Lala Hardyal:
“The Upanishads claim to expound ‘that, by knowing which everything is known’. This quest for ‘ the absolute ‘ is the basis of all the spurious metaphysics of India. The treatises are full of absurd conceits, quaint fancies, and chaotic speculations. And we have not learned that they are worthless. We keep moving in the old rut; we edit and re-edit the old books instead of translating the classics of European social thought. What could Europe be if Frederic Harrison, Brieux, Bebel, Anatole France, Herve, Haekel, Giddings, and Marshall should employ their time in composing treatises on Duns, Scotus and Thomas Aquinas, and discussing the merits of the laws of the Pentateuch and the poetry of Beowulf? “Indian pundits and graduates seem to suffer from a kind of mania for what is effete and antiquated. Thus an institution, established by progressive men, aims at leading our youths through Sanskrit grammar to the Vedas via the Six Darshanas! What a false move in the quest for wisdom! It is as if a caravan should travel across the desert to the shores of the Dead Sea in search of fresh water! Young men of India, look not for wisdom in the musty parchments of your metaphysical treatises. There is nothing but an endless round of verbal jugglery there. Read Rousseau and Voltaire, Plato and Aristotle, Haeckel and Spencer, Marx and Tolstoi, Ruskin and Comte, and other European thinkers, if you wish to understand life and its problems. “But denunciations apart, did the Upanishad philosophy have any influence on Hinduism as a social and political system? There is no doubt that it turned out to be most ineffective and inconsequential piece of speculation with no effect on the moral and social order of the Hindus.”
Spiritualists like the Bourbons learn nothing from history nor forget its wrong lessons
But does any of this deter the almost universal applause and reverential awe that is the constant companion of Vedanta and its myriad gyrations of studies and expositions? Not a whit, if one were to consider how the likes of Anil Mehta and other such spiritual faithful from cults like Chinmaya Mission can dismiss any effort of debate with cryptic 3-liner responses.
So when I heard a response from one of the leading lights of the Vedanta blogosphere, I was initially hopeful that meaningful debate will get its fair share at last. But as it eventually turned out that, such hopes were premature and I realized that I was actually up against a Trojan Horse from the spiritualist camp. After some initial pleasantries, this gentleman committed the same sin of most spiritual apologists, mixing science and religion, using scientific and argumentative generalizations to question the rejection of Vedanta. As another ploy, he sent me a link to a brain-fryer of a book called ‘Vichar Sagar’, another tedious apologia for Vedic and Vedantic scriptures.
I am reproducing below some parts of my exchange with this person, whom I’ll refer to as “H.A.” (not his real name or initials).
H.A.’s first comment to article on Bhagavad Gita via email:
Subject: The Ultimate Scientific Truth.
There is divergence of opinions about the truth, strategy, nature of the people etc. I realize that opinions cannot converge unless we agree on common principles, the biggest of them being ‘the truth absolute or ultimate’. I don’t know what you consider the ultimate truth, if any.
Any way I am interested in knowing what made you question or doubt the following points about Vedanta. I think if i know them i would be in better position to satisfy you to the best. It is from your above referred discussion.
Questioning the suitability of the ‘rope and snake’ metaphor and its irrelevance to the question of interpreting real
Pointing out the fallacies of the nature of Advaitic conception of knowledge which seems to fail even most basic tests of reason and empirical inquiry.
Trying to reason that Consciousness has no real bearing on a comparison of illusion and reality
My response to H.A.’s question:
While there are many common principles which can form the framework of a living philosophy, these principles need to be practical and useful.
In all humility the principle of absolute or ultimate truth is not one of them since it is not practical as there is no definition of what constitutes ultimate truth.
To me, it is one of many jargons that abound in Hindu or vedic metaphysics. Vedanta claims that the ‘Brahman’ is the ultimate and only truth that is worthy of realization. But the texts are themselves not clear about the conception and identity of Brahman. Lot of arguments, opinions and riddles are posed about this entity without any conclusions being reached. One text contradicts the other with some texts even claiming that the ‘Brahman’ is beyond understanding and comprehension. If that is really the case, is not the quest of Brahman a futile exercise?!. Commentaries fare no better than the original texts, since there is not one but many flavors of vedanta:
Advaita Vedanta
Dvaita Vedanta
Visishtadvaita Vendanta
and more that I can’t recollect. But honestly these don’t make any practical sense, because truth or facts cannot be established by arguments and counter-arguments and nit-picking and hair-splitting about verses of Upanishads and the syllables and sounds of ‘OM’. That the earth is round and other physical facts were not determined by round-table debates of misguided prophets and deluded saints, but by observation, experiments and corroboration, and by putting our faculties to right use. Modern science is using such same empirical methods to unravel wonders of our brains and not doubting and dismissing the utility and testimony of our senses.
Vedanta makes blanket statements and assertions of this physical world being an illusion without providing one shred of evidence to support such brazen claims. All its recourse is to blind faith, devotion and surrender to a teacher and unquestioning acceptance of the scriptural word.
H.A.’s counter-argument to my first response:
Belief, confusion, contradictions, mysticism are few of the unscientific aspects of Hindu metaphysics as per your understanding and I agree to the same. But does this all sufficient to dismiss altogether ‘The Truth’ so established by the Vedanta? It needs matching rebuttal comparable to the content and intent of the mechanism followed by these shastras. I expect the same in your next email about the specific few points raised by me.
The ‘Ultimate Truth’ may be defined as the one ‘which reveals and accounts for the existence of the universe as it is’ with all its cause and accordingly the scientific advancement may be directed.
Before you reply I wish you would have read or referred the likes of the book ‘Vichar Sagar’ by Nischal Das (http://www.archive.org/details/themetaphysicsof00sreeuoft ). If not taken as spiritualistic and viewed with scientific angle, it is formidable.
Before you explain the few points as referred by me I expect you would take the pros and cons of the issues as discussed in this analytical book. Of course you may not afford to spend such a time thing is different. Just like you I do believe Truth cannot be accepted just because Vedanta says. Let us arrive at it independently. Let us supplement science with the ideas of human beings. For I am satisfied with the ultimate truth ‘Brahman’ as realistically as E=mc2.
My rejoinder to his response above:
Skeptics are not dismissing the theories of the Vedanta. They are trying to question the claims of this school of ‘philosophic’ thought that their version of ‘truth’ or conception of the nature of reality is the real deal.
The playing field of a skeptic or a critical thinker is that of evidence, objectivity, feel, experience that is capable of validation by senses, perception, reason and logic, cross-verification of clues that must all tie to all threads and ends of a proposed theory that explains a phenomenon.
If this ‘truth’ that Vedanta is talking about of a unchanging reality super-imposed on an ‘illusory world of physical object and sensory experiences’ because senses are deluded into accepting illusion of physical appearances as reality, is an objective and valid one, as it sometimes claims, that claim should submit itself to objective and empirical verification.
But Vedantic apologists are not forthcoming with their proofs and evidences. They keep shifting the goal-posts, definitions, theories from time to time and hard as skeptics keep trying to pin them down, these idealists keep slipping out by changing the rules of the game. Vedantists cannot have their cake and eat it too.
Though commentaries, lectures and books on the Upanishads create heavy smoke-screens and fog around their theories, we can ferret out these recurring themes and components
Universal Soul
Individual soul
Transmigration of the soul
Karmic cyclicality and endless reversions of its cycles
Release of the soul from transmigratory agony
Final liberation of the soul and its unity with the Universal soul
Realms through which the individual soul passes on its journey of final deliverance and unity with the Brahman
Unified reality of the Brahman manifesting as the illusion of the physical world and sensory experience though the mechanism of Maya ( No explanation of why such an atrocity is being done by the Brahman is anywhere in the Upanishads)
I could go on and on, but the point is that all these things are in realm of speculation and imagination. The easiest way to resolve a controversy is provide a proof and experience of the claims that is at the heart of a controversy.
Skeptics have been waiting for centuries and no convincing proof or even good reliable evidence is forthcoming. All these airy-fairy concepts are resting on the shaky foundation of arguments, stories, fairy tales, tautological statements ( one example of a tautological statement is like this ( 1. “Since a higher reality exists, the current physical reality is not the ultimate reality” 2. “Because the the current physical reality is not the ultimate reality, therefore a higher reality exists and that is Brahman”).
The above is just one example, but the Upanishads, commentaries, its schools of thought are full of such circular arguments and reasoning. Upanishadic wisdom is worse than science fiction, it is metaphysical fiction.
When contradictions are pointed out, the defenders say that you have transcend your mind. My response is Good luck with that! As We have better things to do in life.
The final critical punch that hoped to nip misleading and diversionary arguments in the bud:
Further to my mail before this, let us briefly consider your statement
“So hope you will be as realistic as E=mc2 in your rebuttal of ‘Brahman'”
I see this as a trap that I don’t wish to fall into.
E=mc2 was proposed by scientists, which has been validated and accepted universally. It is upto the Advaitins and Vedantins, to contest and disprove it if they can with objective proofs and validations.
‘Brahman’ is a proposition of the Advaitins and Vedantins. The burden of proof is on them and lets us play by the rules of the game. As a skeptic I have the least eagerness or responsibility to provide a rebuttal. In my previous email I provided a few criteria that can serve to expose the lack of objectivity of the Vedantic propositions.
Don’t get me wrong, but refuting the Brahman or any other Vedic or Vedantic fantasy is like expecting to refute incontrovertibly the existence of fairies, ghosts, narasimha, pixies, flying monkeys, heaven, paradise, astral realms etc.
As the saying goes, “Fools can pose many many more questions than the wisest men can ever answer”.NEW YORK — The Trump administration is reportedly considering new travel ban restrictions.
The American Civil Liberties Union and partner organizations are challenging Trump’s current Muslim ban, with Supreme Court arguments slated for October 10.
ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero had this reaction to the reports of possible new restrictions:
“The devil is in the details and we are watching with great skepticism. This looks to be the Trump administration’s third try to make good on an unconstitutional campaign promise to ban Muslims from the United States. This is an apparent effort to paper over the original sin of the Muslim ban, especially when just last week Trump said he wanted a ‘larger, tougher, more specific’ ban.”
The challenge to Trump’s current Muslim ban was brought by the ACLU, ACLU of Maryland, and the National Immigration Law Center on behalf of HIAS, the International Refugee Assistance Project, and the Middle East Studies Association, along with individuals affected by the ban.
More information is at: https://www.aclu.org/cases/international-refugee-assistance-project-v-trumpThe World Youth Orchestra arrived in Tehran on Monday and has already had its first joint rehearsal with the Tehran Symphony Orchestra on Wednesday under the leadership of its Italian conductor Damiano Giuranna. Both orchestras will perform together from August 10th to 12th at Vahdat Hall (Roudaki Hall) and will be conducted by Giuranna, Loris Tjeknavorian and Nasir Heidarian.
The World Youth Orchestra, based in Italy, consists of young musicians from 10 different countries, including Armenia, Portugal, Germany and Canada. The guests are also scheduled to hold several master classes and workshops during their stay in Iran.
Seventy-five young musicians from the five continents founded the World Youth Orchestra in Rome in 2001 just four days after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York. The World Youth Orchestra has been nominated Goodwill Ambassador by UNICEF Italia; it has been awarded a Silver Medal and a Silver Plaque for cultural and social merits by the President of the Italian Republic.
Photos: The World Youth Orchestra and the Tehran Symphony Orchestra rehearsing in Iran under Italian conductor Damiano GiurannaThe X-Files star Gillian Anderson has been tapped to play Media, the mouthpiece for the New Gods, in Starz’s upcoming adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s acclaimed contemporary fantasy novel American Gods.
Media functions as the New Gods’ public face and sales representative, by taking the form of various iconic celebrities. She lives off the attention and worship that people give to screens – to their laptops, their TVs, to their iPhones in their hands while they watch their TVs. Ever the perky spokesperson, and always in control, she spins stories in whatever direction best suits her.
The plot of American Gods posits a war brewing between old and new gods: the traditional gods of mythological roots from around the world steadily losing believers to an upstart pantheon of gods reflecting society’s modern love of money, technology, media, celebrity and drugs. Its protagonist, Shadow Moon (Ricky Whittle), is an ex-con who becomes bodyguard and traveling partner to Mr. Wednesday (Ian McShane), a conman who in reality is one of the older gods, on a cross-country mission to gather his forces in preparation to battle the new deities.
The X-Files series alum reprised her role as Dana Scully in Fox’s reboot of the cult-classic which premiered in January. Anderson earned two SAG Awards, an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Drama Series, along with numerous nominations for her portrayal of Scully in the original drama series, which aired for nine seasons from 1993-2002. She also recently appeared in TV miniseries War and Peace which aired this past January, and she is currently in production on the third and final season of praised series The Fall, which will premiere this year. Anderson is repped by CAA.
Bryan Fuller and Michael Green are writers and showrunners of American Gods. David Slade is directing the pilot and additional episodes. FremantleMedia North America’s Craig Cegielski and Stefanie Berk are executive producing the series along with Fuller, Green, Slade and Gaiman. FremantleMedia is distributing the series worldwide.Bitpanda Update: Segwit Implementation
Eric Demuth Blocked Unblock Follow Following Nov 21, 2017
We want to give you an update on our adoption of SegWit wallets and transactions. SegWit is a technical improvement of the Bitcoin Blockchain protocol, creating an important foundation for the networks future technology to build upon.
Segwit Wallet & Transaction Support
Segregated Witness (Segwit) was activated on the Bitcoin blockchain network in August 2017. When this occurred, our development team starting planning the integration of Segwit into our wallet and transaction protocols.
We have now completed our development. Segwit supported wallets and transactions will now be rolled out to Bitpanda users. All Bitpanda deposits and transactions will now be SegWit compatible.
Please note that your Bitcoin deposit address has changed to a new Segwit compatible address. Your old deposit address will still work, but we highly recommend to only use your new deposit address from now on. You can find your deposit address as usual in the wallet section of your account: https://www.bitpanda.com/wallets
What does this mean for Bitpanda users?
Lower transaction fees for Bitpanda wallet users (estimated 35% reduction in fees).
Increased scale of the blockchain network as there will now be less data per transaction
Automatically using the latest Bitcoin technology
Do Bitpanda users have to do anything?
No. Bitpanda will be issuing new deposit addresses for the new SegWit-compliant wallets.
At the time of writing, already 11% of the Bitcoin network ran through SegWit-enabled transactions, while companies are activating SegWit and funds are being transferred to SegWit addresses. Therefore we are proud to be one of the pioneer companies in the field, to adapt this new technology.
We expect to see many network improvements and extensions in the coming months due to the activation of SegWit.In Sikkim’s Basilakha village, residents proudly escort visitors to their toilets, before posing happily for a photoshoot with a lavatory in the background. Basilakha is not an exception.
In this small north-eastern state, people have a sense of pride that their home state is India’s first open-defecation free state.
This record was reiterated in the recently conducted Swachhta (cleanliness) survey undertaken by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) on the condition of sanitation in Indian states. According to the report, all four of Sikkim’s districts rank among top ten districts in cleanliness and sanitation. About 98.2% households in Sikkim are equipped with clean toilets and 100% of the state’s population use the community or household toilet.
Sikkim began its cleanliness drive over a decade before Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Swachh Bharat Mission. It was 13 years ago in 2003 when the Pawan Chamling-led government launched its total sanitation campaign for the state.
The state government began by sensitizing people to adopt a holistic approach that would improve hygiene and sanitation, protect the environment and accelerate overall development in the state. Next, it constructed 98,043 household latrines, surpassing its own target of 87,014. Of these, 61,493 latrines were built for below poverty line (BPL) families.
There was also a conscious effort to install public filters for drinking water, build more public toilets and introduce a better drainage system in the major cities like Gangtok and Namchi.
As many as 1,772 schools were covered under the total sanitation campaign. This was done under the central government’s Nirmal Bharat sanitation drive.The government also got local panchayats involved to sensitise people, particularly about hygiene and the fact that Sikkim needed to maintain a clean and green image as a tourism state.
Next, the Sikkim state government made it mandatory to have functional sanitary toilets at home for candidates filing nominations for contesting panchayat elections. A functional sanitary toilet in the household was also made mandatory for availing any kind of benefit and grants from the government.
The campaign also included door-to-door campaigning and working with school children to convince families about the health benefits of using toilets.
The first acknowledgement of the campaign’s success came in 2008, when Sikkim was declared a ‘Nirmal Rajya’, a national award for sanitation and cleanliness. For the Sikkim government, the next endeavor was to focus on sustainability and qualitative improvement with special focus on school sanitation and solid-liquid waste management.
You May Like : 6 Schoolgirls from Bihar Renounce Gold Jewellery until Toilets Are Built in Their Homes
Under the School Sanitation & Hygiene Education programme of TSC, the special sanitation needs of women and adolescent school girls were addressed by making a gender sensitive school sanitation programme. This was done by introducing sanitary napkin dispensers and disposers on a pilot basis in schools, covering two schools per district. In these schools, every adolescent girl child could get a sanitary napkin by inserting a Rs 2 coin into the vending machine. Simultaneously, the used napkins could be incinerated in the disposer installed in the toilets of these schools. Furthermore, handbooks on waste management and hygiene management for adolescent girls’ have also been introduced in schools.
With these pilot projects eliciting an encouraging response, more schools are being covered with such facilities in the next phase.
Sikkim’s cleanliness model has evolved over the decade to ensure that the people abide by rules. There is a strictly enforced, legal penalty for every violation – for using plastics, for smoking in public places, for urinating in the open and for littering. Breaking rules fetches stiff fines. Smoking in public place, for example, could cost the offender a fine of Rs 200, whereas urinating in public places has a fine of Rs 500. Along with the ban on plastics, these rules have been enforced in the state for over a decade now.
However, the government knows that there is more to be done. While plastic packets are now rarely spotted, PET (polyethylene terephthalate) water bottles are still sometimes thrown by tourists. To address this issue, the government is contemplating a complete ban on such water bottles. This will compel locals as well as tourist to use the RO or filter water made available in designated public places, hotels and restaurants. Once executed, it will be another first in India.
In 2016, Sikkim also became the first Organic State of India, having shunned chemical pesticides and fertilizers for 13 years to return to natural methods of farming.
While Sikkim has clearly emerged as the cleanest state, it also has the possibility of soon emerging as the first state in India with zero poverty – only 8 % of the state’s families live below the poverty line.
Speaking about the state’s 13 year old cleanliness campaign to Economic Times, Sikkim CM Pawan Chamling says,
“When I see the Swachh Bharat campaign in such a big way across the country, I feel vindicated that I did something right back in 2003.”
Lok Sabha MP from Sikkim, Prem Das Rai adds,
“Sikkim has clean food, clean air, and clean water. We are also a fully organic state. So, there is clean living. Because there is clean living, people in Sikkim are healthy and happy.”
While the government’s efforts in helping Sikkim achieve these remarkable targets is commendable, the commitment and self-imposed discipline of the Sikkimese people also needs to be appreciated. In a school in West Sikkim, innovative children are showing their communities how to manage waste by recycling plastics into useful items of daily life. Here is a glimpse of this great initiative.
[embedvideo id=”hYG8_3CAEnA” website=”youtube”]
Also Read: How Kerala is Getting Ready to Become an ‘Open Defecation Free’ State by November 1
Like this story? Have something to share? Email: contact@thebetterindia.com, or join us on Facebook and Twitter (@thebetterindia).
NEW! Log into www.gettbi.com to get positive news on Whatsapp.Experts have added 817 species to the threatened categories of the IUCN Red List in the latest update. Those added include 51 mammals—mostly lemurs—and over 400 plants. The new update finds that over 90 percent of lemurs and 79 percent of temperate slipper orchids are threatened with extinction.
!ADVERTISEMENT!
"What was most surprising about this assessment was the degree of threat to these orchids," said Hassan Rankou, the IUCN Species Survival Commission's (SSC) Authority for the Orchid Specialist Group, "Slipper orchids are popular in the multimillion-dollar horticultural industry. Although the industry is sustained by cultivated stock, conservation of wild species is vital for its future."
Temperate slipper orchids are found in Europe, North America and temperate Asia, but have become hugely imperiled due to habitat loss and over-collecting.
As for lemurs, the new update found that a stunning 94 percent of this primate group—only found on the island of Madagascar—is at risk of extinction, making them one of the most imperiled groups on the planet. In fact, experts moved 36 species of lemur from a Data Deficient ranking (meaning there is not enough information to make a determination) to one of three threatened categories, i.e. Vulnerable, Endangered, and Critically Endangered. Another eight were moved from lower categories to threatened.
Still, experts say hope remains for the world's lemur species.
"Past successes demonstrate that collaboration between local communities, non-governmental organizations and researchers can protect imperiled primate species. We urgently invite all actors to join our efforts to ensure the continued existence of lemurs," said Christoph Schwitzer, Vice-Chair for Madagascar of the IUCN SSC Primate Specialist Group.
In all, 22,103 species are now listed as threatened out of the 73,686 evaluated. But over 10,000 of these remain listed as Data Deficient.
Continue reading at ENN affiliate, MONGABAY.COM.
Lemur image via Shutterstock.Retired neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson has done what seemed unthinkable just a week ago, catching up with Donald Trump in a Republican presidential primary poll.
The survey of Iowa voters by Monmouth University pollsters, released Monday morning, shows Carson and Trump each with 23 per cent of the GOP electorate in the Hawkeye State.
And with former tech CEO Carly Fiorina coming in third with 10 per cent, a majority of Iowa Republicans – 56 per cent in all – say they prefer a White House nominee without any political pedigree at all.
'We are clearly happy with the survey,' Carson national press secretary Deana Bass told DailyMail.com. 'It tracks with the enthusiasm that we see as Dr. Carson gathers huge crowds across the country.'
Scroll down for video
CO-LEADER: Dr. Ben Carson is tied for first place in a new Monmouth University presidential preference poll of Iowa Republican voters
STILL CRUISING: Trump hasn't relinquished his lead, but his high-profile willingness to buck the GOP establishment has cleared the way for other mavericks to join him
'This campaign is a marathon, not a sprint,' Bass added. 'So we'll continue working hard and reaching out with a grass roots campaign because Dr. Carson knows what's at stake, our children's future.'
HOW THEY STACK UP: Trump and Carson among GOP groups The Monmouth University Poll reveals that various subsets of Iowa Republicans see the two pack leaders differently: Tea party:Trump 27, Carson 22 Non-tea party: Carson 25, Trump 19 'Very conservative': Carson 24, Trump 23 'Moderate to liberal': Trump 26, Carson 17 Evangelicals: Carson 29, Trump 23 Men: Trump 27, Carson 17 Women: Carson 30, Trump 19
A Trump spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for a reaction to the volatile poll numbers.
Carson's surge marks the first time in the past five weeks that any Republican primary poll conducted in New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina or Nevada shows Trump failing to own the top spot by himself.
The massacre of political establishment figures continues with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in fourth place with 9 per cent. Cruz is a hard-charging tea party darling whom party leaders consider too bold an outsider.
Cruz has also built a strong alliance with Trump, with whom he shares a strong right-wing outlook on the contentious topic of illegal immigration.
The Donald may still have a hidden upper hand against Carson in Iowa, according to Monmouth's polling data, since he has a lead among Iowa Republicans who say their presidential preference is set in stone.
Fully 30 per cent of those whose choices are 'locked in' prefer Trump, compared to 22 per cent who want Carson as their nominee.
Carson, the famed pediatric neurosurgeon, has Trump beat, 25-16, among those whose decision reflects only a slight preference or a toss-up opinion.
But as most presidential elections since World War II have come down to a referendum on likeability – Richard Nixon's being the exception – Carson may have his own stealth advantage.
The Monmouth University Poll found the African-American doctor with a staggering 81 per cent favorability rating, compared with just 6 per cent unfavorable.
By comparison, Trump's split is 52-33, Fiorina's is 67-8 and Cruz's is 58-21.
THE SWEET LIFE: Former tech CEO Carly FIorina, shown sampling ice cream last week in Iowa, has leapt into third place there
TOPS AMONG OFFICE-HOLDERS: Texas Sen. Ted Cruz outperformed every other senator in the GOP field and all the governors, coming in at 9 per cent among Iowa Republican caucus-goers
'Trump's support is currently more solid than Carson's, but Iowa voters are still considering quite a few candidates before they come to a final decision,' Monmouth University Polling Institute director Patrick Murray said Monday.
The third tier now consists of politicians once thought to be the most formidable bunch – senators and governors with financial backing and decades of preparation for America's highest office.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who led in |
than military means, the analyst said.
“By the way, every US bank – I am not joking – has been convicted of laundering billions of dollars of drug money. None of those bank executives go to jail – they just get fined. In other words profit drives this industry. There is no military solution,” Becker added.
As to the opioid epidemic in the United States, in Becker’s view the overuse of prescription painkillers is to blame, not Afghanistan.
“They are addicted to opiates, because of over-prescription by the US pharmaceuticals and doctors, who are pumping opiates into poor communities. Then when people can’t afford opiates they go to heroin, which is cheaper in the US than the prescription drug medications. That is the reason we have this huge spike in opium or heroin related deaths in the US,” Becker said.
‘US should stop turning a blind eye to drug trade’
Author and journalist Eric Margolis says the whole US policy of spending millions of dollars to counter opium production in Afghanistan is senseless.
“The money allegedly being spent to curb opium is really going into the pockets of the major warlords in the country, who prop up the government in Kabul – this is their pay off – it is not really anti-drug measures. Certainly, if the US really wanted to end drugs going out to the US, it could take much more effective action than it is doing now. But drugs and heroin underpin the Afghan economy. There is no other economy and the whole rural sector in Afghanistan keeps itself alive by growing opium poppies,” he told RT.
PFC Hansen Kirkpatrick of Wasilla, Alaska is the seventh US soldier killed in Afghanistan this year https://t.co/0aMoBLEvQI — RT America (@RT_America) July 5, 2017
To prevent opium flowing into the US, “they have to develop some kind of economy in Afghanistan,” Margolis said.
“They have to destroy poppy fields, but provide the farmers with some other alternative income for that, and stop turning a blind eye to this terrible drug trade. Afghanistan is now the world’s biggest drug dealer. Unfortunately speaking, as an American, it is our baby, and I am not proud of it,” he added.Exeter City played against Brazil just two weeks before the start of World War One
It almost seems unthinkable that a century of samba football was borne out of a bunch of Devon boys, a misjudged skinny dip and a pair of knocked-out teeth.
How Exeter City, who finished just five points outside the League Two relegation places in 2014, helped form the first ever Brazilian side is little known, to those in both South America or south-west England.
But it all happened when, en route home from their 1914 pre-season tour of Argentina, the Grecians stopped off in Brazil, after Nottingham Forest and Southampton turned down requests to make the trip.
Despite a desire for them to also travel to Sao Paulo, Exeter chose only to play in Rio de Janeiro, forcing the invention of a team with a mixture of players from the two largest football states, and thus creating the 'Selecao' (the selection), which to this day remains the Brazilian national team's nickname.
With England being the birthplace of football, the images held in Brazil were that the English were the gods of the sport and it left the locals anticipating a match akin to the flowing, beautiful football they were used to watching.
The 1914 Exeter City side included goalkeeper Dick Pym, who lifted the FA Cup with Bolton in 1923
But disaster struck before a ball had been kicked, when Exeter's players chose to go for a dip in the sea and found themselves in a spot of bother as they were charged with gross indecency.
The players did make it onto the pitch, however, and the 3,000 fans that were packed into the Estadio das Laranjeiras were surprised with the roughness of the visitors' play.
The natural flare of the hastily put together Brazilian XI shone through and although their star player, Arthur Friedenreich, lost two teeth in the battle, the South American side ran out 2-0 winners - Oswaldo Gomes and Osman both finding the back of the net - against the professionals they had believed to be unbeatable.
Now, a century later, Exeter are returning to South America to mark the centenary of the extraordinary history they share with the country and their national football side.
The Estadio das Laranjeiras is still owned by Fluminense but the Brazilian league side now play at the Maracana
Newly appointed Grecians club captain, Scot Bennett, says that he has spent the last few weeks reading articles in local newspapers to grasp a better understanding of their trip to Brazil.
"I know bits and bobs," Bennett told BBC Sport. "I've read a lot in the newspapers recently, learning what the game was all about, with Exeter playing Brazil a hundred years ago and being the first team to do that.
"I know that there is a lot of history there and I think that both the club and the players are going to be a massive part of Brazil's history for a long time."
In the 100 years since that match the fortunes of the two sides have greatly differed. Brazil have featured in all 20 World Cups, winning football's top accolade a record five times, and reached the semi-finals of this year's competition held in their own country.
Exeter, meanwhile, have never played above the third tier in English football and will now begin their third consecutive campaign in League Two in August, having previously spent five years in the Conference between 2003 and 2008.
The 1914 Brazil side consisted of seven players from sides in Rio and four players from teams in Sao Paulo
But that Grecians manager Paul Tisdale and his men have been to flown over to Brazil and will play three matches over a week is proof of the high regard the club are still held in by all those at the top of the Brazilian game.
Fluminense, one of Brazil's most popular and successful domestic clubs, will cover a large part of the cost, alongside a number of other contributors from Brazil, and will play Exeter in their opening pre-season friendly at the famous Estadio das Laranjeiras on Sunday, 20 July.
The four-time Brazilian Serie A winners usually play their football at the Maracana, the venue of this year's World Cup final, and have boasted sides with notable players such as Brazil legend Rivellino, free-kick specialist Branco, Paris St-Germain defender Thiago Silva, current club captain Fred and midfielder Dario Conca.
Fluminense's star-studded team 1970 World Cup winner Rivellino moved to the club in 1973 after eight years with Corinthians. He went on to score 53 goals in 158 appearances over five seasons.
Left-back Branco, who was a part of Brazil's 1994 triumphant World Cup side, enjoyed three stints with Fluminense but found life in England more challenging. After joining Middlesbrough in 1996, the defender made just nine appearances before leaving on a free transfer after less than year.
Current Brazil captain Thiago Silva was a part of the Fluminense youth team and made 81 appearance between 2006 and 2008, before his successful move to European football.
Brazil striker Fred returned to his native country four years after leaving to move to Lyon. Having netted an imperious 62 times in 96 matches, the forward is much revered by the club's supporters.
In 2011, Dario Conca was made the third-highest paid player in the world when he signed for Chinese side Guangzhou Evergrande, a season after having helped Fluminense clinch their first title in 26 years. He returned to the Brazilian side in January 2014.
For Exeter academy graduate Bennett, handed the captain's armband on a full-time basis just prior to the trip, the meaning of leading out his side against Fluminense is not lost on the 23-year-old.
"It is one thing to lead your team out on a matchday," he said. "When you are over there and are part of something so big, coming out in a big stadium and against such a big team, there's always going to be an added emphasis on that.
"It's definitely added to the excitement for me and around 160 fans are travelling over and making a big effort to come over. Hopefully we can put on a good show for them."
Following the commemorative match, Exeter's players and staff will watch their opposition take on Santos at the Maracana in a league match later that day, before going on to face Tupi on Wednesday, 23 July and Rio Cricket and Athletic Association on Friday, 25 July.
It will be a fitting way to remember that Exeter City were responsible for kick-starting one of the greatest footballing dynasties the game has ever known, and a century later Bennett knows he is reaping the rewards of his Exeter predecessors' labour.
"As a young boy you dream you can play in big stadiums, full stadiums, against good sides, but when you're playing in League Two it does not happen week in, week out," Bennett said.
"Going over to Brazil, where the World Cup has just taken place, is definitely going to be a dream come true for me and all of the lads."In the beginning, there was a binary tree:
struct ctree { // c for children int val; struct ctree *left; struct ctree *right; }
The flow of pointers ran naturally from the root of the tree to the leaves, and it was easy as blueberry pie to walk to the children of a node.
Unfortunately, given a node, there was no good way to find out its parent! If you only needed efficient parent access, though, you could just use a single pointer in the other direction:
struct ptree { // p for parent int val; struct ptree *parent; }
The flow of pointers then ran from the leaves of the tree to the root:
And of course, put together, you could have the best of both worlds:
struct btree { int val; struct btree *parent; struct btree *left; struct btree *right; }
Our data structure had become circular, but as a result we had extremely efficient ways to walk up and down the tree, as well as insert, delete and move nodes, simply by mutating the relevant pointers on our node, its children and its parent.
Trouble in paradise. Pointer tricks are fine and good for the mutable story, but we want immutable nodes. We want nodes that won't change under our nose because someone else decided to muck around the pointer.
In the case of ctree, we can use a standard practice called path copying, where we only need to change the nodes in the path to the node that changed.
In fact, path copying is just a specific manifestation of the rule of immutable updates: if you replace (i.e. update) something, you have to replace anything that points to it, recursively. In a ptree, we'd need to know the subtree of the updated node and change all of them.
But btree fails pretty spectacularly:
Our web of pointers has meant we need to replace every single node in the tree! The extra circular pointers work to our detriment when looking for a persistent update.
What we'd like to do is somehow combine the ptree and the ctree more intelligently, so we don't end up with a boat of extra pointers, but we still can find the children and the parent of a node.
Here, we make the critical simplifying assumption: we only care about efficient access of parents and children as well as updates of a single node. This is not actually a big deal in a world of immutable data structures: the only reason to have efficient updates on distinct nodes is to have a modification made by one code segment show up in another, and the point of immutability is to stop that spooky action at a distance.
So, on a single node, we want fast access to the parent and children and fast updates. Fast access means we need pointers going away from this node, fast updates means we need to eliminate pointers going into this node.
Easy! Just flip some pointers (shown in red.)
Congratulations, the data structure you see here is what we call a zipper! The only task left for us now is to figure out how we might actually encode this in a struct definition. In the process, we'll assign some names to the various features inside this diagram.
Let's consider a slightly more complicated example:
We've introduced a few more notational conveniences: triangles represent the tree attached to a given node when we don't care about any of its subnodes. The squares are the values attached to any given node (we've shown them explicitly because the distinction between the node and its data is important.) The red node is the node we want to focus around, and we've already gone and flipped the necessary pointers (in red) to make everything else accessible.
When we're at this location, we can either traverse the tree, or go up the red arrow pointed away from the green node; we'll call the structure pointed to by this arrow a context. The combination of a tree and a context gives us a location in the zipper.
struct loc { struct ctree *tree; struct context *context; }
The context, much like the tree, is a recursive data-structure. In the diagram below, it is precisely the node shaded in black. It's not a normal node, though, since it's missing one of its child pointers, and may contain a pointer to its own parent.
The particular one that this location contains is a "right context", that is, the arrow leading to the context points to the right (shown in black in the following diagram).
As you can see, for our tree structure, a context contains another context, a tree, and a value.
Similarly, a "left context" corresponds to an arrow pointing to the left. It contains the same components, although it may not be quite obvious from the diagram here: where's the recursive subcontext? Well, since we're at the top of the tree, instead we have a "top context", which doesn't contain any values. It's the moral equivalent of Nothing.
enum context_type {LEFT, RIGHT, TOP} struct context { enum context_type type; // below only filled for LEFT and RIGHT int val; struct context *context; struct ctree *tree; }
And there we have it! All the pieces you need to make a zipper:
> data Tree a = Nil | Node a (Tree a) (Tree a) > data Loc a = Loc (Tree a) (Context a) > data Context a = Top > | Left a (Tree a) (Context a) > | Right a (Tree a) (Context a)
Exercises:
Write functions to move up, down-left and down-right our definition of Tree. If we had the alternative tree definition data Tree a = Leaf a | Branch Tree a) (Tree a), how would our context definition change? Write the data and context types for a linked list.
Further reading: The original crystallization of this pattern can be found in Huet's paper (PDF), and two canonical sources of introductory material are at Wikibooks and Haskell Wiki. From there, there is a fascinating discussion about how the differentiation of a type results in a zipper! See Conor's paper (PDF), the Wikibooks article, and also Edward Kmett's post on using generating functions to introduce more exotic datatypes to the discussion.With his sixth Bellator headliner rapidly approaching, Cheick Kongo said he’s on board with the company adjusting its policy when it comes to the length of main event fights.
Kongo (24-10-2 MMA, 6-2 BMMA), who will look to move one step closer to fighting for the vacant heavyweight championship at Bellator 161 when he participates in his third consecutive main event bout, this time against Tony Johnson (10-2 MMA, 2-0 BMMA), is open to the company following the UFC and moving to five-round non-title fights.
The Frenchman has gone the distance in all but one of his main event bouts with the promotion. He’s come out on the winning end all but once. However, if he had two rounds and 10 more minutes of cage time to work with, he believes there would be more opportunity for a definitive result.
“It would be good (to move to five rounds) but I have no problem with three,” Kongo told MMAjunkie. “Three, five-minute rounds, we have to figure out how it goes for the best plan. More time would be better. But for me, it’s just a fight no matter how long. It’s still a fight.”
Bellator 161 takes place Friday at H-E-B Center in Cedar Park, Texas. Kongo vs. Johnson headlines the Spike-televised main card following prelims on MMAjunkie.
At 41 and with more than 15 years in the sport, Kongo is still going strong and working to keep relevant in the heavyweight division. Many believed his time as a notable fighter was over when his 18-fight UFC tenure came to an end following a knockout loss to Roy Nelson at UFC 159 in April 2013. He signed with Bellator after that, though, and has won six of eight fights thus far.
Meanwhile, Johnson, 30, is much younger in his career but has made a splash in just two fights with Bellator after beating former champ Alexander Volkov in his debut and scoring a third-round TKO of Rafael Butler in his sophomore appearance.
Johnson targeted Kongo as an opponent and specifically asked for the matchup. Kongo said he’s not a fan of that approach, but as a veteran of nearly 40 pro fights has seen it all by this point. With that said, he would like to show Johnson some humility on fight night.
“I expected this fight because he called me out and put himself in position to make it happen,” Kongo said. “I want to make a statement. This guy wants to prove and show he is a contender, but he will be surprised, and I will get the shot for the title. It kind of pissed me off because he talked too much. I know it’s the way to promote the fight, but you need to be respectful to make the fight. But it’s a good matchup.”
Although Johnson has won six of his past seven fights, he has struggled to rally much in the way of fan support because of a less-than-riveting fighting style. Johnson takes a wrestling-heavy approach to the fight game, routinely attempting to press his opponents against the cage and grind them out with clinch work and takedowns.
Kongo said he’s encountered this type of fighter before, though, and has even implemented the same strategy himself from time to time. Because of that, he said he’s confident he knows how to stop it.
“He will try to grab me and take me down; that’s what he’s going to try to do,” Kongo said. “If you look at his previous fights, that’s what he did before. He won’t stand up with strikers. He will do the same with me – that’s what I am expecting. Nothing can surprise me. On my way I’ve fought the best in my division. He’s going to try and take you down and lay on you, but if I win, I won’t do that. I won’t lay on you.
“I won’t be surprised by him,” he continued. “If he surprises me, it will be because he will show some skills he hasn’t shown before, but all his fights in Bellator, they are the same. My job is to avoid his situation and make it a striking fight.”
Getting past Johnson at Bellator 161 would be a significant moment for Kongo because it would likely put him at the front of the queue to fight for the vacant heavyweight belt, which was stripped from Vitaly Minakov earlier this year. The organization hasn’t announced any formal plans for the championship at this point, but if Kongo is routinely picking up wins in main event fights, he sees no way he would be excluded in the fight to determine the next champion.
“It would be nice to be in line right away,” Kongo said. “To fight for the title would be – wow, it would be awesome. I want to fight for it not just for myself but for the fans. If they want to put me in position, they will see me win.”
For more on Bellator 161, check out the MMA Rumors section of the site.This column periodically revisits the concept of boundaries as fundamental to civilization itself. Perhaps the most self-evident, the most taken for granted, and yet the most often violated boundary is that between the real and the fictional. The violation of that particular boundary (or those boundaries, as they are as infinite as the number of impossible things that can never happen) is the by far the most dangerous and the most likely to lead to immediate and extreme consequences.
The Hi-Tech Traditionalist: It Takes A Tribe, Not A Global Village
Perhaps the best known instance of disastrous consequences stemming from the breach of a boundary between the real and the fictional was the American Civil War of 1861. At that time in human history there had already existed for more than two generations a simple incontrovertible reality: chattel slavery was not commensurate with civilized, industrial societies. This reality was evident to all, with the crucial exception of the ruling classes of the American South. These highly educated and highly influential people chose to not only cling to the illusion that slavery could endure into the industrial age, but bet their fortunes and their honor on it. Needless to say, they lost their bet and with it were lost the countless lives of brave Americans. Furthermore, they created a dangerous reality that reverberates through America to this very day and in fact more today than in the last fifty years.
Today, the illusion that so grievously hurt the South one hundred and fifty years ago has morphed into a different, though no less dangerous one. This illusion is often called “white supremacy”, but really it is the illusion that “white” denotes a type of ethnicity, cultural identity, or common history. In reality, skin pigmentation or claiming the continent of Europe as one’s ancestral homeland has exactly nothing to do with either one of those things. Europe is home to many cultures that span the spectrum from Eastern collectivism (Russia) to Western individualism (Britain). From extreme work ethic (Germany) to extreme laissez-faire (Greece). Ethnically, Hungarians would be quite amused to be told that they share anything in common with the Portuguese. European diaspora is similarly diverse; it is doubtful that much in common can be found among people in Australia, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, or America, whose ancestors came from the European continent.
Image by The All-Nite Images
An argument often put forth by participants in the “white supremacy” is the supposed economic success of white majority countries as compared to those that are not so lucky. This is an easily refuted argument. The success of certain European and European-derived societies relies on the culture of lawfulness that has flourished in them due to certain historical and geographic reasons. The British, for example, being the occupants of a small island meager in natural resources, developed a highly venturesome culture that depended on a high degree of order and discipline to succeed in its maritime endeavors. The French and the Russians, blessed with vast natural resources, did not have to venture far from their shores.
Counter-examples of course abound, both in history and in the present. Japan, China, and South Korea developed highly economically successful societies without the benefit of “whiteness”. What they share are hard-working and law-abiding populations. Recently I saw a side-by-side of Detroit in the 1960’s (white! prosperous!) and now (black! derelict!). The message is clear. Or is it? The 1960’s Detroit benefited from zero competition from Germany, Japan, and Korea, all still licking their wounds after WWII. Soon as that competition hit in the 1970’s, it turned out that Detroit (all white!) was producing inferior product with inferior quality at uncompetitive prices and capitalism worked. Cadillac became Caddy and nobody wanted that stuff anymore. Prosperity left Detroit and found a new home in Stuttgart and Tokyo. Real estate prices dropped and more African Americans moved in now that they could afford it. So no, Detroit is not derelict because of blacks. It is derelict because whites ran it into the ground. In fact, the story of Detroit is a perfect counter-example for white supremacy; American whites (and in the 1970’s most blue collar and nearly all white collars workers in Detroit were white) were beaten, fair and square by a bunch of Asians.
Illusions have reasons; denying reality does not come naturally. In the antebellum South, the idea of African Americans, who in many areas constituted the majority of the population, obtaining the full slate of rights guaranteed to all Americans including the right to keep and bear arms was so unpalatable to the ruling and the working class whites, that they had to take refuge in the illusion that this inevitable outcome could be long forestalled. Today, American communities, many of which are majority white are being disrupted by an influx of refugees, migrants, and immigrants, both legal and illegal. This is introducing significant stress factors into communities many of which are already struggling to provide adequate services to their existing populations.
Significantly, these stresses have nothing to do with the ethnic origins, the skin color, or the religion of the new arrivals, though it may seem that they do. They have everything to do with their lack of experience in functioning as members of law-abiding societies and their low educational and public health standards. It is exceedingly difficult for societies to successfully absorb massive levels of immigration when immigrants are less educated, less healthy, and less experienced to the rule of law than the original population. Just ask the nearly 100% Ashkenazi Israel of the 1950’s how hard it was to absorb the massive immigration of Jews from North Africa, Yemen, and Iraq. Or the much more prosperous Israel of the 1990’s about the absorption of Ethiopian Jews. Many, many mistakes were made. Many scars remain. Intra-Jewish Ashkenazi on Sephardi (in other words white on black) racism was rampant and, unfortunately it had not yet been fully effaced to this day. Ethiopian Jews, whose standards of education, health, and societal development were even lower than those of the Sephardi Jews from the 1950’s, are finding it even more difficult to fit in. And Israel is struggling with them even more, all the good intentions in the world non-withstanding. But there is also a highly illuminating counter-example. The 1970’s and 1990’s waves of Russian Jewish immigration to Israel, while not without their own difficulties, proved to be much easier to absorb. And it is easy to see why; these folks were educated, healthy, and law-abiding (in other words used to living in a state of lawfulness). They set about learning Hebrew, finding the ins and outs of the Israeli society, and eventually joining its leadership at the highest levels. It took them a few years to achieve what Sephardi Jews could only realize after two generations. Was institutional racism to blame? Were non-immigrant Ashkenazi Jews receiving preferential treatment? Most certainly, in both cases. The Russian immigrants however knew how to deal with discrimination; they were experts in it from the old Soviet Union days. The Sephardi Jews had to learn the hard way. Ethiopian Jews are learning still.
The Hi-Tech Traditionalist: The Opening Salvos Of The 2nd American Civil War…Lenin Would Be Proud
Inviting non-Ashkenazi Jews to Israel as part of the Law of Return enjoyed and still enjoys wall-to-wall consensus in Israel, though the difficulties associated with it have always been well-understood. Imagine how much more difficult it is when these kind of immigrants are foisted on communities that were not consulted in the least prior to their arrival. No wonder that some of the folks who are so ill-treated by their own elected officials are pushed to finding refuge in dangerous illusions such as “white destiny”, “white genocide”, etc. What is desperately needed are responsible leaders like President Trump, who lead the way to a common-sense immigration policy. This policy should be broadly merit-based, such that most immigrants who are granted entry are law-abiding, educated, and healthy individuals. Such individuals, regardless of anything else, will be welcomed with open arms in any American community. A small number of refugees from less fortunate backgrounds can be admitted on humanitarian grounds in consultation with their host communities. Perhaps Hollywood, California is better suited to receive Somalian refugees than a small town in rural Minnesota. Let’s ask them!Papua New Guinea PM Peter O'Neill to ask Tony Abbott to return guards accused of Manus Island rape
Posted
Papua New Guinea's prime minister Peter O'Neill will ask his Australian counterpart Tony Abbott for the return of three Australian Manus Island security guards to face questioning over rape allegations.
In July, three private security guards were flown off Manus Island amid allegations they raped a local woman working at the detention centre.
PNG police said the men and a local woman were found naked, drunk and sniffing an unidentified substance on the night before the security guards left PNG.
Mr O'Neill said the return of the men to face questioning would be one of the issues discussed when he meets Mr Abbott on Thursday on the sidelines of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF).
"They must face up to the allegations and see if they can be tried in the normal rule of law in Papua New Guinea," Mr O'Neill said at a press conference.
In 2013, PNG amended its sentencing laws to extend the death penalty for rape convictions.
"That's our laws, we can't break our laws," Mr O'Neill said.
Mr Abbott will also face calls from Pacific leaders to do more to tackle climate change at the forum.
On Tuesday, Kiribati president Anote Tong warned Australia could be asked to leave the PIF if it did not start supporting stronger action to reduce emissions.
Pacific nations are also expected to call for a ban on new coal mines and more ambitious targets for limiting global temperature rise.
Topics: crime, law-crime-and-justice, sexual-offences, climate-change, world-politics, government-and-politics, papua-new-guinea, australia, pacificA person who identifies herself as Courtney Purvis said she was hit in the face “because I’m transgender.” In the self-recorded video Purvis shows what appears to be blood on her face and a split lip. (Photo: Video screen shot from Facebook.com)
Dearborn Police are investigating an alleged attack of a transgender person at a bar, officials said Thursday.
The incident occurred around 1:50 a.m. Wednesday on Michigan in west Dearborn. Police declined to name the bar, however, in a video posted on Facebook Wednesday the apparent victim said the attack took place at Post Bar.
In the video posted to Facebook, a person who identifies herself as Courtney Purvis said she was hit in the face “because I’m transgender.” In the self-recorded video Purvis shows what appears to be blood on her face and a split lip.
“They treated me like I did something wrong,” Purvis said. “I’ve been attacked. Trans lives matter, too... And I don’t understand why they attacked me like this.”
According to police Thursday, the victim said another bar patron, a woman, made derogatory remarks about the victim, which caused an argument.
“Management escorted all parties out of the bar and once outside the victim states she was stabbed in the back and struck in the face with a bottle,” police said in a statement.
The victim was treated at a hospital for nonlife threatening injuries and released, police said.
Lt. Gary Mann of the Dearborn Police Department said Thursday they are investigating if the incident is a hate crime. It is unclear if the victim knew the suspect, he said.
“We’re in the preliminary stages of the investigation right now,” he said adding police are having a difficult time contacting the victim for an interview.
Anyone with information is asked to call the Dearborn Police Department at (313) 943-2241 or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at (800) SPEAK-UP.
Read or Share this story: http://detne.ws/2arfVVVThe legalization of recreational use of cannabis (aka marijuana) in Canada has caused a huge boom in media coverage, online chatter, and everyday interest across the country. But despite this onslaught of coverage and conversation, organizations are left without solution to the looming question of workplace safety post-legalization. So how are employers supposed to protect their workers and themselves when the community discussing the legalization of cannabis hasn’t yet found a clear path to resolution?
The development of a strong defendable cannabis specific drug and alcohol policy is the first line of protection for employers regarding workplace safety. But the next and more critical step to mitigating risk when it comes to the safety of employees – in relation to recreational use of cannabis products – is understanding the implications that legalization will have in the workplace. It seems that the challenge for Canadian organizations will not be the detection of cannabis itself, but rather the assessment of work-related impairment from it. For example, at present we have a very clear understanding of the relationship between blood alcohol and its effects on work performance. But unlike alcohol, the detection of cannabis use and its association with physical and/or mental impairment is far more complicated making it all the more important to understand the physical and cognitive demands of occupations and specific occupational tasks.
To develop Bona Fide Occupational Requirements (BFOR), organizations work closely with their OHS service provider to determine and isolate the physical and cognitive demands and risks of specific occupational tasks.
In addition to the difficulty of measuring levels of impairment from use of cannabis, employers are limited in their ability to test employees for drug and alcohol use. With cannabis legalized, employers still have the right to prohibit it in the workplace. However, as the “Final Report” written by the Marijuana Task Force rightly indicates, human rights should not be infringed upon through drug and alcohol testing. Testing can only be rightly used if it is to satisfy a previously established Bona Fide Occupational Requirement (BFOR), otherwise known as the physical and cognitive risks of specific occupational tasks. The challenge facing employers, therefore, is that very few organizations currently have a BFOR in place. If the short-term, and especially long-term, effects of cannabis use overlap with the critical tasks of a safety sensitive occupation the employer might not have the rights to request a drug test. However, testing could be carried out if the employer had a BFOR that represented the critical demands of the occupation and could prove that the recognized effect of cannabis use would affect the employee’s performance.
While the majority of OHS service providers look to simply update and/or develop policy, at Horizon we begin by supporting organizations with Job Demands Analysis (JDAs) to assure that they have a full and complete understanding of the physical and cognitive demands associated with an occupation. Subsequently, we work with those organizations to assure that the necessary procedures are in place to develop legally defendable BFOR to ensure a safe workplace environment for safety sensitive occupations.
At present, a significant number of employers are not aware that JDA processes/procedures are not adequate enough to develop legally defendable BFORs. The Canadian Government has outlined specific steps which must be first completed before a job or task can become bona fide. Developing drug and alcohol policies without understanding the physical and mental demands of each occupation within an organization will lead to a significant vulnerability of the employer to both medical and recreational cannabis use.
Since the responsibility of ensuring a safe workplace falls on the employer, understanding the potential long and/or short-term physical and mental effects of cannabis use is not enough. The best and only approach available to employers leading up to such a monumental shift in workplace health and safety will be to work closely with companies like Horizon to first complete stringent JDAs to isolate which safety sensitive occupations are vulnerable to the recognized effects of cannabis use and subsequently ensure they are bona fide. This will allow the organization to develop strong individualized alcohol & drug policies to ensure the safety of its workers. If meaningful impairment can be proven and employers duty to accommodate has been meet, an employer may be able to enforce a zero-tolerance policy regarding marijuana usage for that job. This approach has nothing to do with discrimination, and everything to do with mitigating risk.
At Horizon we provide a range of solutions to protect against impairment in the workplace. Contact us to learn more.
For references, click here.Hundreds of protesters blocked the streets.
EMBED >More News Videos Protesters in Charlotte vandalize police vehicles.
Keith Lamont Scott
Protesters in Charlotte clashed with police in riot gear in a tense scene Tuesday evening into Wednesday morning after police shot and killed a person carrying a gun at a Charlotte apartment complex.Seven Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officers were taken to the hospital along with one civilian. Many more reportedly had minor injuries as protesters threw numerous objects, including rocks and water bottles, at police officers. One officer was hit in the face with a rock.The protests spilled onto Interstate 85, blocking the highway for hours.Protesters targeted police cruisers. One damaged vehicle was towed away.Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts tweeted late Tuesday evening: "I will continue to work with our manager & Chief on officer involved shooting. We are reaching out to community to ask for calm.The community deserves answers and full investigation will ensue. Will be reaching out to community leaders to work together"At one point, protesters began a chant of "black lives matter." The man fatally shot by police was black. The officer involved in the shooting is also black.The officer was identified as Brentley Vinson. As is standard procedure with any officer-involved shooting, Vinson was placed on paid administrative leave. Vinson has been employed with the CMPD since July 21, 2014, and is assigned to the Metro Division.The man fatally shot was identified as Keith Lamont Scott. His family has been notified of his death.Police initially went to the apartment complex on the city's northeast side looking for a suspect with an outstanding warrant.Police said Scott was not the suspect officers were searching for, but had exited from a vehicle with a firearm and the officers believed he posed an imminent deadly threat.Scott's family quickly challenged the police account of the fatal shooting, saying he was not armed and that Scott, a father of seven, was holding a book and waiting for his son to be dropped off from school.Detectives say they recovered the firearm they believe Scott had been holding at the time of the shooting at the scene.Scott exited the car with a gun, and then got back in, police said. When officers approached the car, he got out of the car with the gun again.At that point, officers considered him a threat and fired their weapons. Police Chief Kerr Putney told reporters at the scene that at least one officer shot the person.Detectives were interviewing witnesses, police said.Scott was taken to Carolinas Medical Center and later pronounced dead.When hundreds of protesters gathered to demonstrate the shooting Tuesday night, police blocked access to the area, which is about a mile from the campus of the University of |
:
According to the Houston Chronicle, police issued a warrant for Spears’ arrest after his license plate was captured on the police video.
Claira-Belle has since been adopted by a family and is safe and healthy, CBS Dallas reported.
“It broke our hearts to see what happened to sweet little Claira-Belle,” Maura Davies, the vice president of communications for SPCA of Texas, told The Chronicle. “She has found a new and loving home where she can live out the rest of her life.”
Spears turned himself in after the video went viral and reportedly admitted to abandoning the dog because “his sister wanted to get rid of it” because she was unable to control her.
If convicted of the animal cruelty charge, Spears faces a maximum of one year in prison and a fine of up to $4,000.
The area where Spears abandoned Claira-Belle is known for what animal rights activists describe as being a popular area in southeastern Dallas to “animal dump.”
So much so, that the area near Teagarden Road at Dowdy Ferry Road in southern Dallas prompted authorities to install the cameras on the stretch of road.Leave it to Michael Jackson to provide one more fun, spooky scare from beyond. The thrilling side of the late pop icon -- who delighted in finding new ways to surprise his fans -- is celebrated on the 13-track Michael Jackson SCREAM compilation that dropped on Friday (Sept. 29). But in addition to such iconic songs as "Thriller," "Blood on the Dance Floor," "Dirty Diana" and "Dangerous," the CD and collectible glow-in-the-dark 2LP vinyl (the latter available Oct. 27) the collections will feature the first-ever augmented-reality experience created exclusively for a Michael Jackson album.
The immersive Scream AR experience is a classic MJ project, which finds the Michael Jackson Estate and Sony teaming with Shazam to allow fans to use the music discovery app to point the Shazam camera at the album's poster to launch a spooky extra. The collaboration marks the first time Shazam has integrated the AR experience into a CD or vinyl release and it's also the first global AR initiative from the company.
Click here to watch a video tutorial for the AR experience.
Fans in cities across the country can also look for Scream billboards and posters to pop up in major cities around the globe today that will feature the Shazam logo and trigger a second AR experience inspired by the album's cover art. Click here to pre-order the collectible LP. As one more treat, the Estate of Michael Jackson has tapped DJ Steve Aoki to create an official "Thriller" remix -- "Thriller (Steve Aoki Midnight Hour Remix)," out today as a standalone single, available to stream or DL here.Why does crystal bismuth look like that? Also how poisonous is it?
You know what? Until recently, I wasn’t too sure about the answer to this either! Bismuth is weird, isn’t it? But seeing as I just acquired some bismuth of my own…
(Say hello to my beautiful bismuth, everybody! She’ll get her own photoshoot at some point when I’ve got better lighting.)
…I’ve actually been doing a lot of research, and now I know a lot about it! So here’s the deal with bismuth. (Obligatory “I am not a scientist, correct me if I’ve got it wrong” disclaimer!)
To understand why bismuth crystals Look Like That, it helps to understand how crystals of ANYTHING form. See, when a Thing turns from a liquid into a solid, all its molecules that were moving around all over the place start to calm down and stand still and stick together. And the molecules of different Things have very specific ways in which they want to stick to each other.
Take water, for instance. When it turns into ice, it really wants to be this shape:
(Thanks again, google images!)
The crystal structure of ice is a hexagon. And the general rule with crystal structure is that whatever shape it forms at a molecular level, it’s gonna want to keep being that shape no matter how big it gets. That’s why snowflakes are always hexagons!
Did you know that ice fits all the criteria of a mineral? Snowflakes are quite literally Cool Rocks.
Bismuth, too, has a shape it wants to be. Bismuth, at the molecular level, is rhombohedral. That’s this kind of slanted cube shape:
Bismuth really likes this shape. Bismuth really wants to be this shape. Bismuth is really excited about being this shape, you guys. Bismuth is also… really bad at being this shape. Here’s why.
Bismuth crystals grow fast. You know how diamonds slowly form over billions of years? Yeah, bismuth doesn’t have time for that. Bismuth has places to be. Bismuth whips these babies out in about thirty seconds. This is because bismuth is a metal with a low melting point, and cools down and hardens really rapidly.
And that rapidly cooling metal is so excited to be rhombohedral. The problem is, the outside edges of a bismuth crystal are much better at attracting new material for crystal growth than the inside faces, and this means the edges of a bismuth crystal grow way, WAY faster than the middle.
The faces of the crystal are trying their best to keep up and fill in the rest of the space with material, but the difference in growth rate means they’re just never going to catch up, and the crystal will probably run out of material completely before much of anything is filled in.
That means what’s supposed to be a big solid shape ends up weirdly hollow, like this:
This hollow structure is called a hopper crystal, and bismuth isn’t the only thing that forms these. Salt can do it too!
The bad news is, unlike salt, bismuth needs some really specific conditions to form crystals. The metal needs to be extremely pure, and it has to reach a certain temperature and then cool at a certain speed. These conditions just don’t typically happen in nature. The good news is, they can happen whenever we want in a lab! Humans have gotten really good at giving bismuth the exact conditions it needs to make lab-grown crystals that are huge and weird and beautiful. Because bismuth has such a low melting point, you can even grow these crystals at home on your stove! (Please use proper safety equipment when performing this experiment.)
Bismuth is another one of those pseudochromatic (false-colored) crystals. The true, silvery color of bismuth becomes quickly hidden by a thin layer of bismuth oxide, or the stuff that gets produced when bismuth touches oxygen. This layer is barely a few atoms thick, but when light hits it it shines with an amazing rainbow of colors. The different colors are produced by different thicknesses in the layer of bismuth oxide. Lab-grown bismuth is sometimes coated with chemicals to prevent this discoloration, and sometimes kept at just the perfect temperature to encourage it to be as colorful as possible!
As for your other question, is bismuth toxic, and how dangerous is it?
The answer to this is Yes, and Not Very. You wouldn’t want to eat a chunk of bismuth, or breathe in its fumes, the same way you wouldn’t want to eat or inhale literally any other metal. Some people experience minor skin irritation when handling bismuth crystals, but this reaction is rare. Bismuth is also radioactive! (How cool is that?!) …But so very incredibly mildly radioactive that you will experience no negative effects from it, ever.
In fact, if you’ve ever taken Pepto-Bismol for a stomachache, you’ve ingested bismuth! If you wear a lot of makeup, you’ve likely had it on your skin at some point. If you hunt or fish, you’ve handled equipment made from bismuth. Bismuth is in a LOT of things, mostly things that used to contain lead. After learning about how dangerous lead can be, we switched to bismuth, which is much safer! That’s not to say it’s completely safe. Large quantities of bismuth can poison you, and you definitely don’t want to eat out of anything you’ve done bismuth crystal growth experiments in. But bismuth poisoning usually occurs because someone was taking a medication with bismuth in it regularly for a long period of time (usually months). Just handling your crystals isn’t going to poison you.
In short, you don’t have to worry about your bismuth hurting you, but you should probably worry about YOU hurting your bismuth crystals! Bismuth is very soft and more fragile than glass, and can easily scratch or break with too much handling. You can be sure that my girl will be sitting undisturbed on her display stand unless I need to take a picture of her!
(Okay, one more.)
(You’re doing amazing, sweetie.)GameStop doesn’t share Wall Street’s confidence about its outlook for fiscal 2016.
The world’s largest gaming-focused retailer announced that it expects to earn somewhere between $3.90 and $4.05 per share this year. Analysts were expecting something closer to $4.09. GameStop’s core business of selling video games and consoles is the big reason the company isn’t predicting big things for fiscal 2016. During a conference call with shareholders yesterday, GameStop’s executive team indicated that the retail outlet is expecting new hardware sales to drop around 10 percent year-over-year at its stores. The company also expects new game sales to decline between 5 percent and 10 percent. The worldwide gaming market is $99.3 billion annually, and GameStop has established an impressive share of that console section of that business. But it now looks appears that more of the total revenue spent has migrated from dedicated platforms like PlaySttion 4 and Xbox One to mobile and free-to-play games on PC.
Both Sony and Microsoft seem to realize that they are selling consoles to a smaller overall audience, which is they are both reportedly working on upgrading their current systems. PlayStation 4 and Xbox One updates could enable those manufacturers to sell slightly improved, more expensive consoles to the same people who already own the current hardware. At the same time, Microsoft is pushing toward mobile and PC gaming with its Universal Windows Platform; and Sony announced its ForwardWorks PlaySation mobile gaming division yesterday.
Other reasons for GameStop’s predicted decline in sales comes from ongoing drag due to older platforms like the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 as well as a portable-gaming business that is fading out. You can likely credit smartphones and tablets with expediting the demise of both last-gen systems and handhelds, as people seem happy gaming on their iPads as opposed to buying an Xbox 360 on the cheap or a 3DS.
R.W. Baird analyst Colin Sebastian points out a few other reasons for drop in sales.
“GameStop’s Q1 and 2016 revenue and EPS forecasts were below consensus expectations,” Sebastian explained in a not to investors. “Although, in our view, that’s not a surprise given a light release slate in Q1, lower hardware price points, and expected ongoing headwinds in new console product sales.”
Sebastian was one of the few analysts to accurately predict GameStop’s guidance. While Wall Street’s average was high, he came in at $4, which is right in the meat of the retailer’s expectations.
The analyst’s point about lower hardware price points is key. Sony and Microsoft has dropped the price of their consoles repeatedly. Most recently, Microsoft clipped another $50 off the Xbox One (temporarily), so it was selling for $300. That means that even if Microsoft is selling the same number of systems, everyone in the chain is making a lot less money. This goes back to the possibility of new PS4 and Xbox One iterations. Upgraded systems that play the same games in better visual fidelity could sell at $400 to $500 again.
But despite the state of console gaming, Sebastian thinks that the real story of GameStop is outside of that space.
“While the focus of GameStop’s Q4 report will likely center on light guidance, we believe the ‘bigger picture’ is ongoing revenue and profit diversification, even as GameStop protects or even increases market share within video games,” he wrote.World
More Israeli Missiles Found in Syria’s Dara'a
TEHRAN (FNA)- Syrian army troops confiscated some Israeli-made missiles in the possession of foreign backed militants in the Southern city of Dara’a.
A military source said that an army unit seized a car for militants loaded with large quantities of weapons and ammunition in Mahjjeh town, including four Lao Israeli-made missiles, 36 mortar rounds of 60 mm and a variety of ammunition.
The source added that militants' gatherings and weapons were destroyed in the villages and towns and Nawa, Inkhel, al-Naemeh, Atman, Edwan, al-Za'roura, Ein al-Basha, al-Hairan, Ghadeer al-Bustan, Al-Alam reported.
The source pointed out that army units chased a rebel group trying to attack the old customs checkpoint, leaving most of the group members killed and wounded.
Syrian media outlets have also reported earlier that security forces seized huge quantities of weapons used by militants across the country, including Israeli-made arms.
Syrian television showcased the weapons earlier and confirmed that some of the arms originated in Israel. Some of the weapons featured Hebrew inscriptions.
Syria has been gripped by deadly unrest since March 2011.
A very large number of the militants operating inside Syria are reportedly foreign nationals.
According to reports, the western powers and their regional allies, especially Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, are supporting the militants operating inside Syria and are providing them with required military equipment.GETTY Lewis Hamilton is on of the greatest drivers, says Felipe Massa
Lewis Hamilton can clinch the Drivers' World Championship at the US Grand Prix this afternoon with a 16-point swing over Sebastian Vettel. If the Brit clinches the title it will be the fourth time he has done so in his career, with his last win coming in the 2015 season. Victory would see the 32-year-old join an elite group of four drivers who have won the World Championship on four or more occasions, including Juan Manuel Fangio (5), Alain Prost (4), Michael Schumacher (7) and Vettel (4). And Williams driver Felipe Massa thinks Hamilton deserves all the credit he receives, comparing him to F1 greats Ayrton Senna and Schumacher.
GETTY Felipe Massa thinks Lewis Hamilton deserves the World Championship title
"Lewis is definitely one of the best drivers in formula one history," the Brazilian told German newspaper Kolner Express. "He is on a level with Michael Schumacher and Ayrton Senna.” And Massa is not the only one who thinks Hamilton is on their level, with Jackie Stewart also making the comparison this week. “Lewis is driving a dominant car and it is hard to say, for example, that he is a better driver than Moss, who never won a world championship. It is impossible to draw comparisons,” Stewart said.
US Grand Prix 2017 qualifying results: Full classification from Austin Sun, October 22, 2017 Express Sport runs through the full qualifying results ahead of the 2017 US Grand Prix Play slideshow Action Plus via Getty Images 1 of 21 Express Sport runs through the qualifying results for the US Grand PrixSaving on your grooming and personal hygiene is one of those things that people tell you not to skimp out on. I mostly agree with that. Don’t buy cheap products just because they’re cheap that’s just counter-productive. Aside from the multitude of things that might go wrong there’s also that whole cheap scummy feeling you get knowing that you didn’t do this because it was a good deal, you basically opted into bad service. This isn’t fast food where you order a cheap meal and you know it might not be fine dining but it’s still food and to you it tastes fine, heck sometimes fast food is amazing. With grooming and hygiene if you buy cheap for the sake of cheap one of the better results is that it just won’t work.
If you’re sitting there lamenting the money flying out of your wallet just hold on one second because although I said you shouldn’t skimp out on the products you buy that doesn’t mean you can’t save money. And before you say it no this time savings do not come in the form of sales, but if you thought of that already good you’ve been paying attention to my other posts.
We’ve all read the instructions to some of our products and some of them will say to use generous amounts when applying, I’m looking at you moisturizing lotion. The reality is you only really need to use a little bit in most cases. Now again don’t skimp out and use a drop of lotion for your whole face but you don’t need a shot glass of the stuff either to get the job done, in the case of face lotions and the like about a thimble should be enough and if you don’t know what a thimble is then use about half the size of your thumb maybe a little more than that if you’ve got small hands. Oh and this is also for those guys that use way too much product. Think of it as a PSA guys, when using stuff like matt clay or styling wax don’t use too much because that’s bad for your wallet, your hair and/or skin.The Ticonderoga-class cruisers will reach their retirement age of 35 years between 2021 and 2029, although the U.S. Navy may use upgrades to extend their lives to 40 years. The class was first ordered and authorized in the 1978 fiscal year. HII believes its LPD-based concept would be the right solution to replace the ageing cruiser class.
HII's concept ship offers many advantages. The huge (35') fixed S-band radar for starters, which is said to be 2000 times more sensitive than the current SPY-1. An X-band radar sits on top of the mast. A 3-face radar is available as an option to replace the large cubic radar. We were told that the LPD 17 hull form offers signiticant volumes to support other missions: There is provision for an elevator and below deck hangar, both large enought to accommodate V-22 tilt rotor aircraft. There is so much space in the boat valley and hangar space that the VLS cells may potentially be reloaded while at sea. If the aircraft elevator is not needed, the well deck may be retained to support special forces or other needs.
The model on display at the show was fitted with an optional 32MJ rail gun (forward, as main gun), a Mk110 57mm and a RAM launcher back aft for self defense.
In this configuration, the HII's "future surface combatant" is 209 meters (684ft) in length with a beam of 32 meters (105 ft) and a max. displacement of 27,000 tons. The speed is 20+ knots and expected crew is 161 sailors (a significant drop compared to the 300+ crew complement aboard the Ticonderoga-class).
Navy Recognition comment:
While the LPD 17 hull form is slower than the current CG class, the potential of a surface vessel fitted with the maximum size variant of the AN/SPY-6 AMDR radar and a 70+ day mission endurance (without resupply) sounds like a major capability step forward. Add to the mix a likely affordable design (because of the reduced crew and the hot production line) plus the ability to accomodate large, long endurance helicopters (an AEW variant of the V-22 or CH-53 would be ideal) to act as remote sensors, and you have what looks like a very promising CG replacement solution.tech2 News Staff
Ireland has been a tax haven for software companies for a really long time. Things remained the same even when its neighbour the UK, recently decided to exit the European Union (EU) as well. But things are now gradually coming under the EU's scanner and is asking companies to pay up. And who better to start with other than one of the world's most talked about tech giant, Apple.
The European Commission has just laid down the rules stating that Ireland should recover up to €13 billion from the Cupertino giant in back taxes.
In case you missed it, that's Euros we're talking about and by all means it's not a small amount, not even for a company as big as Apple. The same came across after a three-year investigation reports the BBC.
And there's plenty of reasons behind the same. According to the Commission, Ireland allowed the company to pay "substantially less than other businesses" resulting in corporate tax rate of no more than a meagre 1 percent.
Apple is said to have taken a stance against the same and since this comes from the European Union, Ireland too disagreed with the decision. Both companies now plan an appeal against it.
According to the Commission its problem with Apple and Ireland lies in the fact that Apple was given special tax benefits which is illegal under EU state aid rules.
"Member states cannot give tax benefits to selected companies – this is illegal under EU state aid rules," said Commissioner Margarethe Vestager according to the BBC.
So if Apple has to pay Ireland €13 billion, what's Ireland's problem? Well, its problem is to do with the fact the Commission decides which government collects the money.
Apple put out a statement commenting on the same, "Apple follows the law and pays all of the taxes we owe wherever we operate. We will appeal and we are confident the decision will be overturned." The Irish Government soon followed suit agreeing to a appeal as well. But its grounds for an appeal come from defending its tax system.
The odd bit here is how as Apple for all these years seems to have gotten away with just 1 percent tax when the standard Irish corporate is 12.5 percent. Is Ireland defending its tax system? Or Apple? The EU certainly thinks both are to blame.
All of this comes just a week before Apple's iPhone 7 event that is scheduled to take place on 7 September.
Tech2 is now on WhatsApp. For all the buzz on the latest tech and science, sign up for our WhatsApp services. Just go to Tech2.com/Whatsapp and hit the Subscribe button.Cyber-espionage has steadily migrated from a world of shadowy closed-door government players into the public spotlight over the past three years. Mandiant’s APT1 report was the first to change the game, and paved the way for private security companies to expose advanced threat actors en masse. In the years since, both private security companies and media organizations alike have sought to capitalize on this craze. What is often neglected is reporting on the aftermath of such exposure, and what measures the attackers take to remain hidden, ready to strike again.
Very few reports offer follow-ups to what transpires after an attacker is completely pushed out of an environment. If they did, those reports would most likely paint a much bleaker picture of the cyberthreat landscape. The truth is most companies are never aware they’ve been breached again, even if they are hit multiple times after the initial attack. The truth is that intelligent attackers with long-term surveillance goals do not simply give up after their malware and command and control (C2) infrastructure is burned. Attackers typically redesign C2 infrastructure and deploy entirely new or updated malware after being exposed. Unless companies are well positioned to detect these changes, attackers will quietly slip back in time and time again.
At Cylance, we’ve become more interested in following the repercussions of public exposure of so-called advanced threat groups and malware, since this tends to be the new operational norm for security companies. While it’s generally accepted that any exposure of coordinated cyber-espionage is a good thing, we believe it's not clear enough yet whether all the additional public attention is assisting or hindering cyber defenders. Intelligent attackers will adapt, modify tactics, and bolster their operational security in order to survive. We will err on the side of “it's generally better to know more than less”, and will continue to explore the ramifications of public research to attacker activity over the months to come.
In 2014, our colleagues at Crowdstrike wrote an exposé about a long-standing Chinese APT threat group they self-named Putter Panda, which Mandiant/FireEye refers to as APT2. This threat group has been around for quite a while, and commonly operated tangentially to APT1 intrusions into defense contractors and aerospace companies. We've been tracking a series of exploit documents which, upon successful exploitation, simply drop a file and perform no other actions; these documents have dropped a variety of backdoors associated with a range of previously identified threat groups. One of them was of particular interest because we'd never seen the backdoor before and it leveraged a relatively unique German dynamic DNS provider for command and control.
The exploit document was targeted at a Russian speaker with the title "Гасий Константин Васильевич.doc", which roughly translates as “Gasy Konstantin”, which seems to be someone’s name. The document itself was a MIME-encoded HTML file which contained a base64-encoded word document as well as an appended XOR-encoded executable. The document exploited CVE-2012-0158 and will decode and write an executable to disk upon infection. The executable began at offset 0x9C50 in the MIME-document and used an encoding mechanism that consisted of an incrementing XOR key, starting at byte 0xAC combined with an additional XOR operation against the byte 0x28, which ultimately yields a unique 256-byte XOR key.
Document Details:
Filename: Гасий Константин Васильевич.doc
SHA256: 333061e6c4847aa72d3ba241c1df39aa41ce317a3d2898d3d13a5b6eccffc6d9
File Size: 105,552 Bytes
Author: User123
Upon successful exploitation, the backdoor is dropped to "%USERPROFILE%\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\time.exe". No other changes to the file system or registry are made. This method achieves persistence but the backdoor will not execute until the user logs off and back into the machine. This functionality alone can assist in the evasion of certain sandbox/dynamic analysis systems. Unless a live human can intervene in the sandboxing process, it would be impossible to observe the post-logoff behavior.
Backdoor Details:With the AWP Conference just concluded in Seattle, I had many opportunities to see my home through the eyes of others, be a guide to the best of what’s here, the cultural mores and to even feel defensive about those who would have a jab or two at this, my city. And I would also get to see numerous Facebook updates and blog posts about the conference and Seattle. That we had nearly record temperatures and a good several days of sunshine was helpful for avoiding the inevitable “it always rains here” conversations. So, this is a post not so much about AWP and my experience, but about a confluence of recent (& upcoming) events and glimpses of Seattle and its culture. This is part of my work to help understand and, if possible, shape the culture of this relatively new (to settlers) bioregion and it is true that once you put your attention toward something, the resources start pouring in. (Take one step towards Allah…)
Paul Constant’s essay entitled:
had this section:
For such a young city, Seattle’s character seemed to arrive fully formed, and it’s a character that was created from literature. You can trace Seattle’s modern literary history to 1947, when poet Theodore Roethke moved here from Michigan to teach at the University of Washington. (“There wasn’t another poet within 500 miles” of Seattle when Roethke moved here, David Wagoner, another poet and UW professor, is fond of saying.) Roethke’s poetry runs deep in the DNA of Seattle’s literature. His poem “In a Dark Time” is a blueprint for everything that came later, with its ecstatic embrace of the melancholy. “What’s madness but nobility of soul/At odds with circumstance,” Roethke writes, and it’s a line that’s at once loaded with empathy and misanthropy. He’s a poet in love with humanity, and at the same time, he’s a person who deeply mistrusts people. Roethke exclaims in the same poem about a “steady storm of correspondences!” He sounds enthusiastic about all the words and people coming his way, but not so enthusiastic that he doesn’t describe them as a “storm,” something you seek shelter from. The poem reads like a biography of Seattle’s famous passive-aggressiveness, of the “Seattle freeze” that all the guidebooks warn you about.
It’s hard to say whether the landscape shaped the man or if the man shaped the landscape, but Roethke set the tone for Seattle literature with his dark and funny poetry, his raw appreciation for truth and prickliness. Whether the author has read him or not, you can find traces of Roethke in any book written by a Seattleite…
The whole Roethke poem is here. I am not going to give the poem a close reading, but I think Constant is on to something with his notion of the conflicted nature of Roethke and Seattle in general. That he should have such an effect on Seattle poetry has been said before, perhaps not as forcefully as Constant suggests here, & could explain why (as I have noted before) Seattle has been a conservative poetry town without any innovative movements indigenous to the town. (Vancouver has had TISH and Portland, Reed College poets like Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, Lew Welch (Dharma Eco-Poetics Trev Carolan likes to call it) and later, Leslie Scalapino LANGPO). Roethke by the time of “In a Dark Time” had not yet abandoned formalism and by 1963 this is a good 50 years into Modernism and perhaps another 18 or so since the advent of Postmodernism! While Seattle’s current experimental poets have caught up to current trends in innovative poetry (for better or worse), Vancouver’s George Bowering likes to say his town skipped over Modernism right to the Postmodern and that is one of those jokes that has a lot of truth to it.
But a commentator more able than your humble narrator had a sense of that literary and cultural reticence in Seattle about 80 years ago and deserves a mention here. The legendary poet and critic Kenneth Rexroth, in his “autobiographical novel” about Seattle said:
Everybody was wonderful to me but I didn’t like Seattle very much. It seemed to me to have a narrow life, consisting of the circle around the Wobbly paper and another around the University, which shared a considerable number of fellow travelers, all of them bigoted and not very civilized, characterized by the militant know-nothingism Hemingway was soon to make fashionable. I was offered a racket teaching rich girls at a place called the Cornish School. I went to a party to meet the faculty and students. I turned down the job. Compared with that of Chicago, the Wobbly leadership was not just provincial, but sectarian and rigid. I had never before encountered this kind of IWW-ism. Actually, the behind the scenes bitter struggle was not for principle, but for pie cards. The jobs were what were important…
I think Rexroth would see the influx of Amazon.com employees as an extension of this Seattle trait and would probably get a kick out of the phrase used to describe the worst of them “Amholes.”
And Bill Schrier notes in Crosscut that another aspect of the culture here, where citizens have access but rarely influence, manifests as The Seattle Process. In a word, bureaucracy, and Schrier notes how we will not get Google Fiber high speed internet here anytime soon because of four main reasons. But number one is:
1. The Seattle Process.
When Google announced its launch city for Google Fiber – Kansas City – it was a sensation. And the very next day the Kansas City Council authorized a contract with Google for the service. Can you imagine the Seattle City Council keeping a secret like this and then acting on it in just one day? Of course not. We’d need to have endless community meetings and hearings and public floggings of Google Executives. Every citizen in a tinfoil hat who thinks fiber is just another cereal ingredient would have their three minutes in front of the Council.
I emceed two different off-site events during AWP and at both felt necessary to give folks a heads-up to some of the quirks of life here, so read American Sentences written over the past four years or so that have some connection to Seattle and Cascadia, even if they were just written here.
7.27.09 – Fat Grandpa Rutledge falls onto & kills the therapy Chihuahua.
9.09.09 – Elder couple leaves farmer’s market, each holds a strap of paper shopping bag.
4.23.10 – Seattle courtesy: truck driver waits as crows move chicken carcass.
6.20.10 – Seattle solstice: Chihuahua shivers in cold rain outside starbucks.
8.19.10 – Was that hummingbird chasing crow over a roof on 52nd?
N.20.10 – Want to call her and tell her I forgot my cell phone but I forgot my cell phone.
1.12.11 – Just because he has a bald spot doesn’t mean he can’t have a Mohawk.
5.21.11 – The seven year old comes back from the salad bar w/ seaweed & grapes.
6.18.11 – Hey neighbor, your bag of dog shit’s not exactly a ‘clean recyclable.’
7.8.11 – Stellar Jay – what? what? what? what? what? what? what? what? what? what? what? what? what? what?
9.5.11 – At the home of Buster the three-legged cat, they offer gluten-free beer.
10.20.11 – Seattle day: wondering if the solar-powered prayer wheel will turn. N.1.11 – She’s not a witch in a wheelchair, she’s a disabled pagan.
and a couple written DURING the conference:
2.25.14 – Visiting Seattle, unprepared for potency of local pot.
3.1.14 – Garcia in Cascadia: “Pedestrian, out of my crosswalk!”
And for those who are interested in a more commerce-oriented view of Seattle and innovation in that sector, see:PDF Print version
As expensive as basil pesto is in the stores, you'd think it was difficult to make; but it is incredibly easy. The only equipment you need is a food processor, blender or chopper.
Ingredients
2 cups fresh packed basil leaves (packed means, stuff them into a measure cup and press them down with your hand; it's not a precise measurement)
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup pine nuts (if you don't have pine nuts, you can use walnuts or hazelnuts)
3 garlic cloves, finely minced (or 1 tablespoon of prepared minced garlic)
1 tablespoon "fruit fresh" or 1 tablespoon of lemon juice. Fruit fresh is available at most grocery stores where canning supplied like pectin and pickling salt are sold. It is basically a form of citric acid and vitamin C, that helps prevent the pesto from turning brown upon exposure to the air.
1/4 cup Olive oil. It should be the "extra virgin" variety, not the ordinary cooking olive oil. If it is extra virgin, it will say that on the label: see the photo for an example of extra virgin (at left) next to cooking olive oil (at right).
Makes about 1 cup or prepared basil Pesto!
Directions
Step 1 - Pick the leaves off of the stems.
Discard any flower buds, stems or leaves that aren't in good shape. All we want are leaves; small, medium or large; as long as they are a healthy green, not brown or molding!
Step 2 - Wash the basil.
Just wash them in a large bowl under cold water, no soap!
Step 3 - Chop the pine nuts, olive oil and garlic in the food processor
If you don't have a food processor, you can use a blender, and possibly a chopper. It would be fairly tedious to do this by hand, but I'm sure it can be done that way, too.
Step 4 - Add the basil leaves and olive oil and chop
Now start stuffing basil leaves (in small batches) into the food processor and chop them into the garlic, olive oil and pine nuts.
Chop the mix until it forms a thick, smooth paste.
Step 5 - Blend in the grated Parmesan cheese
Did I mention you need to grate the Parmesan cheese first? Then just add it to the food processor and blend! NOTE: if you intend to freeze the pesto, leave the cheese OUT and add it when you thaw and use the pesto. Cheese doesn't freeze well.
And that is it! You're done! It should look like the photo at right -->
Secret Tip:
Adding 1 teaspoon of sugar or Stevia (in a prepared form like Truvia, it measures same as sugar; if you use another form, you'll need do your own conversion) - or Splenda, if you prefer, to the batch really seems to bring the flavor alive. Try it and see!
The pesto will keep in refrigerator for about a week, or you can freeze it and it will last for 3 to 6 months.
A visitor writes to suggest freezing the pesto in ice cube trays. When it's frozen, just pop the cubes out of the tray and put them into a freezer bag. When you need them, just take one of two of the cubes out - so easy!
Serving?
Most people serve it over pasta or use it to season fish and chicken dishes.
Frequently asked questions
Can I can pesto?
Herbs and oils are both low-acid and together could support the growth of the disease-causing Clostridium botulinum bacteria. University (Clemson, University of Georgia, etc.) food science researchers do NOT recommend canning herbs. However, herbs and herb mixtures like pesto CAN be safely frozen! Pesto is an uncooked seasoning mixture of herbs, usually including fresh basil, and some oil. It may be frozen for long term storage. That's the recommended method to save your homemade pesto for the dark nights of winter! Also, oils may be flavored with herbs if they are made up for fresh use, stored in the refrigerator and used within 2 to 3 days. Fresh herbs must be washed well and dried completely before storing in the oil. The very best sanitation and personal hygiene practices must be used.
Shared Bottom Border
Remember to ALWAYS call the farm or orchard BEFORE you go - weather, heavy picking and business conditions can always affect their hours and crops!
PYO Farms in Other Countries: [ Australia ] [ Canada ] [ South Africa ] [ New Zealand |
a government-dominated universal care system
The notion that Mitt Romney would go out of his way to compliment Israel's government-dominated universal healthcare system seemed so insanely misbegotten an idea that I assumed the tweets I was reading Monday referring to his comments must have been referencing something he'd said when he was governor of Massachusetts, while pushing for his own universal healthcare plan. Ah, those clever Internet pranksters, I thought, pulling up old quotes to embarrass the presidential candidate while he was visiting Israel. With Romney, that's so easy to do it almost isn't fair.
But then I read in the Washington Post that he made those comments on Monday while talking to fundraisers.
Advertisement:
Do you realize what health care spending is as a percentage of the GDP in Israel? 8 percent. You spend 8 percent of GDP on health care. And you’re a pretty healthy nation. We spend 18 percent of our GDP on health care. 10 percentage points more. That gap, that 10 percent cost, let me compare that with the size of our military. Our military budget is 4 percent. Our gap with Israel is 10 points of GDP. We have to find ways, not just to provide health care to more people, but to find ways to finally manage our health care costs.
Mitt's not wrong. He's just flabbergastingly off-message. The Post's Sarah Kliff does the heavy lifting:
Israel regulates its health care system aggressively, requiring all residents to carry insurance and capping revenue for various parts of the country’s health care system. Israel created a national health care system in 1995, largely funded through payroll and general tax revenue. The government provides all citizens with health insurance: They get to pick from one of four competing, nonprofit plans. Those insurance plans have to accept all customers—including people with pre-existing conditions—and provide residents with a broad set of government-mandated benefits.
You read that right. Israel has a mandate and caps on coverage, which, if translated into current American politics, would represent to Republican voters something akin to the triumph of Lucifer over all that is right and holy.
As Kliff reports, according to at least one academic analysis, Israel has been able to keep healthcare costs from spiking precisely because of strong government involvement. It's the kind of thing civilized developed countries are prone to do, all over the world. It's a great model for the U.S. -- with only one drawback. It's exactly the kind of thing Mitt Romney has sworn his undying opposition to. So what could he possibly have been thinking?Charles Oliveira’s four-fight winning streak was snapped on Sunday night due to an injury at the UFC Fight Night 74 main event in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and it wasn’t the first time the Brazilian suffered that type of injury.
"do Bronx", who got injured after shooting for a takedown against Max Holloway a minute and a half into the opening round, spoke to MMAFighting.com on Monday morning and explained he had a neck injury going into the fight.
"I injured my neck in training, but did physical therapy and thought everything was fine," Oliveira told MMAFighting.com, "but when I fell against the cage everything went numb, I couldn’t feel my body."
The UFC featherweight was rushed to the hospital right after the fight, and has yet to be released by the doctors. "I’m still doing a lot of exams here at the hospital," he said.
Following a frustrating loss, "do Bronx" hopes the UFC books a rematch against Holloway, who has now won seven in a row in the featherweight division.
"I trained really hard for this fight," Oliveira said. "I would like a rematch because there was no fight. I got injured literally the first time I attacked."
Update: While there are multiple reports of an esophagus tear, Oliveira says he doesn't know yet.[With four updates below: May 19, 20, 22.]
I am going to be brief here because for anyone closely following the story of the Benghazi talking points these facts are well known. And if you’re not following the story closely, you probably don’t care. If you do care, but aren’t following it, just click the links below and you can get caught up.
1. On May 10th ABC’s Jonathan Karl reported a source’s description of a White House advisor’s email about the Benghazi talking points:
“We must make sure that the talking points reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department, and we don’t want to undermine the FBI investigation. We thus will work through the talking points tomorrow morning at the Deputies Committee meeting.”
2. That turned out to be misleading and inaccurate, as revealed initially by CNN’s Jake Tapper and later confirmed by the release of all the emails in question. Karl’s source, said Tapper, “seemingly invented the notion that Rhodes wanted the concerns of the State Department specifically addressed.” Tapper had obtained the text of the email in question. It simply didn’t say what Karl said it said on one key point. Karl, it appeared, was relying on a source’s quotation.
3. Tapper is a former colleague of Karl’s at ABC News, and a former guest host of ABC’s This Week, a duty Karl also takes on from time to time. The two men are in the same business. Both have covered the White House for ABC. If one says the other’s source “invented” evidence that was passed along to ABC’s audience, that is a serious matter.
4. Karl responded to Tapper’s report by obfuscating without backing off, and claiming that the release of the full email chain would clear this up. So how about it, White House? ABC News also doubled down. It’s spokesperson told Erik Wemple of the Washington Post that Tapper’s report was consistent with Karl’s.
5. The White House said Karl’s source had “fabricated” the email in question. Here, the Obama Administration was warning ABC News that Jon Karl got played. Again, a serious matter. Also: news.
6. Karl’s colleagues weren’t buying his defense, as can be seen from this post by NPR’s Scott Neuman and Mark Memmott. They were bothered, as well, by the way Karl created confusion about whether he had obtained the email in question or just heard its contents described by a source. This too counts as a serious matter.
7. Later, when the full email chain was released, the news was bad for Karl. The originals show that Karl’s source was wrong about the White House protecting the State Department’s concerns over other agencies. Jon Karl had called for this evidence to be released. It was released. The results only cast more doubt on his defense of the original story, and strongly suggested he had been played.
8. Yesterday, Taking Points Memo reported that members of Congress and their staffs were briefed on the emails and their contents. That’s how Karl’s source knew about them.
The ABC report was based on notes taken by a still-unnamed source, presumably a Republican, in attendance at one of two briefings the administration held for members and senior staffers of the Senate and House intelligence committees and top leadership offices in February and March of this year. The ABC report contained a great deal of the information the White House would ultimately reveal itself this week when it released all of the inter- and intra-agency email communication that ultimately resulted in the talking points Susan Rice used in a now-infamous series of appearances on network news shows on the Sunday after the attack. But it got one big part about the White House’s role wrong…
Again: serious business.
9. I had been following all this and last night I said on Twitter: “Jon Karl got played. But he refuses to admit it. Every ABC anchor who doesn’t ask him about it is complicit, too.” I was anticipating Karl’s appearance on ABC’s signature political program, This Week with George Stephanopoulos. He had appeared on May 12th, two days after his original report, to talk about Benghazi with guest host Martha Raddatz. There had been big news in the intervening week: the release of the original emails. I figured that ABC News would have him on again, if they believed so strongly in his original report. He is, after all, ABC’s Chief White House Correspondent; the story that dominated Washington all week was the re-emergence of a scandal narrative. A typical headline: Obama Pivots to Jobs Tour at End of Scandal Filled Week. (That’s from The Note, the politics blog at ABCNews.com, to which Karl is a major contributor.) Well, here’s the line-up for This Week with George Stephanopoulos. No Jon Karl. Instead, ABC News Senior Washington Correspondent Jeff Zeleny.
10. When a confidential source burns a reporter, a reporter is within his rights to burn–that is, “out”–that source. But it almost never happens because reporters are concerned that potential sources will take it as a sign that the reporter cannot be trusted to keep their names secret. That’s bad enough. But this is worse. Karl had a chance to limit the damage to ABC News from his faulty reporting when he first responded to Jake Tapper’s report. He blew that. Inexplicably, an ABC News spokesperson then doubled down on Karl’s original reporting: strike two. They had a chance to recover by asking Karl to explain how he got misled on This Week. They blew that when they chickened out and asked Jeff Zeleny to appear instead.
11. None of the major networks–ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, CNN–has an ombudsman. This is mystifying to me. They don’t seem to realize that since the rise of the Internet, their reporting is called into question far more easily and far more effectively. This case was especially likely to blow-up in ABC’s face once Jake Tapper’s report appeared online. When one reporter pisses on another reporter’s scoop, the first reporter enters a danger zone. The overwhelming temptation is to defend the story and treat the critique of it by another reporter as professional jealousy. A wise editor would intervene. (Attention: Rick Klein.) That did not happen. When the newsroom hierarchy fails, as it did here, the ombudsman can step in and force an accounting. But there is no ombudsman at ABC.
Jon Karl has dragged the entire news division at ABC (and now George Stephanopoulos) into his self-dug pit. He got played. His colleagues at other news organizations know it. His friends at the network, were they real friends, would try to talk him out of this disastrous state of denial.
* * *
Clearly, I regret the email was quoted incorrectly and I regret that it’s become a distraction from the story, which still entirely stands. I should have been clearer about the attribution. We updated our story immediately.
. Today, Jonathan Karl, feeling the heat from peers, decided to make a statement to Howard Kurtz of CNN, who read it on the air. The statement says:
In the statement he did not apologize. On Twitter he did— for failing to make clear that his reporting was based on a summary provided by a source. My favorite part of his statement is: “Clearly, I regret…” That’s exactly what he and ABC News, through its spokesperson, were refusing to be clear about!
Media Matters has many more quotes from former journalists calling Karl’s actions into question. Also see Josh Marshall’s analysis at Talking Points Memo.
Andrew Tyndall of the Tyndall Report, which tracks television news, sends this:
On Thursday’s CBS Evening News, Major Garrett spelled out how Jonathan Karl’s Republican source had misrepresented the content of the e-mails in his Exclusive on the previous Friday. But Garrett did not mention Karl by name as the one who disseminated the falsity. On Wednesday, when Karl covered the publication of the actual e-mails by the White House on ABC World News, he resorted to a post hoc, propter hoc sleight of hand to suggest that they vindicated his previous reporting. Garrett, also on Wednesday, reported the opposite: that the relationship between the State Department’s comments and the CIA’s wording changes were coincidental, not causative. Per Garrett, the CIA redacted its talking points in response to the FBI’s need not to compromise its investigation, not in response to the State Department’s need to avoid Congressional criticism.
Update II, May 19: After thinking about it some more, here’s the problem for ABC:
If a reporter for your network tells the public he has “exclusively” obtained evidence he has not in fact obtained, causing other reporters for the network to repeat that untruth, and part of his report turns out to be wrong, in a way that a.) is politically consequential and b.) would have been avoided if the evidence was actually in the reporter’s possession… what is the proper penalty?
ABC’s current position: The reporter has to say that he regrets the misreport, and apologize for not being clearer, while benefitting from the confusion he created across multiple reports by sometimes being accurate (that he had summaries of emails read to him) and sometimes misleading us with the claim that he had “obtained” the originals. (Link.)
Can that stand? We will see this week, I guess.
Update III, May 20: Looks like we have our answer. There is now an editor’s note attached to the original “exclusive” by Karl. It reads:
Editor’s Note: There were differences between ABC News’ original reporting on an email by Ben Rhodes, below, and the actual wording of that email which have now been corrected. ABC News should have been more precise in its sourcing of those quotes, attributing them to handwritten copies of the emails taken by a Congressional source. We regret that error. The remainder of the report stands as accurate.
I would have retracted the report, both the online and and on air versions. Not only because of the sourcing problems. The entire story seeks to make a scandal out of the fact that that the talking points were edited, or as Karl says on air “dramatically edited!” But how else do you get inter-agency agreement on what to say? Karl says on the air that many of the changes were “directed” by the State Department, but State didn’t have the power to direct anything. With the editor’s note and Karl’s updates attempting to rescue his “exclusive,” the thing is now a mess. All to avoid confessing error and protect a misbegotten scoop.
Academic opinion as surveyed by Salon is strongly against Karl and ABC for flunking the basics of transparency.
Here’s NPR’s report, quoting this one.
The Washington Post fact checker takes on this episode, in particular the White House’s claim that Karl’s Republican sources must have fabricated and “doctored” the emails they talked about with him. He is not impressed with this claim, awarding it Three Pinocchios (significant factual error and/or obvious contradictions.) “We see little evidence that much was at play here besides imprecise wordsmithing or editing errors by journalists.”
Update IV, May 22: It is in the nature of these disputes that they get more granular as they go on. Andrew Tyndall, who monitors TV News at the Tyndall Report, has been thinking it through. He sends me an after-action report that I am publishing here. Tyndall effectively isolates the layer of Jon Karl’s report that was, yes, a genuine scoop but also an important part of the story, if you really want to know what happened with the Benghazi talking points: The precise steps through which interagency drafting weakened the text into something opaque and, eventually, deceptive and wrong. That additional detail advances the story, as the Weekly Standard’s earlier reports did. No doubt this is why Karl and ABC are insisting their story “stands.”
But as Tyndall says, Karl’s report also tried to explain these changes–it went into the who and the why–by vaguely suggesting that the White House rep and the State Department rep directed them to be made, or somehow controlled the process. He wants to establish a kind of authorship or custody by State and the White House because he is aiming at another prize, beyond his “precise steps” scoop: catching Jay Carney in a lie or bald misstatement of fact.
The statement he was aiming at was the closer for his Good Morning America report on May 10. “They [the White House] initially said only one word had been changed.” He’s trying to show us that together, State and the White House changed a lot of words. Karl wanted to go beyond his exclusive. He wanted a scoop and a nailed lie too. But he mis-nailed it by getting a bum quote, and by failing to establish the undue authorship claim.
With that in mind, read Andrew Tyndall’s take:Far from home, and well above the Arctic Circle, Natasha Sebire and Gemma Woldendorp have made first ascents and paraglider descents in the far north of Liverpool Land, East Greenland.
The two flew to Constable Pynt, then travelled 65km north by dog sleds along frozen sea ice to the start of a glacier leading up to the icecap and Neild Bugt region.
They used skis and pulks to haul 160kg of food and equipment to a base camp at ca 500m.
This area had been visited in April 2007 by the veteran British Greenland explorer Jim Gregson, who with five other team members made eight first ascents up to 770m.
Gregson noted that there were many more unclimbed peaks in this area, some of which would give fine technical climbing. His published report included a photo of an attractive unclimbed rock tower.
For the two weeks in April that they were at base camp, Sebire and Woldendorp experienced fantastic weather and light winds, meaning they were able to make seven first ascents, flying from the summits of four of these peaks.
The ascents ranged from easy walk-ups, through ski traverses, to mixed snow/rock routes.
The biggest peak at the edge of the icecap they dubbed Mt Mighty (1,001m) and climbed it by a largely snow and rock ridge. The final 55° hard névé slope leading to the summit proved somewhat disheartening, as they knew they would be unable to launch from this terrain.
However, they were delighted to find the opposite side far gentler, and were able to make an exhilarating flight, with fine views down on their ascent route.
Castle Peak (744m) was climbed first by a fine mixed ridge, and then for a second time by an easier route, flying from the summit on both occasions.
It was while making the later ascent that they got a good view of the unclimbed rock buttress.
They had presumed technical rock climbing would be out of the question due to the sub zero temperature (their recorded minimum was -28°C and maximum -2°C), but late one day, after the sun had warmed the rock, they donned rock shoes and gave it a go.
The tower turned out to be surprisingly solid, but longer, harder and steeper than they had anticipated. Eventually, they backed off.
At the end of the trip they skied back to Constable Pynt, the journey lasting seven days. Subjected to the Arctic high pressure system, during their five weeks in Greenland they lost only five days to bad weather.
« BackOpen your blinking green terminals, prepare your admin config files, and pipe your standard shell input towards your internet sockets to begin a download of the brand new Linux version of Little Inferno!
You can get it directly from here. If you previously bought the Windows or Mac version from this site, you should now automatically (and freely) have access to the Linux version as well. To get it, just follow the same download link you used to download your Windows or Mac version. If need to retrieve your download link, you can do so here.
We’ll also be making the Linux version available on Steam as soon as we can, where it will also be freely available to anyone who already has the Windows or Mac versions. Thanks for your patience while we pulled this together, and we’re excited to hear your feedback!
Tags: Little Inferno, Tomorrow CorporationAfter San Fran’s appeal court ruled against President Donald Trump’s travel ban, unvetted refugees continued to flood in, while Syria’s President Assad warned that some of them are terrorists. And who would know better than Bashar al Assad, a guy who is fighting ISIS and terrorism for 3-4 years in a row?
After a federal judge ruled against President Trump’s travel ban on seven predominantly Muslim countries, the State Department went into a frenzy, i.e. they more than doubled the amount of refugees entering the US from terror prone countries(that’s Obama’s definition) like Syria and Iraq among others.
It definitely looks like the progressive establishment it pushing hard to admitting as many potential terrorists into the US as possible before the travel ban is put back on ice by another court.
Since federal judge L. Robart halted Trump’s travel ban on February 3rd, an incredible 77% of the 1100 refugees allowed to enter the US have been from the 7 terror-prone countries. And remember, it was President Barack Obama who put the respective seven countries on the map as being highly dangerous, not Donald Trump.
33% of the 1100 refugees admitted in less than a week were from Syria alone, 21% from Iraq and by contrast, prior to judge Robart’s order, only nine percent of the refugees entering the US were from Syria and six percent were from Iraq.
Here’s a quote from Jessica Vaughn at the Center for Immigration Studies:
“There’s no doubt in my mind they would be doing whatever they could to get people in before something changes because, from their perspective, their motivation is to resettle these folks. It would not be the first time that State Department officials have prioritized facilitating someone’s entry to the United States over security concerns,”
These guys left behind the enemy lines by the Obama administration,and I am talking about the “liberal” mainstream media, judges and even State Department/government officials, are making a big mistake in their idiotic fight against Donald Trump’s policies (after all, he won the election fair and square and now he’s delivering 100% as per his campaign promises).
By putting their progressive ideology ahead of their better judgement and national security, these guys will be responsible for the next terrorist attack on US soil.
Syria’s President Bashar al Assad told Yahoo News in an exclusive interview that, let me quote:
“Those terrorists in Syria, holding the machine gun or killing people, they [appear as] peaceful refugees in Europe or in the West.”
He also noted that you don’t require a big number of terrorists to commit atrocities; it’s about the “quality” and their intentions. And speaking about the almost 5 million Syrian refugees, Assad told Yahoo News:
“For me, the priority is to bring those citizens to their country, not to help them immigrate.”
When Assad is more honest when talking to the American people than the liberals, the democrats and the mainstream media, you know that something’s very wrong.
Source: Washington Times, Yahoo
AP Photo/Alexander F. YuanNVIDIA SHIELD 2nd Gen Shown In New FCC Documents
A couple of days ago we talked about new NVIDIA SHIELD controllers showing up and we speculated a refresh or redesigned SHIELD TV 2nd Gen would surface short after. Looks like we weren’t wrong according to the follow pictures from the FCC document. In addition it has went through South Korea’s FCC equivalent too.
The new Model # is P2897 and beyond being called an “Android TV Game Console” and having 802.11ac WiFi and BT 4.2 we can’t tell more due to NVIDIA’S confidentiality requests submitted to the FCC. For now we have confirmation of something new on the horizon but what surprises NVIDIA has in store remains to be seen and it will be reported here once that information is made available.
Anthony Garera Anthony is usually tinkering with everything and anything because there's always one more thing to do, reviewing games and apps and complaining about things normal people don't think about. More Posts - Website Follow Me:Get our daily newsletter Upgrade your inbox and get our Daily Dispatch and Editor's Picks.
THE trouble with water is that it is all politics, no economics. The costs of poor management are large: groundwater depletion takes 2.1% off Jordan's GDP; water pollution and scarcity knock 2.3% off China's; 11% of Kenya's was lost to flooding in 1997-98, and 16% to drought in the next two years. Rich countries build sewers, drains, dams, reservoirs, flood defences, irrigation canals and barrages to avoid such problems. Poor countries, with some exceptions, notably China, find large projects much more difficult. But at least large projects give politicians a monument to boast about. Small projects—weirs and wells and waterworks—have no allure for big-headed politicians.
That is a pity. A small dam is relatively cheap to construct: modest reservoirs known in India as tanks used to be built and maintained by local villagers. For a millennium they provided water in times of need and helped make rulers like the nizams of Hyderabad some of the richest men in the world. Now they are often silted up, polluted with pesticides, metals and phosphorus, or built on. In Kenya, by contrast, small dams are coming into fashion. Rainwater is channelled into sand catchments, which serve both to filter it and to protect it from evaporation. Some goes into nearby soil, for crops, some into groundwater from which it can later be recovered. In Niger a 15-year project involving dams and reclamation has restored nearly 20,000 hectares of unproductive land to forestry or agricultural use.
Everyone loves projects like these, especially if they can be given a romantic name like water harvesting. Some, perhaps, may simply be intercepting water for one user that would otherwise have gone to another, but almost every country could reduce its evaporation losses by capturing water and delivering it more effectively to the farmer, bather, drinker or manufacturer—and then, ideally, using it again. The harder question is whether that is enough.
Many believe it is not. Throughout history, man has made efforts to control water, divert it by means of canals, carry it via aqueducts, store it in reservoirs, harness it with water wheels and so on. The costs of these endeavours have been huge: valleys flooded, villages and habitats destroyed, wetlands drained and inland seas reduced to mere puddles. But the benefits have also been enormous.
The Aswan high dam, for example, is often cited as a cautionary example, a quixotic construction that now reduces the mighty Nile to a dribble before it trickles to the sea, leaving behind an explosion of water hyacinth, outbreaks of bilharzia, polluted irrigation channels and a build-up of sediment inland that would otherwise compensate for coastal erosion from Egypt to Lebanon. Yet, according to the World Bank, it has provided a bulwark against flooding for buildings and crops, a huge expansion of farming and Nile navigation (lots of tourism) and enough electricity for the whole of Egypt—all of which amounts to the equivalent each year of 2% of GDP in net benefits.
So would the World Bank today lend money for an Aswan dam if it did not already exist? The bank has been involved in few of the 200 or so large dams built in the past five years, but that is mainly because dam-builders—of which China is much the biggest—do not care for the bank's time- and money-consuming regulations, designed to ensure decent technical, social and environmental standards. Their strictness partly reflects greater knowledge about the consequences of building dams, partly the related political controversies of the 1980s. Even so, the bank was involved in 101 dam and hydro projects in 2007, up from 89 in 1997 and 76 in 2003; and it approved over $800m in hydro lending in 2008, up from $250m in 2002.
Suspicions of big dams still run high—and with some reason. Mr Thakkar, scrutineer of the Indian water scene, says that although the installed capacity of India's hydro projects increased at a compound rate of 4.4% a year between 1991 and 2005, the amount of energy generated actually fell. Some of the projects, poorly sited or poorly designed, were doomed to be uneconomic from the start. Others have been badly maintained or have simply silted up. But though 89% of the country's hydro projects operate below design capacity, the building continues wastefully apace.
Mr Thakkar argues that small projects offer much better returns, even for the crucial task of refilling aquifers by capturing monsoon rainfall. He points to the success of micro-irrigation in semi-arid Gujarat, whose agriculture has grown at an average of 9.6% a year since the turn of the century, partly thanks to the creation of 500,000 small ponds, dams and suchlike. But India, says Mr Thakkar, is still obsessed with big projects like the Bhakhra dam that the country's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, saw as one of the “temples” of Indian modernity. Only when the small temples can no longer provide solutions does he see a need for big ones.
Not all the big temples are dams. India has a dormant but not dead $120 billion scheme to bring “surplus” water from north to south by linking up the country's main rivers. China has its south-north equivalent, which, if it comes to pass, may involve spending $62 billion and shifting 250,000 people. Spain had its Ebro scheme, involving 830km of waterways, now abandoned, though some Spaniards remain wistful. Each of these has, or had, beguiling attractions, but vast costs.
Dams and reservoirs certainly need constant repairs and careful maintenance and do not always get them, usually because the necessary institutions are not in place. But when they are, a well-sited dam or embankment can transform lives for the better. In the late 1970s John Briscoe, an old water hand at the World Bank who is now at Harvard, spent a year in a Bangladeshi village and predicted terrible consequences if a proposed flood-control and irrigation scheme were to go ahead. It did, but on his return 22 years later he found the new embankment had vastly improved every aspect of the villagers' lives. He became an advocate of large projects.
In the rich world these are now largely unnecessary; the damage has been done and the benefits are being reaped. Southern California is an example, a region that gets all its water expensively from either the north of the state or the Colorado, a river so dammed and drained that it dies long before it reaches its delta—7,500 square kilometres of wetlands formerly crammed with wildlife, now invaded by the salty Pacific. But Hollywood survives, and in it such environmentalists as James Cameron, the director of “Avatar” and new champion of the Amazonian opponents of the planned Belo Monte dam in Brazil.
Many Ethiopians would be happy to have a few dams. Their GDP rises and falls in near synch with their rainfall, which varies wildly from year to year. If they had more storage, they could use it to get through the country's frequent droughts, but their man-made storage amounts to only 30 cubic metres per person, compared with 6,000 in the United States. Ethiopia's electricity consumption per person is among the lowest in the world, whereas its potential for hydro power is one of the highest. Indeed, electricity could be a valuable export.
Africa as a whole stands to benefit from more hydro projects, large and small. Climate change seems likely to shorten the rainy seasons and intensify variability, making storage even more important. Moreover, Africa seems likely to suffer more from climate change than other continents. As it is, it contains 35 of the 45 most “water-stressed” countries.
Hydro generation uses a known and tested technology that neither adds directly to greenhouse gases nor produces nuclear waste. Last month the World Bank announced a controversial $3.75 billion loan for a coal-fired plant in South Africa. Some hydro projects might be no more unpopular. Congo's Inga dams, for example, have the potential to provide the equivalent of South Africa's existing capacity. The South African authorities would be pleased to have it today. Their fingers are crossed that the hydro power from Mozambique will not cut out during the football World Cup next month.A YouTube video from the Muslim Society of an Australian University showed how two traditional Muslim leaders prescribe permanent celibacy to queer Muslims despite making erroneous statements.
Specifically, one indicates that "homophobia is an irrational fear of race or gender," whereas the other expresses disbelief on queer people doing without sodomy. Like other traditional Muslim leaders, their prescription is based on the view that same-sex orientation is a test from God.
Permanent celibacy is a value foreign to Islam, which recognizes the legitimate sexual need of human beings. Some traditional scholars admit that most human beings are not super-moral figures. As such, permanent celibacy imposes great hardship on human beings including queer Muslims.
One of the Muslim leaders in the video is familiar with the medical and psychiatric consensus on same-sex orientation and perhaps with alternative approaches to the relevant Qur'anic verses. He even concedes that permanent celibacy is "a big call to make."
However, he rejects the possibility of establishing an institution for queer Muslims by expressing concern on having two sets of rules for straight and queer Muslims. Furthermore, he emphasizes the "truth" over "what fits with what we want."
Such arguments ignore that the Sharia allows for exceptions based on the natural constitution of human beings. Several past jurists allowed the marriage of intersex persons, based on their inner disposition, with male or female partners. Other scholars opine that left-handed individuals are not bound to eat with the right hand.
Such arguments also ignore the overriding Islamic principle of "avoiding hardship." Shaykh Hamza Yusuf has stated "We are there to serve Allah, and that is why whenever the law does not serve you, you are permitted to abandon it, and that is actually following the law." It is important to note that such statements are based on equity, welfare and necessity instead of personal whims.
The YouTube video suggests how several traditional leaders, who are not formally trained as jurists, issue opinions anyway. Many of them may want to reflect on Imam Khalid Latif's words that "by pretending to have answers, people in authoritative positions cause a lot of damage to the well being of others."
According to the test argument, patience through permanent celibacy leads to rewards in the Hereafter. It seems, however, that this opinion is analogically deduced from Hadith texts rather than on the explicit words of these texts, which confer martyrdom on a person who perseveres and dies of plague or stomach disease.
The medical and psychiatric consensus that same-sex orientation is neither a disability nor a disease dissuades such analogical deductions. Furthermore, while, scripturally abusing queer Muslims and their straight allies, traditional leaders do not make similar arguments against Muslims facing disability or disease.
It is noteworthy that while some traditional scholars acknowledge the human need for sexual expression even for imprisoned Muslims, they do not do so for queer Muslims. Are not queer Muslims bestowed with human dignity that comes with the right to the essentials of life, which includes the legitimate need for intimacy?
Traditional leaders choose a reading of the "people of Lut" texts that lack nuance. They formulate their opinions on an atomistic reading of the verses instead of a holistic contextual and linguistic analysis, which accounts for the underlying assumptions of the jurists and exegetes.
Jurists and exegetes viewed same-sex conduct as anal intercourse and associated the act with subordination and humiliation. Qur'anic commentaries have portrayed the "people of Lut" as pederasts or aggressive rapists of trespassers.
Either way, jurists and exegetes viewed same-sex conduct as superfluous as they assumed a base heterosexual orientation for all human beings given their view that males and females were respectively active and receptive partners.
Traditional leaders also ignore the balance in the Prophet's statement by selectively emphasizing the latter part of his statement, "prepare for the Hereafter as if you are going to die tomorrow" at the expense of the first part that states, "work for this world as if you are going to live forever."
Several traditional leaders are afraid that allowing for extenuating circumstances for queer Muslims may lead to lifting of other religious rules. As such, instead of emphasizing the higher and universal Qur'anic values of mercy, compassion and good conduct, they fossilize the Qur'an by socio-cultural values of past centuries.
Frantz Fanon has stated that people will protect their core beliefs by rationalizing, ignoring or denying new evidence that contradicts those beliefs. As such, traditional leaders may find it challenging to re-examine their permanent celibacy prescription for queer Muslims.
However, Thomas Merton has stated that it is easy to prescribe others to accept their hardships of poverty as God's will and that one should share some of that hardship prior to making such assertions. As such, traditional leaders are better advised to walk in the shoes of queer Muslims before prescribing them to "tough it out."
Rather than projecting formula based answers, should traditional leaders not honestly admit that they "don't know"? Should they not reflect on verse 2:286 that teaches against invoking tests from God through the prayer 'Our Lord, do not burden us beyond our capacity'?
How can traditional leaders expect queer Muslims to cheerfully live cloistered or closeted lives both of which strip one of human dignity and self worth? Would they still churn out such arguments if their own children were grappling with same-sex orientation?
Having been so poorly treated by their co-religionists, many queer Muslims have left the folds of Islam. In his radical speech on women's rights, Imam Habib Ali stated that it should not surprise us that women go to human rights organizations when traditional Muslims have failed to treat them with dignity and respect. He also added that God would judge Muslims for conduct that drives generations of Muslims away from Islam.
Let the spirit of his radical speech encourage traditional leaders to reasonably address the plight of queer Muslims and reflect on the generations of queer Muslims that lose their faith.
In short, it would be petty to state that life is a test of whether a vulnerable minority can be celibate for some elusive purpose. It seems more reasonable to argue that life is rather a test of whether the overwhelming majority can show empathy for the "other."We’re proud to introduce version 4.0.0 of Realm Java, which ships with many new features, improvements, and bug fixes. Read on to find out more about what we’ve added, improved, and deprecated — or head over to see what’s happening on Realm Cocoa or Realm.NET!
Realm Object Server 2.0 support
Now, you can take advantage of all the benefits of ROS 2.0, including improved scalability, better performance, packaging based on npm, and the powerful new Realm Studio development tool for inspecting and administering your synchronized Realms! Beginning with this release, if you are |
believed that dark energy makes up 68 percent of the observable universe's energy.
In the latter part of 20th century, "dark matter" came into prominence, with astronomers asserting its evidence to explain the movement of stars within galaxies. They said dark matter is covering 27 percent of the universe's total content, with "ordinary matter" confined to just 5 percent.
In the case of dark energy, the concept unfurled as a new component in the 1990s from the studies on explosions of white dwarf stars in supernovae.
Dark energy currently has no properties describing the nature of its existence, which is why it's assumed to be an essential part of empty space referred to as the cosmological constant, represented by the Greek letter lambda (Λ). The cosmological constant was proposed by Einstein for explaining why the scattered mass through the universe is not pulling back under its own gravity.
The combination of dark matter and dark energy as factors in explaining the evolution of the universe is what is known as the Lambda Cold Dark Matter (ΛCDM) model, and it assumes that the universe expands uniformly. While this model is based mostly on Einstein's general theory of relativity, it still leaves much to conjecture.
These approximations are what the researchers of the new study are contesting, saying that these assumptions fail to take into account how large-scale structures in the universe influence its expansion.
New Expansion Model
The new mathematical simulations on the expansion of the universe take into consideration how gravity influences the particles that represent dark matter. The new model shows how matter clumps together and how matter is not distributed evenly in space. The large-scale structures, which look like empty spaces, create sections where evolution happens at different rates.
The new model counters the Lambda Cold Dark Matter model and says the expansion varies at different regions depending on the structural changes.
If the new finding receives acceptance, it will impact many models about the evolution of the universe and research in physics.
The study has been published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Euclid Mission Of ESA To Study Dark Matter
Meanwhile, the Euclid mission of the European Space Agency will be studying dark energy and dark matter.
Expected to be launched in 2020 aboard a Soyuz rocket from French Guiana, Euclid will take an average 30 days to make its way to gravitationally stable area Lagrange point. It will have a course of six years and 15,000 square degrees of sky in its survey.
ⓒ 2018 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.When the newest member of the Miami Heat checked in midway through the first quarter Monday night, basketball fans were momentarily blindsided. Someone by the name of Henry Walker stepped onto the court and proceeded to bury two threes and throw down a monstrous slam. He bore a striking resemblance to another Walker, a player who saw his promising career blown astray by knee injury after knee injury until he finally faded into basketball obscurity.
Eventually two and two were put together and onlookers realized this was the familiar face. Bill, or “Billy” Walker had emerged from the edge of the basketball globe to chase his dream of becoming a mainstay in the league. It started as Bill’s dream, but Henry offered a new perspective on his NBA journey.
“Give my daughter a better chance than I had to be successful,” Walker says about his reasons for an NBA comeback. “Give her a head start to the things I didn’t have. I want her to be more successful than I am. That’s my biggest goal.”
Milan Skye Walker was born in 2011, back when her father’s professional basketball career was nearing its peak as a role player with the Knicks. Years earlier, many thought Walker’s prime would be more along the lines of Vince Carter than Anthony Carter.
“In all of my years of watching high school basketball, I have never seen a player as electrifying as Bill Walker,” Rodger Bohn wrote for DraftExpress in 2005. “He has the ability to just totally change a game with his amazing leaping ability. Anything that is within 10 feet of the rim at the level he plays at will automatically be dunked.”
Walker, who began playing basketball at 6 years old, first realized how good he could become in his sophomore year of high school. “I was like, ‘I have a good chance of going to college and then possibly beyond that,’” Walker says, in spite of suffering a right ACL tear in an AAU game the summer prior.
“It was on a fast break. I was running down the right side of the court. I got an advance pass, took a dribble, jumped off one, did a highlight dunk. Came down and it was just all bad after that,” Walker says. “I didn’t even know what was going on, I was just in so much pain.”
Walker eventually returned to the court and attended North College Hill High School in Ohio, where he teamed up with current Bucks shooting guard O.J. Mayo for his sophomore year and beyond.
“It was always competitive between us. We competed with everything. Video games, anything you can name. It was steel sharpening steel basically,” says Walker. “It’s a lot easier to go and get that extra work in when you have somebody that’s just as willing. It’s competitive so it’s not like you’re actually in there working and it’s dreadful, it’s like a competition, you’re trying to be better than the next person. It was fun.”
Despite playing second fiddle to Mayo—who was being vaunted as one of the best high school players ever—Walker was able to carve out his own niche, being named a top-10 recruit in 2007 per Rivals.com and committing to Kansas State. The 6’6” small forward could still jump with ease despite the ACL tear and possessed plenty of strength as well. However, just six games into his college career, Walker went down with another ACL injury, this time in his left knee.
"I had so much stuff I wanted to accomplish then, and it all came crashing down in front of me," says Walker.
“I knew exactly what it was at that time. When that happened it was probably one of the most depressing moments I’ve ever been through," says Walker. "I felt that pain, that burning sensation, my leg swelling up. I had so much stuff I wanted to accomplish then, and it all came crashing down in front of me."
Walker sat out the remainder of his freshman year, but returned the following season to average 16.1 points and 6.3 rebounds in 31 games. “It took a while. I can’t tell you I just popped back up," says Walker. "I thought about [the injury] daily. Every time I worked out I thought about it. I really changed my whole game because of it."
Faced with a choice of returning for his junior year or declaring for the NBA Draft, Walker chose the latter. “It was nerve-racking. Part of me wanted to stay and play another year, and then it’s the economic side of it,” Walker says. “I was in a tight spot so I just decided to try my luck.”
Walker and the scouts surveying him were concerned that future injuries could play a role in his evolving career. These fears were realized before Walker even got a chance to play an NBA game when he suffered a meniscus tear in a pre-draft workout with the Warriors.
“I couldn’t catch a break," Walker says. "I just figured, it is what it is. Just try to do what I can do to make the best out of the situation. It was too late to try and go back to school. I had to live with the choice I made but looking back I wouldn’t do anything any different.”
Walker ended up being selected by the Celtics with the 47th overall pick in the 2008 NBA Draft. After spending his rookie season practicing against Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen and developing in the D-League, Walker was once again bit by the injury bug. Prior to his sophomore season, Walker re-tore his meniscus and was traded to the Knicks months later.
“There was a lot of stuff I couldn’t do anymore. I used to have crazy athleticism, I still have it, but it’s just that fear of something going wrong, so I’ll get [an opportunity for] a dunk and I’ll just shoot a layup or a floater. It helped me become a better shooter because I couldn’t rely solely on my speed and quickness anymore, I had to learn how to actually play the game,” Walker says. “I was kind of excited. [Mike] D’Antoni and that system, him being a West Virginia guy, I was kind of excited. I wasn’t mad or anything like that. It’s a business, that’s the thing they tell you early.”
Walker's work on his jumper in the wake of his injuries paid off, as his career caught momentum in D’Antoni’s free-spirited offense. In his fifth game in New York, Walker earned his first career start and responded with 22 points in front of the hometown crowd. He went on to average 27.4 minutes a night for the Knicks, knocking down threes at a 43.1% clip. Walker would continue making his name as an effective shooter in the following season, hitting 38.6% of his attempts from downtown on 2.5 attempts per game. He wasn’t the next big thing many expected him to be, but Walker was okay with that.
“I don’t have an ego as far as that, like ‘I have to be the man’ or anything like that,” Walker says. “That wasn’t a part of me. I knew that very quickly, I had to find a role and be good at something so I could get on the court.”
Walker became somewhat of a fan-favorite in New York, but not solely because of his play. He had already garnered the reputation of being a knucklehead from his days at Kansas State, when he ate popcorn on the bench one night and relieved himself in a towel during a game another night. He also got into a small skirmish with Garnett as a Knick on Christmas Day 2011.
“I didn’t think it was fair. I was 19. How many 19 year olds are mature adults? How many 19 year olds are who they are going to be at 27?” Walker says. “I didn’t have enough life experience to mature.”
Walker ended up getting waived by the Knicks in late April, but didn’t play any sort of professional basketball until mid-February the following year, when he signed with the D-League’s Austin Toros.
“I really took the time off just to do some thinking with my daughter. Took some time to take a break,” explains Walker. “Just trying to do some soul-searching, get back and see if this is what I really wanted to do. Sometimes being away from it makes you evaluate what’s important, what’s not and that’s what happened.”
. This time Walker appeared in 48 games, averaging 14.7 points and 5.6 rebounds. Walker then joined the Alaska Aces of the Philippine Basketball Association in April 2014.
“Totally different,” Walker says of playing overseas. “When I played in the Philippines, it would be 9 a.m. where I’m at but 9 p.m. at home. It’s a job, it’s how you make a living so you kind of bite the bullet and do what you have to do.”
YouTube clips of Walker’s time playing for the Aces will not only display that Walker still has the ability to fly, but also offers a glimpse of his competitive nature.
“Not to take anything away from people that actually are in war, but that’s what the game is. It’s not a friendly game. You want to go out there and you want to win. You want to humiliate your opponent. That’s the mindset I have coming in. I’m not looking for friends on the court. I’m trying to win the game. I want to win badly,” Walker says. “Where I come from, we don’t have a lot. Pride is one of those things that people carry with them and it’s important. I’m learning to channel it and use it to play better instead of being emotional.“
Walker re-joined the Skyforce yet again coming into this season, his sixth stop since being waived by the Knicks just 19 months prior. With four knee injuries and countless jerseys under his belt, Walker found himself leaning on just one person through it all.
“I talk to my Mom every day just about life in general, about stuff that’s going on in my career and the perceptions I have of myself,” Walker says. “She’s always been there for me, even times where I wanted to quit going through some of those rehabs. She always made sure that I kept my goal ahead and worked through whatever problems I had. That was it. I don’t have too many friends. With personal matters, I look inwards with my family.”
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that it was Walker’s family who helped convince him to go by his middle name—Henry—moving forward. ”[My Mom] agreed that it would possibly be better to change it up, go ahead and turn a new leaf,” says Walker. “After I had my daughter I just started to put things in perspective. I just decided that would probably be the best thing to do for myself.”
After 17 games with the Skyforce this season, Walker got the call that he’d be donning an NBA uniform once again, but things remained in perspective for the matured Walker. “Initially I was shocked. [Coach Phil Weber] just drove home the things he has been working with me on about being a professional and taking my craft seriously,” Walker says. “I thanked him for everything he helped me with, and I called my mother.”Papua New Guinea trek attack: Four arrests made after revenge killing
Updated
Papua New Guinea police have arrested four men over last week's deadly ambush on an Australian trekking group, while villagers killed a man for allegedly harbouring the attackers.
Seven Australians, a New Zealander and their porters were attacked while trekking along the Black Cat Track in Morobe province on Tuesday.
Two local porters were killed and seven more were admitted to the Angau hospital in Lae, all with deep gashes to their legs.
On Sunday police arrested four of the six men wanted in connection with the vicious attack.
Police commissioner Tom Kalunga says three men were captured at Wau at one end of the Black Cat Track and the other was arrested at the other end at Salamaua.
The ABC understands the four suspects have been locked up at the police station in the provincial capital Lae.
Officers are still hunting for the remaining two suspects and Mr Kalunga says it is only a matter of time before they are brought in.
Suspect killed in revenge attack
Matthew Gibob was one of the porters who died in the attack and on Saturday his relatives killed a man they believed was linked to the ambush.
The dead man's body is in the morgue in Wau with large machete wounds to his back and head.
Ninga Yawa, the chairman of the Black Cat Trail Association, says Mr Gibob's relatives attacked the man and he died on the way to hospital.
"They felt that he deserves to be treated the same way as they treated Matthew," he said.
Mr Yawa believes people from Bitoi, an alternate but largely unused start to the Black Cat Track, are responsible for last Tuesday's attack.
Commissioner Kalunga says no-one has the right to take another life and the killing will be investigated.
The family of the other slain porter, Kerry Rarovu, have covered their faces in mud - the traditional mark of grieving.
They are demanding answers and justice.
"My family feel that the criminals must die the same as Kerry died," his brother Bing Rarovu said.
'Frenzied bloody massacre'
Meanwhile, the leader of the trekking group, Christy King, has spoken to the ABC about what she says was a "frenzied bloody massacre".
"I am deeply saddened and would like to offer the families of the two porters who lost their lives on Tuesday afternoon during the attack at Banis Donki my sincere condolences," she said.
"The attack was a frenzied bloody massacre which made no sense. I am so sorry for these men to have received such terrible injuries."
Due to the severity of their injuries, the porters were forced to remain on the track overnight following the attack while Ms King and the trekkers were escorted by local police to safety.
Since the attack, just one of the porters has undergone surgery to clean his wounds, prompting Ms King and her husband Daniel to set up bank accounts for donations towards their treatment.
At this stage it is doubtful any of them will be able to walk properly again.
"I'm worried about my future. Maybe I'll stay alone, I don't know. I'm going to be paralysed maybe, I don't know," one of the porters told the ABC.
Former local trekking operator Tim Vincent says the motive behind the the attack is still not clear.
"[There are] only rumours and half stories at the moment. Everyone is talking about these ex-criminals and escapees, possibly they were involved," he said.
Topics: murder-and-manslaughter, crime, law-crime-and-justice, papua-new-guinea, pacific, australia
First postedSupporters of Barnard English professor Bashir Abu-Manneh presented administrators on Monday with over 300 signatures opposing the college's decision to deny him tenure. In an email to President Debora Spar, Provost Linda Bell, and English department chair Peter Platt, supporters said that the effective firing of Abu-Manneh would be "an immense loss" to Barnard and argued that it raised questions about the college's dedication to academic diversity. In a statement to Spectator, Spar said that the decision not to give Abu-Manneh tenure came after "a highly rigorous and exacting process" by the tenure committee. "Though all such decisions are final, it does not diminish the impact and influence Prof. Abu-Manneh has obviously had on his students and colleagues," she said. One of Abu-Manneh's former students, Nancy Elshami, BC '10, wrote a letter to the tenure committee on Abu-Manneh's behalf. When she learned he had been denied tenure, she was outraged, leading her to start the petition. "As students and alums, we believe there is a lot to lose with this decision," Elshami said in an email. Elshami said that the college would lose a "truly tremendous" professor in Abu-Manneh, who serves as an assistant professor of English and the director of the film studies program. "On another level I think it has negative implications on how the university serves to foster intellectual diversity and academic freedoms," she added. Abu-Manneh is an outspoken supporter of Palestine and has written articles critiquing Israel's actions in the conflict, leading some signatories to question if his political positions played a role in Barnard's decision. Most students and alumni who signed the petition, though, were upset that Barnard refused tenure to a professor whom they admired and respected. "It calls into question for us the value the university places on excellence in teaching," Elshami said. Justine Lyons, BC '13, took the class "Cultures of Colonialism: Palestine/Israel" with Abu-Manneh in her sophomore year and signed the petition as soon as she saw the link on Facebook. "I signed it because I believe he's a great asset to this university and it would be a shame for him not to be given tenure," Lyons said. Reviews of Abu-Manneh on CULPA were consistently positive, with some students calling him "the best professor at Barnard." The site awarded Abu-Manneh a "silver nugget," a distinction awarded to some of the most positively reviewed professors. Fatimah Rimawi, BC '12, had Abu-Manneh as an adviser on her senior thesis. She called his guidance "invaluable." "I was really confused how an amazing professor like professor Abu-Manneh could be leaving Barnard," Rimawi said. "I think this calls into question the transparency of the tenure process." "I think that the Barnard administration would expect nothing less of its Barnard students" than to question the college's motivations, she added. Though Spar emphasized that the decision is final, Elshami said she hopes "that this example of independent student mobilization can empower other students and compel them to play a part in University politics." news@columbiaspectator.comWords mean nothing apart from a context, and this is certainly true with the word sacrament. The Roman Catholic Church and confessional Presbyterians both use this term. However, the context of these two theological communities shows that there is a world of difference between them.
For the Roman Catholic Church, sacraments are visible forms of invisible grace—that created grace (even substance) that is infused into the recipient, whether he has faith in Christ or not. Confessional Presbyterians, on the other hand, employ the same term, but mean something quite different by it. According to the Westminster Confession of Faith, sacraments are "holy signs and seals of the covenant of grace" (27.1). Immediately a significant difference emerges: a visible form of God's invisible grace has no historical anchor, whereas a sign and seal of the covenant of grace grounds the sacraments in God's historical dealings with his people.
Covenant Promises and Covenant Signs
In the Scriptures, God always deals with his people in the context of a covenant. Within the context of these covenants, God has given visible signs to accompany his covenant promises. For example, when God covenanted with Noah and the creation not to destroy the earth by water again, he gave a visible sign of his covenantal pledge: "This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth" (Gen. 9:12–13).
One of the important elements that should be noted is that the visible sign of the rainbow is revelatory, as it is connected with the revelatory word. God's word, though, always brings blessing and sanction. The double-edged nature of God's revelation, invisible (word) or visible (sign), is apparent in the rainbow: it invokes God's promised blessing to preserve the earth, but also the flood-judgment by which he destroyed it.
This same pattern of blessing and sanction appears with the sign of the Abrahamic covenant, circumcision. God made his verbal promise to Abraham and then gave a visible sign of that promise: "You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you" (Gen. 17:11). The visible sign of circumcision pointed both to blessings and to sanctions. It pointed to the blessing of the circumcision of the heart wrought by the Holy Spirit (cf. Deut. 6:4–6; 30:6; Rom. 2:25–29) and to inclusion in the covenant people of God. But it also pointed to the covenant sanction: being cut off from the covenant people of God (Gen. 17:14).
In terms of the covenant blessing, according to the apostle Paul, circumcision was also a seal of the righteousness that Abraham received by faith (Rom. 4:11). Just as a seal upon an official government letter assures the recipient of its authenticity, so circumcision functions in a similar fashion. It is a seal of God's gospel promises to Abraham that he received by faith alone.
A question emerges, though, as to why God gave circumcision as a sign of the covenant. The simple answer is that God was visibly preaching to his people that the seed of the woman, the seed of Shem, and now the seed of Abraham, would be cut off for the sake of God's people (cf. Gen. 17:14; Isa. 53:8; Jer. 11:19; Col. 2:11; Heb. 13:12–13). In a word, circumcision as the sign of the covenant pointed to the person and work of Christ.
Another covenant sign in the Old Testament is the Sabbath, which was the sign of the Mosaic covenant, a sign that Yahweh was in Israel's midst, sanctifying them (Ex. 31:13). The Sabbath served as a visible reminder of Israel's deliverance from slavery in Egypt (cf. Ex. 20:8–11; Deut. 5:12–15). As Israelites ceased from their labors and worshiped God, they visibly proclaimed to the nation, as well as to the surrounding Gentile nations, that God was in their midst, redeeming a people for himself as they received a foretaste of the eschatological rest of the seventh day (cf. Gen. 2:3; Ex. 31:15; Heb. 4:1–11). But as with the rainbow and circumcision, the covenant sign of the Sabbath was double-edged. It was a blessing for those who rested and received a taste of the eternal Sabbath to come, but it was a sign of judgment for those who labored upon it (Ex. 31:14; cf. Gen. 17:14; 15:9–10, 18; Jer. 34:18).
The Message of the Sacraments
This Old Testament background helps us to understand why the Westminster divines state that baptism and the Lord's Supper are holy (or sacred, hence sacrament) signs and seals of the covenant of grace. They visibly preach the gospel of Christ and point to his person and work. Baptism visibly declares that the seed of the woman has come, has been cut off in his crucifixion, has been raised, has ascended, and has baptized the church in the Spirit (cf. Joel 2:28; Luke 3:16; Acts 2:14–21, 32–33). The Lord's Supper visibly declares that God has ratified his covenant with his people through the shed blood of Christ (cf. Ex. 24:8; Matt. 26:28). It also points forward to the eschatological supper of the Lamb (Rev. 19:9).
Like their Old Testament sacramental predecessors, baptism and the Lord's Supper are double-edged, just like the word of God (Heb. 4:12). For those covenant children who receive baptism but do not make a profession of faith, or for those adults who make a false profession of faith, baptism is not the water of new creation and blessing, but that of drowning and judgment (cf. Luke 3:16; 2 Pet. 3:5–7). And for those who partake of the Lord's Supper apart from faith in Christ and who do not rightly recognize the significance of the sacrament, the partaking of the bread and the wine becomes the consumption and imbibing of judgment (1 Cor. 11:27–30).
That the sacraments are sacred signs and seals of the covenant of grace and are the visible word of God tells us that they play a vital role as an element of worship. The central element of Reformed worship, evidenced by the central placement of the pulpit in Reformed churches, is the reading, but especially the preaching, of the Word of God (Larger Catechism, 155). Here the divines echo the apostle Paul regarding the centrality of preaching (Rom. 10:14–15). However, ministers herald the gospel both as an invisible (audible) word and as a visible (sacramental) word.
But it is important to note that the sacraments are dependent upon the Word of God, apart from which they are empty signs. Hence, the Word can stand alone, but the sacraments cannot; sacraments are dependent upon the preaching of the Word. Moreover, just as the mere hearing of the preached Word does not automatically guarantee salvation, so the mere receiving of the sacraments does not guarantee salvation. The sacramental word, just like the preached Word, requires the sovereign work of the Spirit to apply it to people.
Also, the sacraments point to Christ, just as the written Word points to him. All too often people confuse the sign (baptism or the Lord's Supper) with the thing signified (the person and work of Christ) (see Confession, 27.2–3). The sacraments "represent Christ, and his benefits," but are not themselves Christ, as claimed by Roman Catholicism for the bread and the wine.
The proper understanding of the nature of the sacraments as elements of worship has profound implications for the church's practice. Too many people in the church look upon baptism, for example, as something merely for the one who is baptized. Rather, the sacraments, the visible word, when joined to the preaching of the audible Word, herald the gospel of Christ to the entire body of Christ. Baptism proclaims that Christ has baptized, or poured out, the Spirit upon the church in the wake of his ascension and session at the right hand of the Father.
It is also important to remember that there are no neutral encounters with the living God. One cannot hear the word of God and walk away indifferent and unaffected. Christ, as the incarnate Word, is the chief cornerstone and the stone of stumbling and rock of offense (Isa. 28:16; Matt. 21:42; 1 Pet. 2:6–8). The written Word is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, dividing between soul and spirit, joint and marrow (Heb. 4:12). And the sacramental word is double-edged, visibly heralding blessings for those who receive the good news by a Spirit-wrought faith and sanctions for those who reject it. In this respect, like the written Word, the sacraments can be a means of grace or judgment.
If the sacraments are indeed the visible words of God, then preachers and sessions should make every effort to teach this truth to their churches and see that they observe the Lord's Supper frequently. As we hear the word preached to our ears and see the word preached to our eyes, rejoice that God has revealed himself in Christ through his invisible and visible word, and that he applies it to our lives by the sovereign work of the Spirit. Rejoice in knowing that one day the invisible and visible words will no longer be needed because we will behold the incarnate Word of God face to face, when faith gives way to sight. Maranatha, come quickly, Lord Jesus.
First published in New Horizons, June 2009.
© Westminster Seminary California All rights reserved Permissions: You are permitted to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do NOT alter the wording in any way and you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on our website is preferred.1
Background to “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections”: The Analytic Process and Cyber
Incident Attribution
“Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections” is a declassif
ied version of a highly classified assessment that has been provided to the President and to recipients approved by the President.
The Intelligence Community rarely can publicly reveal the full extent of its knowledge or the precise bases for its assessments, as the release of such information would reveal sensitive sources or methods and imperil the ability to collect critical foreign intelligence in the future.
Thus, while the conclusions in the report are all reflected in the classified assessment, the declassified report does not and cannot include the full supporting information, including specific intelligence and sources and methods.
The Analytic Process
The mission of the Intelligence Community is to seek to reduce the uncertainty surrounding foreign
activities, capabilities, or leaders’ in tentions. This objective is difficult to achieve when seekin g to
understand complex issues on which foreign actors go to extraordinary lengths to hide or obfuscate their activities.
On these issues of great importance to US national security, the goal of intelligence analysis is to provide assessments to decisionmakers that are intellectually rigorous, objec tive, timely, and useful, and that adhere to tradecraft standards.
The tradecraft stand ards for analytic products have been re fined over the past ten years. These standards include describing sources (including their reliability and access to the information they
provide), clearly expressing uncertainty, distinguishing between u nderlying information and analysts’
judgments and assum ptions, exploring alternatives, dem onstrating relevance to the custome r, using strong and transparent logic, and explaining change or consistency in judgments over time.
Applying these standards helps ensure that the Intelligence Community provides US policymakers, warfighters, and operators with the best and most accurate insight, warning, and context, as well as potential opportunities to advance US national security. Intelligence Community analysts integrate information from a wide range of sources, including human sources, technical collection, and open sour ce information, and apply specialized skills and structured analytic tools to draw inferences informed by the data available, relevant past activity, and logic and reasoning to provide insight into what is happening and the prospects for the future.
A critical part of the analyst’s task is to explain uncertainties as
sociated with major judgments based on the quantity and quality of the source material, information gaps, and the co mplexity of the issue.
When Intelligence Community analysts use words such as “w e assess” or “we judge,” they are
conveying an analytic assessment or judgment.
No ‘consenting couples’ inside hotels were fined
No ‘consenting couples’ inside hotels were fined
An officer with Malwani Police told this newspaper on Tuesday that none of the 13 couples who were detained for indecent behavior in a public place were held inside any room in any guest house or hotel. He said they were picked up from public areas around the guest houses.
These same lodges that were raided by Mumbai Police recently, sparking off outraged cries against moral policing, have been scenes of several rape cases in recent years. At the Mantra residency, a sex racket was busted and on three occasions — including one earlier this year — complainants said they were raped there. Several of the people detained by police were picked up from Mantra, including the person who claimed she was slapped, and the girl who claimed her parents had stopped speaking to her.
In 2009, a minor was allegedly raped in Mantra residency and retired Malwani ACP Jaywant Hargude, the then senior inspector Malwani, confirmed that Mantra’s licence was cancelled a couple of months. In 2010, a sex racket was busted where six women were rescued from Mantra and Meena Milan Seth (a pimp), Prakash and one Dev were arrested.
In 2013, a 29-year-old rape complainant said she was raped in Mantra and nearby Yogashram. On July 5 this year, a 41-year-old rape complainant said she was raped in Mantra and Yogashram. Another rape case allegedly took place this year in Himalaya guesthouse. In 2009, a manager of Mhatre cottage in Aksa was booked, and some women were rescued in an Immoral Traffic Prevention Act (IPTA) case which deals with prostitution. In 2010, three women were rescued from Aksa cottage under ITPA.
This correspondent went to Mantra residency to get their version, but owner Harish Shetty was not available and did not respond to phone calls despite repeated attempts to reach him. Mr Shetty had accompanied a delegation of the Association of Hotels and Restaurants to complain to the Mumbai police commissioner about the raid on his property on Monday. He had told The
Indian Express, “We are running our businesses as per police guidelines but they are still harassing our guests. No prostitutes were found inside my hotel. I have been told they were found outside my hotel, so why are my guests being harassed ”
It’s not just Mantra. Rape incidents took place in Ashram lodge in 2013, where the complaint was 21-years-old; at Jogaiwadi lodge in 2014 where the complainant was 24 years of age; Sai Shraddha cottage, where complainant was 40 years of age; White guest house, where the complainant was 25 years of age and in the bushes next to Aksa picnic cottage where a 17-year-old complained of rape. This year, three rapes cases and eight Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act (ITPA) cases including seven for soliciting had been registered from Aksa.
A police officer from Malwani police said, “We didn’t go there for moral policing. The lodges are hand in glove with prostitutes. Even prostitutes can have ID proofs so we had to probe a bit further. Customers are also booked in such cases so they don’t admit their guilt either.”Peter Farrelly reveals that comedy sequel will shoot in September
Dumb And Dumber 2 has been confirmed to shoot in September.
Co-director Peter Farrelly has revealed plans for a follow-up to the hit 1994 comedy about the cross-country adventures of two intellectually-challenged friends. But he insisted that the new film will be the first true sequel.
He told ComingSoon.net: “We’re getting set to shoot Dumb And Dumber 2 in September. It’s the first sequel we’ve ever done, and we’ve got Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels back.”
2003 saw the release of prequel Dumb And Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd, but it did not feature the original stars. Farrelly emphasised: “We did not do Dumb And Dumberer. That was a studio thing.
“So we’ve always wanted to do a sequel and Jim called up. Jeff always wanted to do it. We always wanted to do it. Jim was busy, but he called and said, ‘We’ve got to do this thing again’. He had just watched Dumb And Dumber and he said, ‘This is the perfect sequel. Let’s do it.”
Farrelly will once again direct with his brother Bob, and Sean Anders and John Morris will write the screenplay.Hieronymus Bosch is a kind of populist superstar among the old-master painters. His fans relish his surreal, inventive images of the afterlife, but particularly his vivid visions of hell: sinners straddling giant knife-blades, egg-shaped machines churning miscreants into their bellies, cruel hybrid frog-devils and dog-faced lizard birds.
Five hundred years since the death of the Dutch artist in 1516, it’s believed that only a tiny fraction of Bosch’s output survives — about two dozen paintings and some 20 drawings — but the fascination with his oeuvre hasn’t abated |
Don Howe, who was Terry Venables's defensive expert. He talked to me specifically about my feet and head movements. He would employ physios to lift up different coloured bibs on the opposite side to where the attack was coming. You could see the four defenders synchronizing their head movements. We had to shout the colour of the bib. If you failed, Don would yell: "You're ball watching!"
Don had a strong voice. I remember us conceding a goal against Japan in the Umbro Cup in my first game for England. Terry Venables was telling us how well we youngsters had done when Don cut him off and said: "Whoa, you may be happy, but I'm not. We conceded a goal from a set piece and that's ridiculous. We worked on that in training."
In youth team football I had problems one-on-one with moving my hips. I was quite stiff. United sent me to a mobility coach who worked on my feet movements: how close they needed to be to the ground to increase traction. We were taken into Eric Harrison's office to study the defending of Maldini and Costacurta in the great AC Milan team.
Each time we watched the senior United team at Old Trafford, Eric would ask us to come back with verbal reports of mistakes that had been made, with and without the ball. We had to watch the game with an eye on what Paul Parker or Steve Bruce were doing.
My era of men who retired around 2009-2010 were the last crop of predominantly defensively-trained players. Coaching has shot off in another direction, towards the technical. I've had that confirmed by people at academies. The technical and attacking work is now around 80 per cent with 20 per cent reserved for defensive skills.
Plainly the rule changes have contributed. Constraints on tackling have made it tougher for defenders. Grappling in the penalty area is hot news this week so you can expect that to be stamped out.
The minimum standards have dropped sharply. When I was brought through from 1991-94, if a full-back allowed a cross it was a crime. Nowadays it barely seems to register.
According to Opta, in the first year of the 20-team top league 79 defenders played more than 30 games. Now you're down to 44. So everything we talk about with defences - telepathy, consistency, playing together regularly - starts to break down. United's back-four, for example, is ever changing. But I see no road back to the old ways. It's like the guy who loves Ceefax pining for its return in the face of the internet. It's not coming back.
'Screening players' have not offset these fundamental changes to the way defences work. A Patrick Vieira of 10 years ago is now a Mikel Arteta. A Roy Keane is now a Daley Blind. And a Bryan Robson for England is now a Jack Wilshere.
It's not the fault of the players. Wingers are full-backs, centre backs are central midfielders, goalkeepers are sweepers, No 10s are central midfielders and wingers are centre-forwards. You're talking about a completely different game.
I look at some teams and feel: they don't know how to defend. They struggle with crosses, they don't deal with set-pieces, they don't know how to work one on one. They have a weak understanding of the game. When I look at players now we're comparing apples and pears.
We always interpret "philosophy" as the attacking style. We never read into that the defensive approach. Sergio Aguero scores goals where he cuts inside and scores with his right foot. I think: why did the defender not show him his left foot? Sometimes the basic attention to defending is not there.
The last thing I ever wanted to be was an "In my day" kind of pundit. But I'll have to change my mindset. It's not the fault of the players that what we would call "proper defending" is not uppermost in their thinking. I am a product of Eric Harrison, of Don Howe. I tend to look at every goal from a defensive point of view.
The speed of the game is so much greater. The technical level is fantastic. It's electrifying. And perhaps the very bold formations and big scorelines of the 1940s and 50s are what we are heading back to. Maybe attacking football was in hibernation during the 70s, 80s and 90s, when organisation and structure prevailed. Maybe now we are seeing football as it was intended.Remuneration represents one of the essential applications of a practically appealing financial system. Information regarding the compensation amount allocated to various individuals is unarguably sensitive, requiring certain levels of privacy. Given the fact that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are steadily evolving into accepted exchange mediums for considerable swaths of the global economy, a large number of individuals worldwide will bring home income in the form of various cryptocurrency payments. As per the nature of blockchain based transactions, even minor details regarding an individual’s compensation plan and his/her spending habits will be publicly available for everyone. In some instances, this infringes on cultural norms which usually respect salaries’ confidentiality; however, it is occasionally regarded as a minor issue compared to the level of transparency offered by blockchain transactions.
Interestingly enough, a couple of researchers recently analyzed bitcoin’s blockchain transaction records to identify periodic bitcoin payments recurring to a specific address in exchange for merchandise or offered services. The researchers used the obtained data in determining the extent of insight that could be gleamed regarding the parties involved in the transactions, as well as the privacy implications if this insight.
An overview of the study:
The researchers were given access to a bitcoin address, which they referred to as Alice, that receives periodic payments for merchandise and offered services, from an entity, which they referred to as Bob & Company. Bob & Company paid Alice around once every week, during the period between August and December, 2016. The fact that payments to Alice took place at regular intervals from the same bitcoin address strongly indicates that these payments constitute remuneration. By further analyzing the transaction behavior of Bob & Company, they found out that Bob & Company has a consistent group of addresses (mostly employees) to whom periodic payments are sent.
The researchers created a heuristic to identify bitcoin addresses that are compensating workers, or employees, via bitcoin’s blockchain:
Heuristic 1 (Remuneration Profile):
If the bitcoin address α o is sending payments to a group of addresses (α 1, α…..,α n ), for an amount of money in the range ρ at interval ι, with regularity ι τ, then we can assume that α o represents an organization and (α 1, α…..,α n ) are its employees.
Remuneration is characterized by regular payments, yet it is usually associated with irregularity in the value of each transaction, mainly due to the volatility of bitcoin. Accordingly, if payments closely follow a consistent reference point or a benchmark of value in national currency, such as the USD, this strongly indicates that these payments are salary payments. This led the researchers to the formulation of Heuristic 2, to identify remuneration.
Heuristic 2 (Benchmark Target):
If the median value M of the number of payments P T made by the address α o to a group of bitcoin addresses (α 1, α…..,α n ), consistently follows a target value in national currency N, when various exchange rates are considered (E), then P T represents remuneration for merchandise or services offered.
Conclusion:
The paper represented 2 Heuristics that can provide the basis for formulating mechanisms to search the blockchain for proof of remuneration behavior, not only for bitcoin, but also for other cryptocurrencies as well. The implications of remuneration using blockchain payments should not be overlooked, especially when explaining them to employees before adding them to an organization’s bitcoin payroll.
Image source: FlickrRich Cimini does a good job laying out reasons the San Francisco 49ers might consider trading for New York Jets cornerback Darrelle Revis.
I'll give you five reasons to think twice.
Philosophy test: Smart NFL teams know drafting well beats signing veterans from other teams to inflated deals. Drafted labor is cheaper, healthier labor. After spending big in free agency to prop up a shaky roster five-plus years ago, the 49ers have taken a disciplined approach to improving the team. Revis will want a massive contract extension. If the 49ers weren't interested in signing Nnamdi Asomugha as a free agent a couple years ago, why would they suddenly part with draft compensation for the right to pay another veteran corner? It's not the 49ers' way.
Chemistry concerns: The 49ers have taken care of their own players. They've reached contract extensions with Joe Staley, Vernon Davis, Patrick Willis, NaVorro Bowman and other players they drafted. The approach has sent a strong message through the 49ers' locker room. Produce and the team will value you more than it values players from other teams. Spending big for a veteran from another team would go against form. Revis might be good enough to warrant an exception from the 49ers' standpoint, but that is not a given.
Misplaced need: The 49ers' secondary struggled late in the season, no question. Facing red-hot quarterbacks such as Tom Brady, Russell Wilson, Aaron Rodgers and Matt Ryan had something to do with that. Also, the 49ers' pass rush wasn't as good when injuries struck Justin Smith and Aldon Smith. Bolstering the defensive line and improving the pass rush should be a higher priority than loading up at corner, particularly at an inflated price.
Revis is injured: Revis suffered a torn ACL last season. Will he recover the way Adrian Peterson recovered, returning to form quickly? Will he struggle? Might he never be quite as dominant as he was previously? The 49ers cannot know the answer to these questions. Their medical people don't know Revis the way their medical people know current 49ers players. Giving up draft compensation for the right to overpay a veteran is risky enough. It's even riskier when that veteran is coming off major surgery.From the National Science Foundation
Ethane levels yield information about changes in greenhouse gas emissions
Research at Greenland and Antarctic shows decline in methane and ethane levels
Recent data from NSF-funded research in both Greenland and Antarctica demonstrate that fossil-fuel related emissions of both methane and ethane, two of the most abundant hydrocarbons in the atmosphere, declined at the end of the twentieth century, according to a paper published Thursday in the journal Nature.
The causes of the decline in methane emission rates to the atmosphere have been puzzling scientists for some time. This new study shows that a change in human activities may have played a key role in the recent leveling off of methane, which, being a potent greenhouse gas contributes to global temperatures.
Murat Aydin from the University of California, Irvine is the lead author of the paper. Other researchers include Kristal Verhulst, Eric Saltzman, Donald Blake, Qi Tang, and Michael Prather from UCI, Mark Battle from Bowdoin College, and Stephen Montzka from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The team investigated the history of fossil-fuel emissions of methane, based on measurements of another hydrocarbon, ethane, in air trapped in the polar ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica. The ancient air resides close to the surface, within the perennial snowpack, and can be used to study changes in the atmosphere that occurred during the twentieth century.
“Fossil fuels are a common source of both ethane and methane. Methane has many other sources, but we know most of the ethane in the atmosphere today is from fossil fuels. If ethane changes, it is easier to figure out the cause” said Aydin. “After carbon dioxide, methane is the second most important greenhouse gas. This research was conducted to track ethane and to see what it could tell us about methane. We found that ethane emissions declined at the same time as the rise in methane dramatically slowed, suggesting a common cause.” At the end of the 20th century, methane and ethane were deemed valuable energy resources; collected and consumed as natural gas they are converted to carbon dioxide. The researchers’ results for this time frame indicate that the leveling off in atmospheric methane in recent years is likely linked to this change in energy use.
“This research helps explain why atmospheric methane levels stabilized at the end of the twentieth century” said co-author Eric Saltzman. “Methane levels are important for global climate and understanding how human activities affect methane is a key part of predicting how much warming we may expect in the future.”
“We still have more research to conduct, but this discovery is significant to our efforts in determining the link between ethane and methane and what it may tell us about climate change,” said Julie Palais, NSF program director. “We must work together to continue to find ways to further our research on this very important subject.”
###
Advertisements
Share this: Print
Email
Twitter
Facebook
Pinterest
LinkedIn
RedditBefore we start the interview in logical order, it’s probably best if we address the obvious first. How are you recuperating from the fracture that you sustained in San Luis?
You know, it’s coming along and healing really fast. I’m especially happy right now, because I’m already back to riding a bike.
Wow, that was fast. How long have you been back on the bike?
I’ve been training on the bike for a week now, going easy, but I’m now increasing the kilometers day by day.
Has the crash changed your calendar at all, as far as racing or even when you travel to Europe?
It hasn’t at all. I’m going to Europe on Februrary 15th, and that hasn’t changed. I know my first race will in France, but I leave it up to the team to make those decisions [Fernando is currently scheduled to compete in the Haut Var and Tour Cycliste International La Provence upon arriving].
Let’s talk about how you first became involved in cycling. It’s interesting to me that the sport so permeates your entire family...your dad runs a cycling academy, your sister races on the track, and yet you took up speed skating first before racing on the track or the road. Why?
It was just because my sister decided to take up speed skating, and I wanted to follow her, and compete and train along with her. But I always had my eyes on the bike, I always wanted to ride. The moment that my parents got me my first real bike, I was hooked. I started taking it seriously, and training right away. From there, it became my life, and something I took up as a profession.Agriculture is the foundation of human civilization. Before domesticated plants and animals ensured a stable and secure food supply, humans lived as hunters and gatherers, moving from place to place in search of food. Life was difficult and tenuous, and evidence suggests that humans almost went extinct around 74,000 years ago because of extreme changes in climate. Settling down in fertile regions allowed towns, cities, and eventually nations to develop. The agriculture that supported this development relied on rich soil, clean water, and a predictable, relatively mild climate.
A geological timeline of the Earth’s temperature shows how remarkably stable the climate has been for the past 10,000 years, during which human civilization has flourished. The Holocene era, which we live in now, began around 12,000 years ago as the Ice Age ended. With the exception of two later periods of cooling—the Late Antique Little Ice Age from 536 to 660 AD and the Little Ice Age from roughly 1300 to 1850 AD, which led to areas of crop failure, famine, and death—humans have experienced a climate conducive to food production.
We can no longer take our stable climate for granted.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide is at a level never previously seen by humanity. Between 1900 and 2000, it surged from 290 to 369 parts per million (ppm)—an increase of approximately 27 percent, largely from burning fossil fuels. In 2013, the level passed 400 ppm for the first time in human history, and it is projected to increase to as high as 1500 ppm if fossil fuel consumption continues at present rates over the next few centuries. There is a time lag of around 30 to 40 years between when carbon dioxide is pumped into the atmosphere and when its effects are felt, because the planet’s massive oceans take longer to warm than the atmosphere. So the climate we are experiencing now is due to greenhouse gas emissions from 30 to 40 years ago. Widespread coral bleaching from ocean acidification is one sign of on-going deleterious change. Coastal flooding is another. We should anticipate climactic conditions getting worse in the future.
In the United States, it’s easy to be complacent about food security. As defined by the World Food Summit in 1996, food security is “when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.” Most US-born Americans have never experienced food rationing, shortages, or sky-high food prices. Immigrants from war-torn nations or developing countries often have. According to US Department of Agriculture data, since the end of World War II, the percentage of disposable income Americans spend on food (for consumption both at home and away from home, such as at restaurants, schools, and work) decreased from 21 percent in 1946 to 9.7 percent in 2014. In 2015, US consumers used only around 6.4 percent of their total expenditures to pay for food for consumption at home. Singapore spent the next-lowest fraction at 6.7 percent, and in other developed countries, such as the United Kingdom (8.2 percent), Canada (9.1 percent), Australia (9.8 percent), Germany (10.3 percent), and France (13.2 percent), people spent more. In poor, developing countries, people spend a considerably higher fraction of their money on food for home consumption—35.2 percent in Egypt, for example, and 56.4 percent in Nigeria.
The United States has, in general, enjoyed bountiful food since its founding. Today, its entire consumer economy depends on food security, because inexpensive, safe, accessible food makes it possible for people to spend the rest of their incomes on stuff like cars, cell phones, personal computers, books, and clothing. We take food security for granted.
Local food production, access to global food markets, technology, and climate all impact food security. The United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization issued a 2015 Hunger Map highlighting food insecure regions, showing that despite some global progress in reducing hunger, poor countries in sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Central and South America remain food insecure. Grid Arendal, an organization affiliated with the UN Environment Programme, has proposed strategies to improve food security: food commodity price regulations, funding to boost small-scale farmer productivity, recycling of post-harvest losses and waste with new technologies, and increasing trade and market access through infrastructure improvements and trade barrier reductions. As longer-term strategies, the organization recommends raising awareness of the pressures of population growth, as well as limiting global climate change.
The question is: Can we sustainably feed ourselves without destroying the natural world as climate change worsens? In September 2015, the United Nations adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, with food security one of its top goals. The UN Secretary-General launched a Zero Hunger Challenge at the 2012 Conference on Sustainable Development with the aim of eliminating malnutrition and ending hunger by making all food systems sustainable, with zero food loss or waste and 100 percent accessibility year-round. These are laudable goals, but it’s not clear whether they are achievable.
In December 2015, the US Department of Agriculture issued a technical report finding that climate change will likely affect local, regional, and global food security, resulting in frequent food production disruptions and increased prices. The global food system will be adversely affected, particularly in tropical regions inhabited by poor populations.
The United States plays a key role in global food security, according to the USDA report. With 16 percent of global agricultural exports, it is the world’s largest food exporter. It has 11 percent of the world’s arable land, and with advanced technologies including genetically modified crops, is able to maximize agricultural yields. It is the world’s largest producer of corn and soybeans and one of the world’s largest producers of wheat and rice. Global food prices are affected by US agricultural production, which is affected by the weather. In 2012, a severe drought affected 80 percent of US farmland resulting in corn and soybean shortages. The shortfall lead to international corn and soybean price increases of 25 and 17 percent, respectively. In the decades ahead, the entire United States is expected to warm considerably.
The adverse impact of rising greenhouse gas emissions on agriculture could even extend beyond decreased yields to include reduced nutrient levels. A study published in Nature in 2014 found that grasses and legumes such as wheat, rice, maize, and soybeans grown in elevated carbon dioxide environments had significantly lower zinc and iron concentrations.
We need political leaders who recognize that human-caused greenhouse-gas-induced climate change poses a threat to food security, and are committed to developing and implementing policies to reduce and mitigate the effects. I’ve written about the need for a new Green Revolution to prepare for a changing climate, one that brings technology to bear on increasing food yields. But much more needs to be done. Lowering global carbon dioxide emissions would also lower the cost of adaptation, which should provide additional incentive to reduce emissions and adhere to the Paris Climate Agreement signed in December 2015.
The Department of Agriculture report determined that about one-sixth of global agricultural production (by mass) is internationally traded, which is good news for places where local or regional food production falls. Building up and strengthening food trade agreements would help support global food security and ultimately international security generally. Technology also has a role to play in supporting global food security, as supply chains that are too long run the risk of jeopardizing safety through contamination and spoilage. Innovative packaging and expanded cold storage can help prolong shelf life and reduce waste.
President Obama’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2017 allocates $138 billion of the total federal budget—about 3 percent—for food and agriculture, focusing on food security. Under the auspices of the Department of Agriculture, the Agricultural Research Service and National Institute for Food and Agriculture conduct in-house and extramural peer-reviewed research, respectively, on issues including crop and livestock production, climate change, and water resources. Their combined proposed budgets for fiscal year 2017 constitute just 1.9 percent of the USDA’s total budget, though. Support for research and development under worsening climactic and environmental conditions will need to increase given the importance of food security.
Beyond traditional agriculture in rural areas, urban populations are becoming increasingly interested in food production, as evidenced by urban, backyard, rooftop, and balcony agriculture. With the global population becoming increasingly urban, this is a good development. In Western countries, community gardens are popular, and there are proposals to develop vertical gardens in skyscrapers. In Africa, urban agriculture might help contribute to local food security.
Food security is too important an issue to wait until climate change worsens before doing something about it. We need to figure out how to sustainably feed ourselves as our environment degrades. Those who deny the reality of climate change and refuse to do anything about it threaten the future of human civilization.by Erik Altieri, NORML Executive Director
Reported this week in the Daily Herald:
Community banks and credit unions are ready and willing to provide financial services to entrepreneurs in the state’s new legal pot industry. But they aren’t able to, at least not yet. Marijuana businesses, even ones that will soon be legally licensed in this state, are considered criminal enterprises under federal law, which makes handling their money a crime in the eyes of the Department of Justice. Until the agency changes its outlook or Congress changes the law — and efforts are under way to do both — those getting into the pot business can’t open a bank account, secure a line of credit or obtain a loan from a federally insured financial institution in their neighborhood. Full Article
Fortunately, there is already a bill Congress could act upon to resolve this issue. Earlier this year, Representatives Ed Perlmutter (CO-07) and Denny Heck (WA – 10), along with a bipartisan group of 16 other Republicans and Democrats, introduced legislation that would reform federal banking laws relating to marijuana businesses. HR 2652: The Marijuana Business Access to Banking Act of 2013 updates federal banking rules to resolve conflicts between federal and state laws and would allow marijuana businesses acting in compliance with state law to access banking services.
Under current federal banking laws, many legal, regulated legitimate marijuana businesses that follow state law are prevented from opening bank accounts and operating as any other businesses would, which could ultimately lead to crime such as robbery and tax evasion in addition to the already onerous burden of setting up a legitimate small business.
Please take a minute of your time today to utilize NORML’s Take Action Center to contact your elected officials and urge them to support this important legislation. You can do so by clicking here.Image of Hell in the style of Bosch
Detail of "The Last Judgment" by Luca Signorelli
There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than this, if it lay in my power. But it (1) has the full support of Scripture, and, (2) especially, of our Lord's own words; (3) it has always been held by Christendom [thus three arguments from authority]; and (4) it has the support of reason (sic!).
And these shall go away into everlasting punishment.
And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness...
No one in the final analysis really fails to become a Christian because of lack of arguments; he fails to become a Christian because he loves darkness rather than light and wants nothing to do with God.
Follow me on Facebook,
Further reading:SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- The numbers say Derrick Rose is driving to the rim at a higher rate now than he was at any other point this season. After a slow start to the season -- the former MVP was statistically one of the worst shooters in the league from October through December -- that's significant progress for Rose and the Bulls, who have been maddeningly inconsistent and are stuck in the middle of the pack in the East.
What the numbers don't show is that Rose is teaching himself how to be the Rose of old again. That's a process that can't happen quickly enough for a team that desperately needs him to find his groove.
Editor's Picks Fantasy: Derrick Rose's recent resurgence Bradford Doolittle takes a look at what's trending in fantasy basketball, including Tyronn Lue's impact on Kevin Love's production, and Derrick Rose's latest scoring increase.
Three trades that would help the Chicago Bulls The Bulls have slumped lately. What moves could they make to turn things around? Bradford Doolittle takes a closer look at potential trade targets for Chicago. 1 Related
"I think it's just me getting back to used to just playing," Rose recently told ESPN.com. "Seeing openings, training my mental to be prepared and training my body to be prepared so that if I see a gap or if I see an opening, I'm hitting openings and gaps within a couple of seconds to be able to get to the rim. So it's all about just reading the game, and I think I've been doing a better job with just making sure that I'm getting there and getting contact with whoever's there."
To understand why Rose is having to teach himself the instincts that once came so naturally, consider that he comes into Wednesday night's contest against the Sacramento Kings having played just 102 regular-season games in the past four seasons, since he tore the ACL in his left knee in April 2012. This season, Rose has missed only six regular-season games because of various injuries, but that number is progress, considering he played in only 51 regular-season contests in 2014-15.
Rose struggled to find a rhythm early this season, in large part because he fractured his left orbital bone during the Bulls' first official practice in late September and missed most of training camp. The rust in Rose's game was evident on the court and by the numbers.
ESPN
ESPN
Among 94 players to take 100 field goals from inside the restricted area through the end of December, Rose's 44.4 field goal percent ranked last, according to ESPN Stats & Information. Expanding to the entire paint area, Rose's 42.6 field goal percent ranked last among 87 players to take 150 shots in that span.
The aspect of Rose's game that took the biggest hit was finishing near the rim. Rose ranked second to last in the league on layups from October through December, as he shot just 45.6 percent. Orlando's Victor Oladipo was last, at 43.5 percent.
Rose shed the protective mask he had been wearing in late December, when he said he felt like he was "hiding behind something." In the time since, his game has been revitalized. Since January, Rose has taken 59.1 percent of his shots from inside the paint, which is up from 52.2 percent through December. He has made more than half his shots (50.4 percent) from that area since Jan. 1.
Rose has acknowledged that he has dealt with lingering conditioning issues as he tries to get his legs back under him after missing almost all of the preseason. But Bulls coach Fred Hoiberg believes Rose's stamina is close to where it needs to be.
"... me attacking opens up the game because it puts so much pressure on the defense. But it takes me actually going through it and experiencing it and learning it all over again for me to really understand it."
"I think a big thing [is] he's had a stretch now where he's gotten consistent minutes, as opposed to in for four games, out for a couple," Hoiberg said. "He's played games in succession. He feels good, his body feels good, and he's in attack mode. That's a great thing for our team. When he's attacking the rim, good things happen."
For months, Hoiberg and Rose have discussed how important it is for him to get to the basket. All along, Hoiberg wanted Rose to push the pace whenever possible, something he struggled to do through the first couple months of the season. As Rose finds his way on the floor, he has adhered more to Hoiberg's message.
"His biggest thing was just playing downhill," Rose said of Hoiberg. "He wanted me to play downhill, but I haven't played in so long or played consistent games in so long, where I didn't have a rhythm of getting downhill all the time. So it's coming back to me now. And just trying to dissect every game that we play in, for the team and individually, because I feel like I can get a lot better."
From a statistical standpoint, Rose definitely has gotten better. He is shooting 56.6 percent from the field since the calendar turned to 2016 and almost 37 percent of those shots have been layups. That's up from 33 percent from October through December. The other noticeable jump comes from Rose's shots inside the paint. From October through December, he was shooting just 42.6 percent from that area. That number has risen to 50.4 percent since Jan. 1.
Derrick Rose doesn't have the pressure to carry the offensive burden anymore, but the Bulls are still better when he's attacking the rim. Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images
From a mental standpoint, Rose appears to be enjoying the game more than he has at any other point since the knee injuries started piling up. He is regaining confidence in his abilities, a feat that has taken years. Even after struggling through a 6-for-21 performance Monday in an overtime loss to the Utah Jazz, Rose flashed a rare show of emotion on the court. After draining a clutch 3-pointer with 18.9 seconds left in regulation, which should have helped the Bulls lock up a much-needed win, Rose walked to center court and bowed to his audience.
It was an uncharacteristic display from a player who is trying to find joy in his own game again. The 27-year-old Rose isn't just learning how to be his old self again, he is also learning how to become an updated version. Before the knee injuries, Rose bore the responsibility of dominating offensively every game for the Bulls to win. Almost four years later, with Jimmy Butler ascending into a perennial All-Star and Pau Gasol still churning out double-doubles, Rose has become more of a distributor than he was at any other point in his career.
"Fred, the whole coaching staff, teammates want me to play a certain way. They want me to attack," Rose said. "And me attacking opens up the game because it puts so much pressure on the defense. But it takes me actually going through it and experiencing it and learning it all over again for me to really understand it."
Although he might not feel the pressure to carry the scoring load any longer, the Bulls are still at their best when Rose digs into his memory bank and flashes his old game. Luckily for Chicago, those instances seem to be getting more frequent, but it is still a process for Rose.New York Daily News Archive via Getty Images The mother of a Muslim first responder who died on 9/11 is calling out Donald Trump and other GOP presidential candidates for preaching Islamophobia.
WASHINGTON -- The mother of an American Muslim first responder who died on 9/11 is calling out Republican presidential candidates for drumming up hatred and fear against Muslims in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris.
"Capitalizing on fear and the considerable ignorance about the Muslim faith among many of our citizens, they are in a rush to the bottom, driving a stampede of prejudicial proposals," Talat Hamdani writes in a Monday op-ed in the New York Daily News.
"Perhaps the worst of all," she adds, "is Donald Trump's recent openness to the idea of having all Muslims registered in a database, along with his suggestion that it might be necessary to shut down mosques and force all who share my faith to carry a special ID card."
It's not just Trump, though. Hamdani called out Ben Carson for echoing Trump's calls for a database, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) for saying Muslim gatherings should be monitored, and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush for suggesting Christian refugees should be given priority entrance into the United States.
Hamdani says her 23-year-old son Mohammed "gave the ultimate sacrifice" as he tried to save fellow Americans during the terrorist attacks.
"He was a first responder and NYPD cadet who rushed down to rescue his fellow Americans," she says. "He didn’t discriminate. He followed his heart, his humanity and his training to do his best to save those lives [that] were in danger."
She added that none of the aforementioned GOP candidates are qualified to be president, because presidents "take an oath to defend the Constitution."
Read her full op-ed here.
Also on HuffPost:We’ve said time and time again that the Supporting Actor field in dramas may just be one of the most crowded ones that exists for the Emmys; every show has at least a couple of people who could be nominated. Whether or not they will be is a completely different story.
Below, we’ve got for you our picks for Supporting Actor in a Drama, which include several villains, a redemption story, and quite possibly the greatest Netflix representation of any of the categories yet. That’s just a testament to the sort of great work that is being done on the service these days!
In addition to sharing our own personal choices, we’ve got a poll at the bottom of this article for you to also vote for your favorite. Voting will remain open until July 13, which is the day before the official nominations are announced. There is no limit to how many times you can vote, so have fun!
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series
Jon Bernthal, “Daredevil“ (Netflix) – When Bernthal was first announced to play the Punisher we had only seen him in his role as Shane on “The Walking Dead”, so we weren’t sure if he could really play this kind of larger than life anti-hero, but what he gave us was a performance worth Emmy consideration. While watching this season of “Daredevil” you didn’t know whether to root for him or hate what he was doing and that was a complex feeling that Bernthal created for us with ease.
Christopher Eccleston, “The Leftovers“ (HBO) – If it was not for “International Assassin” airing a little later in the season, “No Room at the Inn” would be the show’s finest episode, and probably one of the strongest hours of 2015. There’s something about Eccleston’s Matt Jamison that you root for, even if his blind idealism and his persistence without hesitation can at times serve as flaws. He plays him brilliantly as this man of faith constantly wedged between Biblical and almost at times mythological struggles. We only wish we saw more of him consistently on the show.
Rory Kinnear, “Penny Dreadful“ (Showtime) – The role of Frankenstein’s monster (also known as “John”) has been the most heartbreaking role on this series. While all of the characters have some pretty serious struggles, John has had it the worst as he floats on a sea of lonely misery as an outcast to society and a monster to his family. Every time Kinnear is on screen we find ourselves weeping with him and desperate to hold him and tell him everything is going to be okay. It’s not often that a performance can have us crying like a baby every week and leaving us wanting more time with him – Kinnear deserves to be considered.
Tobias Menzies, “Outlander“ (Starz) – While we’d say the screen time for Black Jack Randall has been less in season 2 than the first go-around, are you really going to say that he has done any less of an exemplary job? You can’t. This man remains one of television’s most-harrowing villains, and it is because of the depth Menzies puts into this role you can see the dual perceptions of the character, one where some see him as a champion without knowing the monster within. This is all without even mention the fine work Menzies puts in as Frank.
Lou Diamond Phillips, “Longmire“ (Netflix) – Henry Standing Bear is a one-in-a-million character for TV, a determined and complicated figure whose interest and protecting those within the Native American community has led him beyond the fringe of the law. Phillips is the perfect man to play out Henry’s missions as Hector; there is an inherent likability in his performance that continues to have you rooting for him, and he can flip the switch from amicable friend |
Director David Dhawan, has only done roles that are conventionally appealing to mainstream audiences; movies like ‘Student Of The Year’, (my Review here) ‘Main Tera Hero’ and ‘Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania‘, showed us his ability to display the typical attributes that make up a Bollywood leading man.
In ‘Badlapur’, Dhawan looks completely like a man who has ‘lost everything’ and is out for revenge, and it seems to be his most intensely dramatic role yet. The movie is directed by Sriram Raghavan who is the man behind movies like ‘Johnny Gaddar’ & ‘Agent Vinod’, (my Review here) and is known for his unconventionally interesting technique, and is quite adept at exhilarating storytelling.
Nawazuddin Siddiqui also stars, most likely as the antagonist of the movie. The film also features Yami Gautam, Huma Qureshi and Divya Dutta in, what looks to be, a significant role. Dutta has made a career of supporting roles, and I’m hoping this is her time to shine in a movie where her character gets the spotlight.
Produced by Saif Ali Khan’s Illuminati Films, ‘Badlapur’ is set to release on February 20th, 2015. Are you pumped?If you are a frequent reader, you are undoubtedly familiar with hacker [Sprite_tm]. He has been working with fellow members of the TkkrLab hackerspace to get things ready for their official grand opening on May 28th, and wrote in to share a project he recently completed to kick things off.
As part of their preparations, they have been stocking the joint with all sorts of hacker-friendly goodies including plenty of tools and Club Mate, as well as a vintage ‘1943’ arcade cabinet. The game is a group favorite, though every time the power is turned off, it loses all of the hard-earned high scores. [Sprite_tm] knew he could improve on the current paper-based score register, so he pulled the machine open to see what could be done.
He used an AVR to tap into the machine’s Z80 logic board, allowing him to read and write to the entirety of the game’s RAM whenever he pleased. This enabled him to keep tabs on the high scores, restoring them to memory whenever the machine is powered back on. The addition of the AVR also allowed him to add a TCP/IP interface, which is used to send high scores to Twitter whenever someone beats the previous record.
His modular bus tap can be used in all sorts of Z80-based hardware, so if you have some vintage equipment laying around, be sure to swing by his site for a more detailed look at the build process.LONDON — As Europe struggles to address a worsening migration crisis, the executive arm of the European Union is expected this week to submit a proposal to distribute migrants across the 28-member bloc, officials said on Monday, a plan that would encounter fierce resistance from some national governments.
Tens of thousands of migrants this year have risked the dangerous crossing of the Mediterranean, often on rickety boats and with fatal consequences. Last month, a vessel capsized off Italy, killing as many as 900 people.
The proposal for redistributing migrants would be based on a quota system that would take into account factors like the size of a country’s population, the state of its economy and its level of joblessness, European Union officials said.
The plan, which has not been finalized and must be approved by national governments to take effect, is being supported by Germany. Last year, the Germans fielded one-third of the 570,800 asylum claims registered in the European Union, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and they are pressing for other countries to take their share.Suffering from "make install"
I am writing application X, which uses the nonstandard perl modules DBI, DBD::SQLite, and Template. These might not be available on the target system, so I got the idea to include them in the distribution for X and have the build process for X build and install the modules. X already carries its own custom Perl modules in X/lib anyway, so I can just install DBI and the others into X/lib and everything will Just Work. Or so I thought. After building DBI, for example, how do you get it to install itself into X/lib instead of the default system-wide location, which only the super-user has permission to modify? There are at least five solutions to this common problem. Uh-oh. If solution #1 had worked, people would not have needed to invent solution #2. If solution #2 had worked, people would not have needed to invent solution #3. Since there are five solutions, there is a good chance that none of them work. You can, I am informed: Set PREFIX=X when building the Makefile
when building the Set INSTALLDIRS=vendor and VENDORPREFIX=X when building the Makefile Or maybe instead of VENDORPREFIX you need to set INSTALLVENDORLIB or something Or maybe instead of setting them while building the Makefile you need to set them while running the make install target
and when building the Set LIB=X/lib when building the Makefile
when building the Use PAR
Use local::lib Some of these fail by being excessively complicated. Some fail by addressing a larger problem set that is too large. For example, I do not want to do whatever PAR does; I just want to install the damn modules into X/lib where the application can find them. Some of these items fail because they just plain fail. For example, the first thing everyone says is that you can just set PREFIX to X. No, because then the module Foo does not go into X/lib/Foo.pm. It goes into X/Foo/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.12.23/Foo.pm. Which means that if X does use lib 'X/lib'; it will not be able to find Foo. The manual (which goes by the marvelously obvious and easily-typed name of ExtUtils::MakeMaker, by the way) is of limited help. It recommends solving the problem by travelling to Paterson, NJ, gouging your eyes out with your mom's jewelry, and then driving over the Passaic River falls. Ha ha, just kidding. That would be a big improvement on what it actually suggests, for three reasons. First, it is clear and straightforward. Second, it would feel better than the stuff it does suggest. And third, it would actually solve your problem, although obliquely. It turns out there is a simple solution that doesn't involve travelling to New Jersey. The first thing you have to do is give up entirely on trying to use make install to install the modules. It is completely broken for this application, because even if the destination could somehow be forced to be what you wanted—and, after all, why would you expect that make install would let you configure the destination directory in a simple fashion?—it would still install not only the contents of MODULE/lib, but also the contents of MODULE/bin, MODULE/man, MODULE/share, MODULE/pus, MODULE/dork, MODULE/felch, and MODULE/scrotum, some of which you probably didn't want. So no. But the solution is actually simple. The normal module build process (as distinct from the install process) puts all this crap under MODULE/blib. The test suite is run against the blib installation. So the test programs have the same problem that X has. If they can find the stuff under blib, so can X, by replicating the layout under blib and then doing what the test suite does. In fact, the modules are installed into the proper subdirectories of MODULE/blib/lib. So the simple solution is just to build the module and then, instead of trying to get the installer to put the right stuff in the right place, use cp -pr MODULE/blib/lib/* X/lib. Problem solved. For modules with a shared library, you need to copy MODULE/blib/arch/auto/* into X/lib/auto also. I remember suffering over this at least ten years ago, when a student in a class I was teaching asked me how to do it and I let ExtUtils::MakeMaker make a monkey of me. I was amazed to find myself suffering over it once again. I am relieved to have found the right answer. This is one of those days when I am not happy with software. It sometimes surprises me how many of those days involve make. Dennis Ritchie once said that " make is like Pascal. Everybody likes it, so they go in and change it." I never really thought about this before, but it now occurs to me that probably Ritchie meant that they like make in about the same way that they like bladder stones. Because Dennis Ritchie probably does not like Pascal, and actually nobody else likes Pascal either. They may say they do, and they may even think they do, but if you look a little closer it always turns out that the thing they like is not actually Pascal, but some language that more or less resembles Pascal. Unfortunately, the changes people make to make tend to make it bigger and wartier, and this improves make about as much as it would improve a bladder stone. I would like to end this article on a positive note. If you haven't already, please read Recursive make Considered Harmful and be prepared to be blinded by the Glorious Truth therein.
[Other articles in category /prog] permanent linkA U.S. judge has ruled that BP's recklessness caused 2010's massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill, a move that could cost the company billions. Earlier this week Halliburton, the company in charge of sealing the completed Deepwater Horizon well that spewed millions of gallons of oil into the gulf, agreed to pay $1.1 billion to settle claims arising from its negligence.
U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier will now hold a penalty phase to decide how much BP will pay. The company may face as much as $18 billion in civil penalties under the Clean Water Act, according to The Wall Street Journal.
According to court documents, Clean Water Act civil penalties can total up to $1,100 per barrel spilled in the absence of "gross negligence or willful misconduct." Barbier ruled that the discharge of oil into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 was the result of negligence, so the maximum penalties will be nearly quadrupled.
BP said it strongly disagrees with the decision issued by the court and will appeal the ruling, according to a statement emailed to The Huffington Post.
"BP believes that the finding that it was grossly negligent with respect to the accident and that its activities at the Macondo well amounted to willful misconduct is not supported by the evidence at trial," it reads in part. "The law is clear that proving gross negligence is a very high bar that was not met in this case."
More from the AP:
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — BP bears the majority of responsibility among the companies involved in the nation's worst offshore oil spill, a federal judge ruled Thursday, citing the energy giant's reckless conduct in a ruling that exposes the company to billions of dollars in penalties.
BP PLC already has agreed to pay billions of dollars in criminal fines and compensation to people and businesses affected by the disaster. But U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier's ruling could nearly quadruple what the London-based company has to pay in civil fines for polluting the Gulf of Mexico during the 2010 spill.
Barbier presided over a trial in 2013 to apportion blame for the spill that spewed oil for 87 days in 2010. Eleven men died after the well blew.
The judge essentially divided blame among the three companies involved in the spill, ruling that BP bears 67 percent of the blame; Swiss-based drilling rig owner Transocean Ltd. takes 30 percent; and Houston-based cement contractor Halliburton Energy Service takes 3 percent.
In his 153-page ruling, Barbier said BP made "profit-driven decisions" during the drilling of the well that led to the deadly blowout.Hackettstown police announced an arrest in a series of arsons last week on Main Street.
Connor Cashman, 21, of Bayonne, New Jersey, was charged Monday in fires set between midnight and 5 a.m. Thursday at Michael's Salon, 220 Main St.; Topo Restaurant, 218 Main St.; and at 210 Main St., police said.
Police linked Cashman to the fires after someone saw photos of the arson perpetrator posted on the department's Facebook page, police said in a news release.
Cashman enrolled at Centenary College in Hackettstown for fall 2012, majoring in business management, according to college records. Centenary spokeswoman Annamaria Lalevee confirmed he remained a student there Monday.
Cashman is charged with criminal attempt to commit aggravated arson and burglary in the 210 Main St. incident; arson for 218 Main St. and disorderly conduct for 220 Main St.
He was sent to Warren County jail in lieu of $50,000 bail.Matthews, the No. 1 pick in the 2016 NHL Draft, became the fourth player since 1943-44 to score three goals in his debut, joining Alex Smart (Montreal Canadiens, 1943), Real Cloutier (Quebec Nordiques, 1979), Fabian Brunnstrom (Dallas Stars, 2008) and Derek Stepan (New York Rangers, 2010). Joe Malone (Canadiens) and Harry Hyland (Montreal Wanderers) each scored five goals in his NHL debut in 1917, but had played previously in the National Hockey Association, the predecessor to the NHL.
Toronto Maple Leafs rookie center Auston Matthews became the first player in the modern era of the NHL to score four goals in his NHL debut Wednesday, including a hat trick by 1:25 of the second period, in the Maple Leafs' 5-4 overtime loss against the Ottawa Senators.
In addition, Matthews is the fourth player in the modern era to score four goals in his team's season opener, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. He joins Rick Blight (Vancouver Canucks, 1976), Greg Adams (Canucks, 1987) and Chris Kontos (Tampa Bay Lightning, 1992).
Matthews' performance was the talk of the League, with reaction pouring in Wednesday night into Thursday morning.
Wayne Gretzky, Hockey Hall of Fame member
"We always sort of go through these things, when Mario [Lemieux] retired and Mess [Mark Messier] retired, you sort of go, 'Who's going to take over?' And along came [Sidney] Crosby and [Alex] Ovechkin and then you go, 'OK, how old are they getting? And who's going to come along?'
"Guys like Matthews, and obviously Connor [McDavid], the game's always been in good shape. We just keep finding, not only good hockey players, but really good people that come along every 10, 15 years. That's what always makes our game so special and so unique. The players are good and they're really good people and that's what makes it fun."
Connor McDavid, Edmonton Oilers center
"I think in my first game I touched the puck four times, so it was a little bit of a different night for us two in our opening night. Obviously it's unbelievable for him. … It just seemed to explode, I guess. It's all good for him and it's good for the fans of Toronto and it's good for the overall game. I have nothing but good things to say about that."
Video: POST-GAME RAW | Connor McDavid
Patrik Laine, Winnipeg Jets forward, No. 2 pick of 2016 draft
"I watched a couple of periods and it was quite awesome and good for him. He's obviously a good player and nice to get a debut like that."
Brett Hull, Hockey Hall of Fame member
"I scored and it happened to be the game-winning goal, so that was kind of a big thrill for me as well. Just not quite four. I think I may have gotten four shifts."
David Poile, Nashville Predators general manager
"It was just a fantastic start for the National Hockey League. If you weren't a fan of hockey and that was the first time you tuned in to watch a hockey game, you'd have to absolutely fall in love with the game. I thought it was fantastic. I mean, I watched at least parts of all four games and they were all just terrific. And then you get that unbelievable, individual, spectacular play by Auston Matthews in his first game, and then you've got Connor McDavid two hours later out in Edmonton doing a fantastic job there getting two goals and an assist."
Steven Stamkos, Tampa Bay Lightning forward
"That was pretty amazing. Never been done in the history of the NHL. That's obviously pretty exciting for him to go out there in his first game and score four goals. That was fun to watch as a player in this League and as a fan in general. You just hope that expectations aren't that he goes out and does that all the time. But you can see that he's going to be a great player in this League for a long time. These guys coming in are so skilled and so confident and that showed last night."
Jonathan Drouin, Lightning forward
"It was impressive. Not many guys can draw it up like that. He's so big (6-foot-3, 216 pounds) for that age and his skill level is really high and it showed last night. He's young but you can see how big and strong he is already. He's already kind of a man in his body, and with that skill set it's pretty unbelievable."
Jon Cooper, Lightning coach/ Team North America assistant coach
"Pretty remarkable performance by Auston. I was joking that it was all the extra coaching he got at the World Cup [of Hockey 2016] from the [Team] North America coaches."
Bruce Boudreau, Minnesota Wild coach
"It's always interesting to see young stars play really well. As long as it's not against your team."
John Tavares, New York Islanders center
"That was impressive, no question. I thought I had a pretty good start to my career in my first game [goal and an assist], but nothing tops that. I think he proved at the World Cup his talent and his ability even at his young age. You can just see his confidence growing. Pretty impressive."
Jimmy Vesey, New York Rangers forward
"It was funny. Me, Pavel [Buchnevich], Hayesey [Kevin Hayes] and [Josh] Jooris were out to dinner last night and just following along and it was like Matthews gets one, Matthews gets two, Matthews gets three. We were kind of like, 'Holy cow.' But I think it's really good for the game, especially for USA Hockey, to have someone from Arizona. At such a young age, [19] years old, I think it's just really good for the game and it's going to be fun to watch this year."
Rick Nash, Rangers forward
"Looked great. It's awesome. It's great for the game. To be in a big market and do that, unbelievable. That's awesome. It's amazing all the coverage it's getting. For hockey in general it's a huge deal."
Ken Hitchcock, St. Louis Blues coach
"I thought [Pittsburgh Penguins defenseman] Kris Letang put it best, 'Welcome to the beer league.' It was like holy... he's a man. He's not a young player. He's a young player age-wise, but he doesn't play like a young player and he doesn't look like a young player on the ice. He knocked over men to create scoring chances. He knocked over 230-pound men to create scoring chances. It's very, very impressive.
Henrik Lundqvist, Rangers goalie
"All the players know what type of feeling it is to play your first NHL game. It's a dream come true. When it happens like that, I bet he's just thinking, 'Is this really happening? Is this real?' I saw some highlights and obviously to start your career with four goals, that's extremely impressive. But he looked very poised. It's not a coincidence, I think. He looked prepared for this level. It's going to be fun to watch him play this year."
Alex Ovechkin, Washington Capitals forward
"It's pretty amazing. Those kids are unbelievable. My friend texted me when he scored the first one and he scored the second one. Everybody expected [a lot] from him and he scored four goals. It's pretty special. He's a great kid and he's going to have a great future."
Video: Captain Alex Ovechkin talks before #CapsPens
T.J. Oshie, Capitals forward
"Everyone heard about the goals. I didn't see anything except for just his four goals. It's awesome. As an older guy we want to grow our game. I guess a young guy [does] as well, but to see him come in and get the hype like that is great. As far as playing against him, I hope the hype's not all real, but it looks like it is. An American-born player, which is great, and hats off to him. It's great to see what he was able to accomplish last night. It's going to be fun watching him here in the future."
Barry Trotz, Capitals coach
"That was pretty incredible. I was going to text [Maple Leafs coach] Mike [Babcock]. He was wondering how he would do. As coaches we all know he's a good talent. What he did was incredible. What a start for one of the new faces in the League. If you look at the last couple of years with Connor McDavid and Auston Matthews, our game is in pretty good shape. The torch is going to get handed to those guys in the near future."
Jeff Blashill, Detroit Red Wings coach
"For him to score four goals in his first game, what a moment for him. What a moment for his parents. We saw him last week. I saw him for the first time in live action that way and I was extremely impressed. He is extremely strong on the puck. That's the biggest thing I noticed. His hockey strength is excellent. He can be extended and still win puck battles. He's got an extremely bright future ahead of him."
Nick Bonino, Pittsburgh Penguins forward
"The young guys are so good right now. You saw Matthews last night. That was pretty incredible to score four goals in a debut. McDavid gets off to three points. There's a lot of young talent in this League. It's pretty fun. We all definitely talked about Matthews for sure. I ended up scoring in my second game and then not again until like my 35th. So it took a while to get four goals. I'm pretty happy for him. That was nice."
Video: Bonino talks to the media before the home opener
Trevor Daley, Penguins defenseman
"It was awesome. My phone was blowing up … all my buddies were texting me last night asking me if I'm watching this. It's special. Any time a kid plays his first game and scores four goals it's pretty cool. He set himself up for what's he going to do in the next one. At least three [goals], right? It's exciting. It's exciting for Toronto. I like to see them do well. So to have a kid come in and do what he's doing there is pretty cool."
Video: Daley talks to the media before the home opener
Ryan O'Reilly, Buffalo Sabres forward
"I was looking at it last night [and] I looked at the score and I just see, Matthews one [goal], scroll down, it's like Matthews two, Matthews three, Matthews four. I'm like, 'Oh my gosh, that's an epic night.' It's amazing for him and the only thing is, I hope he doesn't do that against us. But definitely it's good for him. He's a good player. Getting to see him in World Championships and World Cup, he's an elite player and definitely someone I'll have to keep an eye on."
Dan Bylsma, Sabres coach
"Sometimes you get goals bouncing off your stick or going off your head or whatnot, and yeah, you got a hat trick or you got an extra goal. … Those were pretty good. They limited him to four goals yesterday. He could have had a couple more. … They had a ton of chances with that line. It was a pretty impressive performance from Auston and his line in that game. And it wasn't by chance. They were good opportunities. It was a pretty fun game to watch."
Seth Jones, Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman
"I watched a little bit of it. I think I saw two of them. I didn't see the other two but obviously they're all over social media so I did see that. He's a tremendous hockey player, great kid. He did a lot of tremendous things for us [Team North America] at the [World Cup] tournament. A lot of people had high expectations for him, and clearly he's up to the challenge."
Alain Vigneault, Rangers coach
"What an outstanding start to the season yesterday. That young man getting out there and scoring four, phenomenal game for him. But that was yesterday. Today is today."CLOSE As Republican leaders in the U.S. Senate revealed a draft of health care legislation they say will stabilize individual insurance markets, Democrats from Michigan and elsewhere attacked it as mean-spirited. Wochit
Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) talks with reporters following the Senate Democratic policy luncheon at the U.S. Capitol on Aug. 1, 2017, in Washington, DC. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — With health care reform to be looked at again by a U.S. Senate committee next month, U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., is proposing letting younger Americans buy into Medicare coverage now limited to older people.
Stabenow today introduced legislation that would provide an option for people between the ages of 55 and 64 to purchase Medicare coverage, saying more than a million people in Michigan fit that age bracket and many are "burdened by high insurance premiums, unaffordable deductibles and limited options."
The legislation would make no changes to Medicare coverage as it currently exists for people age 65 and older.
Read more:
The proposal – which was co-sponsored by several other Democratic senators – is unlikely to see action, however: Republican leaders in Congress have spent years trying to roll back the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare, and would probably reject an idea to extend another government health plan as too costly.
But with last week's vote in the Senate that blocked a path toward repealing and rewriting Obamacare for the time being, legislators from both parties have been talking about working together to find ways to improve health care access and lower costs.
In many states, premiums for individual coverage plans under Obamacare have risen sharply and may continue to do so even as deductibles remain high, increasing out-of-pocket expenses and resulting in many people forgoing insurance, despite a mandate that they carry coverage or face a penalty.
This week, U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., who chairs the Senate health, education, labor and pensions committee, said he would hold hearings next month to discuss ways of stabilizing the individual insurance market with the most recent plan to repeal and replace Obamacare being blocked.
In announcing her bill today, Stabenow said her proposed legislation would help people find affordable coverage and also provides a way for Congress "to work together on a bipartisan basis to lower health care and prescription drug costs." Increases in prescription drug costs are widely blamed for premium hikes in recent years.
However, it was not immediately clear how much a proposal like hers could cost in terms of taxpayer dollars or the individual price of buying into Medicare.
Cosponsoring the legislation are Democratic U.S. Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Jack Reed of Rhode Island and Al Franken of Minnesota.
Contact Todd Spangler: tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @tsspangler.
Read or Share this story: http://on.freep.com/2wqdolMCopyright by WFLA - All rights reserved Charles William Richardson, Pinellas County Jail booking photo
Copyright by WFLA - All rights reserved Charles William Richardson, Pinellas County Jail booking photo
WFLA Web Staff - ST. PETE BEACH, Fla. (WFLA) -- A tourist from West Virginia spent part of his vacation in the Pinellas County Jail after deputies say he used a handgun to shoot the lock on his hotel room door when he locked himself out of the room.
Charles William Richardson, 35, of Dunbar, West Virginia was arrested on Thursday morning and charged with two felony counts of shooting a deadly missile within an occupied building.
Deputies responded to reports of a man shooting a firearm at the Beachcomber Hotel on St. Pete Beach at 7:58 a.m. on Thursday.
According to deputies, when they arrived at the hotel, they found Richardson sitting in the lobby unarmed.
Deputies determined that Richardson, who was a guest at the hotel, used a handgun to shoot the lock on his hotel room door because he had locked himself out of his room. Richardson then proceeded to shoot a glass window at the hotel for no apparent reason.
No one was injured at the hotel as a result of the shooting. Deputies say they recovered the handgun near Richardson's hotel room.
Richardson was arrested and transported to the Pinellas County Jail.BEIJING (Reuters) - Police in China’s capital and in southern Guangdong have detained or taken away more than 50 people after two separate protests, police and state news agency Xinhua said.
Guangdong police arrested 22 people after demonstrators forced their way into a high-speed rail station in a protest about land and housing issues, Xinhua reported late on Friday.
In a separate incident in Beijing on Saturday, police took more than 30 people to hospital after they consumed pesticide during a “lie-in” protest on a shopping street near the center of the capital, city police said in a statement.
The statement said the protesters were taxi drivers from the far northern province of Heilongjiang.
Similar incidents have happened before in China, with protesters drinking pesticide or fertilizer in public areas in the hope of drawing attention to a grievance.
About 90,000 “mass incidents” - a euphemism for protests - occur each year in China, triggered by corruption, pollution, illegal land grabs and other grievances.
In the village of Mazha in Guangdong, residents said protesters had stormed the train station on Thursday “as a stunt to draw the attention of senior officials to issues with land, money, irrigation and housing in Mazha”, according to Xinhua.
“Large areas of land were sold cheaply, and many villagers were never properly compensated,” one villager told Xinhua.
The protesters were quickly cleared away by police, who detained 22 for blocking the train and damaging public and private property, the news agency said.
The government has been trying to settle the dispute since September, but villagers have continued to stage protests, the report said.That first word surprised everyone, but before Jaune could ask for an explanation, she had already fallen back asleep, a small, honest smile on her lips.
She was taken to an emergency hospital in Vale, where she was treated for injuries and put in intensive care for a week. During that time she was awake for only thirty minutes a day, and she did not speak – it was either too painful for her, or she simply chose not to. Doctors zipped around, sweat dripping from their foreheads. Harsh lights, tinged blue by the dust inside them, illuminated the entire open-floored complex. People with a variety of injuries seemed awash in this place; they were crammed together like fish in a can, barely enough room for the doctors to rush past their patients and onto the next. When one man was discharged, another would soon took his place.
Vale was in chaos. After the Grimm had overrun the school, they turned their eyes to Vale. The people could not simply evacuate; Mistral and Vacuo would not take every citizen of Vale, and the people of Vale refused to trust Atlas - their droids had been as destructive as the Grimm, and had taken almost as many lives. The remaining soldiers, police and huntsmen had formed a safe zone in the center of the city, where this emergency hospital had been set up. Every day, more and more citizens made their way to the safe zone, and every day more and more tales were told of those who did not make it. According to the huntsmen, everything was under control and the Grimm were slowly being beaten back, yet the people remained scared, and so the Grimm kept coming.
Not once during this time did Jaune leave the girl's side. While Ren and Nora did what they could to help with the fortifications, Jaune had stayed behind, waiting for her to awaken. This wasn't the kind of place to leave someone alone, and he feared what she may do if she woke up alone. As Dr. Oobleck had predicted, she made a fast recovery, at which point she was hastily cleared from the facility to make room for new patients.
It was only now, as they walked side by side out of the hospital and into the abandoned city streets that Jaune realized how small this girl was. She was wearing a simple dress and sandals, as her previous clothes had been almost completely destroyed, and her eyes were only halfway up his chest. He felt bad, looking down on her like this, but he hardly had a choice in the matter.
"So, I'm Neo, huh?" She repeated the name to herself. There was a hopeful, happy optimism in her voice, or perhaps it was just ignorant bliss, "That sounds about right for some reason. And who are you?"
"It's Jaune," he replied hastily, "Listen, do you remember anything? Anything at all?"
She hmm'd, a cute sing-songy hmm, before shrugging, "Sorry, but the last thing I remember is a one-armed girl threatening me."
"Oh that was a friend of mine. Don't worry, she's not as scary as she must've seemed. Speaking of which, she said you were mute, but you seem to be able to talk just fine. Do you remember why you didn't talk before now?"
Neo gave him a glare, though at her size it looked like a pout, at best.
"Okay fine, dumb question. Let's just find my friends and we'll figure out what to do next."
"So just look for a one-armed blonde girl. Can't be too many of those around right?" Neo laughed nervously.
"Oh, not her. We're looking for a red-head with a big hammer, and a guy with long black hair who wears green and dyes part of his bangs pink."
"…Can't imagine there are many of those either."
They made their way to the west gate of the safe zone, where Ren and a very enthusiastic Nora were helping to keep guard. Ren looked up, nudging Nora, who gave a massive, two armed wave before running over to the pair.
"So, our little mystery girl is awake! I didn't know she was so small!"
Neo gave her pout-glare again, which Nora either didn't understand or didn't care, "It's rude to call people short, y'know."
"Oh she is just adorable."
Jaune turned their attention to more serious matters, "So, any ideas guys? Where to now?"
A silence fell over them.
"Nora and I have nowhere left to go, so we'll follow you."
"Yeah! You lead the way, Jaune!" Nora added with her typical boundless enthusiasm.
Jaune turned to their new friend, "What about you, Neo?"
Neo gave a small, cute smile, "I have no idea what's going on, who you people are, or who I am, but I think you're my best chance to learn all of that. Count me in."
Jaune paced for a moment, thinking, "There's a small island off the coast of Vale called Patch. Yang and Ruby are from there, and there's a lot of Grimm on that island. I think that's where we should go. We can train, get stronger…"
Nora's voice dropped its prior excitement, "And eventually get some payback for what happened at Beacon."
Ren nodded, "Then it's settled. Let's find a boat."
"Could I find some actual clothes before we leave? Something tells me I'm not a big fan of dresses," Neo shifted uncomfortably.
Nora's eyes lit up, "Oh, yes yes yes! I've got no idea where we'll find a clothing store at a time like this, but we just have to get you something cute to wear! We never went clothes shopping while we were at Beacon, probably because school is so expensive! But now I've got an excuse and a cute, mini-sized mannequin to dress up!"
Nora dragged Neo away, raving to no one in particular, with Ren and Jaune following close behind.At one of the first screenings of Focus’s “Phantom Thread” in LA on Friday, director Paul Thomas Anderson was asked how he feels each time he starts a new movie. The six time Oscar nominee surprisingly answered, “it’s always good to feel like an amateur. You have to pretend you have confidence, but the first day it all goes belly up anyway.
“Phantom Thread” stars the sublime Daniel-Day Lewis as Reynolds Woodcock, a respected and most prickly fashion designer whose world does indeed go belly up by the arrival of first demure then not so much waitress/turned model/muse Alma, played wonderfully by Vicky Krieps. The always terrific Lesley Manville plays Reynold’s stalwart, tough and loyal sister Cyril.
DDL, who has three Oscars, has said this is his last acting job. “Phantom Thread” could be his fourth. (It will likely garner a nomination — no surprise there.)
Did this world come as easy to Anderson as the others he wrote about? Anderson quipped, “well for ‘Boogie Nights,’ it was about porn and of course that came naturally to me.” Then he added, “for ‘There Will Be Blood,’ it was about oil and being from California I knew something about that. But this one it was distant. I love England and the people, the culture. The story of couture in that time, and the fairy tale that it is could only be told in Paris or London so I chose London. Plus they have the greatest actors there.”
Anderson’s close friend Daniel Day Lewis was also a collaborator with him in developing and writing this film. “He had gigantic input,” Anderson explains, “He did an enormous amount of research. He learned how to sew; he got pretty close to making 100 buttonholes.” (DDL fans will recall the actor once |
all – members of the press, who never ceased to stigmatise not only my work but also me and my family,” he said. “I will never forget nor forgive that.”
The rest of the statement, however, was more positive. “I am proud of my record after serving out my contract with the FAF,” he said. “Having lived for three years in Algeria, my family obligations and the attraction of new sporting challenges weighed heavily on my decision.”
Speculation in the media has linked Halilhodzic with the Turkish Super Lig side Trabzonspor. Algeria’s World Cup exploits won them many admirers, not least in their buccaneering 4-2 win over South Korea in Group H. They also drew with Russia and took the lead against much-fancied Belgium en route to second place in the group behind Marc Wilmots’ side, before pushing Joachim Löw’s Germany all the way. That led to calls for 61-year-old Halilhodzic to stay on, including from the country’s president.
Halilhodzic added: “I want to thank, first of all, his excellency president Abdelaziz Bouteflika, whose warm words profoundly touched me. I also want to thank prime minister Abdelmalek Sellal for his encouragement and kind wishes, and the president of the FAF, Mohamed Raouraoua, with whom we have worked for three years to realise our objectives and who put at my disposal a squad with all the necessary means to achieve this difficult mission.
“I wish to pay tribute to the players and the technical, medical and administrative staff who gave me every assistance throughout this mission.
“The wonderful Algerian public wished me well since the day I first arrived and have remained loyal to me. I will always keep the fond memory of the extraordinary welcome they gave us on our return from the World Cup.”There’s a lot of things to like about Frozen. The animation is beautiful, the script is tight, the performances are great, and it even features a catchy tune or two. It’s also got some great sound. Check out the opening ice cutting sequence. It probably had whole cinemas ducking for cover in 3D but even in plain old 2D it works. The effects are great and when you get out from under the ice into the open air there’s that indefinable ‘softness’ to the soundstage that only happens in a snowy environment. And the film has a lot of it; ice, snow, crunchy, soft, cracking, and exploding and it all sounds just right. But my favourite thing about Frozen are some door knocks from right at the start.
The song “Do you want to build a snowman” is really a very clever bit of film making. It packs a huge amount of exposition and character introduction into just over 3 minutes of music you can happily hum along to (at least the first couple of times through!). But the bit I enjoy the most is the knocking.
The song has 3 distinct knocking sequences and the first two are pretty identical (6 secs and 53 secs) where Anna is trying to get her sister to join her in a bit of snowman construction. The distinct rhythm and timbre of the knocking in these two sequences is beautifully contrasted with the third sequence where an older Anna goes to her sisters room after their parent’s funeral (2:22). The 3 slow knocks have a distinct cadence and hollowness to them that not only fits the mood of the moment but also chimes nicely with the minor movement within the score.
I suppose for me this sequence of knocks highlights all the things that well thought out sound design can do to materially add to the narrative of a film. But it also makes me wonder if this kind of detailed consideration can really only be expected to exist within the world of animation? If this had been a live action sequence might efforts have been made to retain production sound? How might the door have sounded on set? Would it even have been real? How would the actor and performance have factored into decisions about effects? I don’t mean to imply that a live action film wouldn’t have had such a well considered sound treatment, rather that the myriad other considerations that come from working with actual live actors and sets might well have gotten in the way of this kind of subtlety in the reckoning. Regardless, this is currently one of my favourite pieces of sound in any film. Enjoy.Bill Gates is worth an estimated $56 billion
Monday, the White House proposed a new tax bracket for millionaires and billionaires, part of a $4.4 trillion proposal to rein in the country’s debt. Republicans such as Rep. Paul Ryan have called the proposal “class warfare,” but Obama defends it as only fair. Since the recession hit, the country’s rich have kept on getting richer. In fact, the flourishing of the ultra-rich raises an interesting thought experiment: In a world in which a lucky hedge fund manager can make billions in a single year, when will we get our first trillionaire?
The answer depends on variables including inflation, tax rates, and overall economic growth. In a first case, let’s assume that our hypothetical trillionaire is actually only as rich as today’s richest American, Bill Gates, whose estimated net worth is $56 billion. Since inflation slowly erodes the value of the dollar, it will be easier and easier to hit the trillion-dollar mark as time goes on. (We were all once Zimbabwean trillionaires, after all.) If the United States averages 3 percent annual inflation, and the richest American’s fortunes keep up with Gates’, America would have a trillionaire in 98 years. But now let’s assume that the richest American’s fortune not only matches the rate of inflation, but outpaces it by, say, an additional 3 percent a year. At that rate, we should have a trillionaire in 50 years.
Even that may be a conservative estimate, considering how fast the super-rich have been getting super-richer. Gauging how quickly the richest American’s net worth is increasing is a tricky exercise, given that for the past 15 years it has mostly meant tracking the worth of just one individual—Bill Gates. (His friend Warren Buffett, the billionaire namesake of Obama’s millionaire’s tax, briefly topped him in 2008.) His worth has plunged and climbed along with the price of Microsoft’s stock, peaking at the height of the tech bubble in 1999 at an eye-watering $90 billion. But at an average pace of growth, between 4 and 9 percent per year, the richest American could possess a trillion sometime between 2050 and 2085, presuming no major changes to the tax code and a healthy economy otherwise.
Of course it is myopic to presume the first trillionaire will be an American. Say that 27-year-old Mark Zuckerberg took his $8 billion fortune, went back on his promise to donate much of it to charity, and invested it successfully and aggressively for the next 25 years. Even if he made a magical, Madoff-like 20 percent return every year, he would still not be a trillionaire. *
Indeed, it seems far more likely that the first person to make the 13-digit dollar mark will come from a country more conducive to wealth concentration—a country with higher growth rates, rapidly expanding industries, fewer business regulations, and lower taxes. For the past two years, after all, Mexican business magnate Carlos Slim Helu has beaten Gates and Buffett for the title of world’s richest man.
Right now, commodities seem like the best bet for how the world’s first trillionaire might make his fortune: Demand from emerging economies is insatiable, and demand from developed economies seems unlikely to fall in the foreseeable future. The world’s richest family, the Al Nahyans of Abu Dhabi, are reportedly worth a collective $150 billion, thanks to high gas prices. A few decades of pain at the pump, smart investing, and dollar inflation, and the family’s net worth might hit $1 trillion. (America’s richest family, the Waltons of Wal-Mart fame, are worth $90 billion.)
Has any other individual or family—adjusted for inflation—amassed a trillion-dollar fortune before? Probably not. The richest-ever American, John D. Rockefeller, had a personal fortune of about $320 billion in today’s dollars, earned during the robber-baron days. And even the Rothschilds, the European bankers whose fortune ran into the hundreds of billions and whose name is a synonym for wealth, likely did not make it to a trillion.
Got a question about the today’s news? Ask the Explainer.
Correction, Sept. 21, 2011: This article originally stated that Zuckerberg would not become a trillionaire even after 50 years of such investing. In this scenario, he would reach $1 trillion within 50 years (but not within 25 years). (Return to the corrected sentence.)Every other week, Jarnell Stokes heads to the Wendy’s down the road from the University of Tennessee campus.
When he gets there, he walks past the counter and to the back where a group of older men huddle around chessboards. Stokes is 6-feet-8, 260 pounds and wears a size 20 shoe. He doesn’t look like the rest of the group, but they recognize him right away.
“They all watch Tennessee basketball and keep up with it,” Stokes said, “and they know me `cause I’m always coming.”
When Stokes — now a junior forward for the Volunteers — first started at Tennessee in the fall of 2011, he went to Wendy’s to burnish his chess skills. But what was at first an outlet from the life of a Division I basketball player now transcends a recreational release.
Stokes’ chess game is his basketball game. It helps him see things before others on the court, and shapes his preparation off of it.
“He’s done his best job this year in our program of preparing for games. Making decisions, taking care of the basketball and reading defenses a lot better,” Tennessee head coach Cuonzo Martin said. “You have to give credit to his chess game.”
When Daniel Lucas plays doubles tennis, his teammates tell him he plays like a chess player. Lucas is the director of publications for the United States Chess Federation and editor of Chess Life magazine. The game has helped him on the tennis court and as an avid runner.
According to Lucas, for an athlete like Stokes playing chess breeds a competitive and intellectual advantage. “Study after study shows that chess playing keeps people cognitively sharp,” Lucas said. “It is easy to see that this skill is translatable to the basketball floor.”
When Stokes was in kindergarten, his parents started him in a chess club. He fell in love with the game and played regularly until high school and travel basketball teams became too demanding and it was pushed aside.
But in his freshman year at Tennessee, he rekindled his lifelong hobby.
“I first went to Wendy’s just to see if I had it like I used to,” Stokes said. “But now I can beat almost all of them and it’s helping me out on the court. I like that it tests my brain and is also a release from basketball.”
In 2011, Stokes was a highly touted recruit out of Memphis, Tenn., with no college pedigree. He averaged 9.6 points and 7.4 rebounds as a freshman and was elected to the Southeast Conference’s all-freshman team at season’s end. As a sophomore he averaged close to a double-double with 12.4 and 9.6, fast tracking himself onto opponents’ scouting reports.
Now he’s posting 13.4 and 9.3 and deliberately plans for each game.
“If you would have said scouting reports last year, I wouldn’t have believed it,” Stokes said. “But now I pretty much just like to vision the game before it happens, and try and prepare myself for anything that happens.”
This past summer Stokes went to the drawing board. During his breakout sophomore season teams started to completely take away his left hand. They also started to double-team him whenever he caught the ball in the post.
So he worked day after day on developing his left-handed hook shot in the offseason. Then after workouts he sat in the film room and looked at tape of teams doubling him to see where his teammates would float to on the court.
By combining his physical and cerebral selves, Stokes has made himself a dominant forward that Martin says “could be one of the best college basketball players in the country.”
All because when other players finish working out and turn in for the day, Stokes sits down and polishes his game by playing another.
“Dealing with double teams, I feel like having chess really helps,” he said. “Me being able to keep my focus and not panic in certain situations and my whole demeanor can be a result from chess. I can really deal with double teams and see plays in advance.
“It’s all chess.”Looks like the president just took another big hit.
The rift between Trump and the business world continues to grow after the president’s refusal to condemn white supremacists. The latest defector is the CEO of Dr Pepper, who announced he was stepping down from Trump’s Dr Pepper Advisory Council in protest.
Advertisement
The powerful statement from Dr Pepper CEO Larry Young leaves no ambiguity about it:
I can no longer in good conscience continue to advise the president on Dr Pepper- and Diet Dr Pepper-related issues of national importance. Racism and bigotry are in no way compatible with Dr Pepper’s unique blend of 23 flavors, so I am resigning from the Dr Pepper Advisory Council.
Bravo, sir. You’re putting Dr Pepper on the right side of history.
While the CEOs of Raytheon, General Motors, and Viacom all remain on the Dr Pepper council and have not yet announced any intention to leave, this is still a massive blow to Trump. The CEO of Dr Pepper was one of the world’s foremost experts on Dr Pepper, and without his guidance it’s hard to feel confident that Trump will make wise decisions regarding the brown, non-cola soda.
Advertisement
Of course, Trump didn’t take the resignation well and immediately lashed out in response:
Advertisement
Many Washington analysts had hoped that the Dr Pepper Advisory Council would be a moderating influence on Trump, and lead him from the political fringes to more mainstream views about Dr Pepper. Unfortunately it seems that the president’s racist opinions will interfere with the important Dr Pepper work the council was supposed to do.
Just a few short months after being founded, the Dr Pepper Advisory Council is already in shambles. If Trump keeps alienating executives like this he’ll go down as one of the worst U.S. presidents for Dr Pepper in history.What a weekend that was.
As I sit in Newark waiting for my connecting flight to finally make my way back to Austin, the peculiarities of the weekend keep ringing in my brain. The Threads of Disloyalty plays in the Top 8 that led to such blowouts, the ubiquity of Steam Vents, the mass draws in the final round as everyone got antsy about staying in the Top 25, the palpable let down of the coverage team when Frank Karsten (and a few of our other favorites) fell just short of the Top 8, and a finals match that was as fraught with tense moments as any I can remember.
My view from behind the curtain doing coverage is always quite different from the viewer back home. In some ways, I see more of the tournament than anyone. More games, more data, more access to the players when I wanted it.
In other ways, I see way less. I didn’t know what Patrick Dickmann was playing, for example, until I started doing research in advance of writing his Top 8 match. He had been covered by others on the team, but not by me. And I don’t get to watch coverage. Sometimes you just don’t get to see big picture when you’re that deep in the weeds.
But one thing I do certainly see are the interesting decks that fell just short, the truly creative endeavors that could break out given some care. When I did this look for Pro Tour Gatecrash, for example, I pointed out a cool little Humans Reanimator combo deck played in the main event. The very next week it got second at Grand Prix Quebec City. Catching on to these things can mean winning a tournament the very next week.
Granted, there wasn’t a ton that ended up being new in Valencia, but there were three decks I wanted to highlight, plus one kind of honorable mention, for all of your rogue Modern needs.
Everyone knew about Living End coming into the weekend, and it was a good day one story when Michael Hetrick went undefeated. It was a less good day 2 story when he succumbed to enough losses in a row to knock him out of contention.
But lost in all of that was the fact that not everyone was cascading into the same Suspend spell. Alfonso Barcelona Cabeza dared to cascade into Restore Balance, a wildly powerful spell that severely limits the way you build your deck in order to utilize it.
Borderposts, for instance, let you Balance away land. But they also require basic lands in a format with a lot of great nonbasic lands. And because Balance often involves sacrificing a bunch of permanents to Greater Gargadon, beating counterspells can be very difficult.
But Cabeza seemed to make it work. His version differs from others that have popped up now and then with the addition of Thassa, God of the Sea and Riftwing Cloudskate, plus a more liberal use of Planeswalkers.
It was also the first Cascade deck I saw to transform in the board away from its main cascade plan, as Cabeza clearly decided he wanted to cascade into Kor Firewalkers against Red decks rather than Restore Balance, which makes sense given aggressive Red decks ability to keep their land and hand counts low anyway.
So if you’re looking to cascade but want to stay out of the graveyard, this might be the right angle for you.
Another deck that’s not new, per se, but certainly underappreciated. Boettcher actually finished in 9th place, going 7-2-1 with his combo deck over the Modern rounds and remaining in contention right up until the end.
The basic combo is Ad Nauseam plus either Phyrexian Unlife or Angel's Grace to draw the entire deck, killing with Lightning Storm and the mana from Simian Spirit Guide once the entire deck is in their hand, often as early as turn three or four. The deck is pretty much entirely ways to produce mana and ways to find Ad Nauseam, making it a reasonable analogue to Legacy Ad Nauseam decks, even if they share very few cards.
The deck is interesting because Phyrexian Unlife is actually really good against Zoo just on its own, effectively gaining 10ish life for three mana. Being able to buy that kind of time lets the deck combo out comfortably whenever it feels like it against one of the most popular decks in the format. Its goldfish is a bit faster than Storm’s average draw (though not their nut draw) and doesn’t rely on creatures like Splinter Twin decks.
It does have problems Game 1 against Remand, Mana Leak, and Cryptic Command (which are significant portions of the field), but it certainly has ways around that post-board.
This is definitely the kind of deck you want to play if you’d rather ignore your opponent.
Here we have my pick for the coolest deck of the tournament. It’s a deck built around Krark-Clan Ironworks, a card that has been this close to broken for as long as it’s been around. I don’t think Taisuke Ishii broke it with what is essentially just another entry into the format’s combo pantheon, but the deck is seriously cool and has a number of interesting features.
The first is Open the Vaults, a wildly powerful card that is certainly at its best here. Open the Vaults was a viable Standard strategy for some time that never quite made the port to Modern until Ishii fused it with Ironworks, a strategy that was overshadowed by Affinity for its entire run in Standard.
We also have a deck that utilizes Thirst for Knowledge, the best Modern-legal card drawing spell that no one plays. It’s clearly ideal for this deck, as is Tezzeret.
But the seriously cool thing is that Ishii grafted a Tron deck onto the engine. And why not, we’re already playing pretty much all colorless spells? Granted, the actual Tron pieces don’t do a ton here since, outside Emrakul, we aren’t really using that much colorless mana. Still, the deck clearly has both short game explosiveness and long-game potential.
Really, though, the best part is the look on your opponents’ faces when Krark-Clan Ironworks leads to a hard-cast Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. Seriously priceless.
While it was a wild weekend, these three decks were among the best surprises (that and some of the best Threads of Disloyalty ever). Will they reshape the format? Probably not.
But can they shake things up?
Absolutely.It's amazing to think there are not a lot of offensive weapons Patriot's fans rely on for success other than Tom Brady in recent years. The offense was filled with rookies (Edelman had a great year) last year yet Tom Brady wasn't fazed. However, there is Gronkowski a.k.a Gronk. Limited last year was a setback but not this year. This year was the first time in a long time he played the majority of the season. Standing tall at 6'6" and 256 lbs., he is a force no defender wants to get near. With the Broncos taken out of contention by the Colts, there won't be any cheap knee shots in the upcoming game. Well, hopefully. So, how magnificent was Rob Gronkowski this year? Look at his stats with ranks at the TE postition. By the playoffs:
82 Receptions (4th)
1,124 yards (1st)
74.9 YPG (1st)
12 TDs (T-1st w/ Antonio Gates and Julius Thomas)
And has not fumbled once
60 of his 82 receptions (73.2%) went for first downs (1st)
A lot of people have noticed that any opposing team does not want to put their LB on him and that's for a reason. His agility is better than probably all other TEs in the league, his speed was decent after being drafted but has shown to improve and get a faster top speed.
And his gloves seem to be made of glue:
Feed The Beast:
The great thing about Rob is that, you can put him anywhere. He's put on the line, the slot, and all the way out to the wide out position. The most useful tool when he's able to be put anywhere is that he can run routes. During the Ravens game, he had 2 big routes that were successful:
The Streak Down The Middle -
What I see a lot is that Rob runs down the field almost 50 yards while slowly going into the inside of the field. This route is usually ran to jump start Brady's passing game. Gronk is usually on the line or maybe in the slot.
During the Ravens game:
46 yard catch and Brady's first big throw of the game
Also, during the their last Dolphins game (week 15), the Pats only had the lead at halftime because of their defense and special teams. Gronk was neutralized in the first half, then he was fed right after the break. He caught a 34 yard pass and BAM!!!! 27 yard pass caught for a TD. He was right next to the LT and ran a fade down the field and Brady was basically throwing into a bucket.
The Slant Route -
The slant. Yes, the slant. Patriots not-so-secret route that is the ultimate Brady to Gronk red zone TD weapon. What I notice is that the ither team will line up a corner or a safety across from Gronk. Why? He is always in the wide out position and the linebacker shouldn't be all the way out there. The corners or safety will play man to man and be about 1-2 maybe 3 yards away from their man. Whenever the Patriots offense are inside the 5, Gronk will run the slant. Not many teams do the same thing because he is just so big he can push off and can cut inside with the corner at his back knowing he's screwed.
Vs Broncos week 9:
This one was interesting because Gronk starts on the line and then motions to wide out and what that does is that the LB that was on Gronk has to motion with him. LB play a lot of zone coverage and with someone like Gronk, you'll probably need a corner or safety.
Vs Ravens Divisional Playoffs
There it is. Gronk at wide out? Check. Safety up on him? Check. Look like man to man? Check. Touchdown. Brady even signaled Gronk that the ball will go his way. WIll Hill had no chance.
Whats Next?
Right now Gronkowski looks unstoppable when thrown to and he is going to compete with Coby Fleener on Sunday. Gronkowski, personally, plays at higher level than Fleener and is in a totally different league. The first half against the Ravens was tough and Gronkowski was held down but not shut down and maybe Brady noticed that as a problem. So Rob will hopefully be targeted early and often.Home > Asia Pacific > South East Asia > Malaysia
Chief monk survives ouster attempt by Leven Woon, Free Malaysia Today, December 2, 2012 Ven. K Sri Dhammaratana found support from among the Buddhist temple committee members to defeat resolutions to remove him as the chief monk. KUALA LUMPUR, Malayssia -- An attempt by several disgruntled members of the Sasana Abhiwurdi Wardhana Society to remove their chief monk failed today after they were defeated in their own extraordinary general meeting. The disgruntled members had called for the EGM to pass resolutions to remove Ven. K Sri Dhammaratana from being the chief monk of the Buddhist Maha Vihara temple in Brickfields, and to ask him to leave the temple premises within seven days. The Sasana Abhiwurdi Wardhana Society manages the temple and had obtained a court order to hold the EGM today. The three-hour meeting however ended with a dramatic twist as 76 of the temple management committee members voted against proceeding with the meeting to discuss the resolutions, with only eight voting in favour. Dhammaratana has come under fire for wearing a suit – and not his robe – when attending the conferment ceremony of his Datukship title in 2010. Buddhists have the general belief that a monk should never don the layman’s attire unless he resumes a secular life. Some members of temple management committees also claimed that Dhammaratana have “misbehaved” in several circumstances and thus should be removed. As the committee’s constitution does not allow discussions of chief monk’s removal in its annual assembly, the disgruntled members obtained the court order in October to conduct the EGM. “Should the chief monk continue to stay, the other monks residing in the temple must think it is okay to behave inappropriately in public,” they noted in the statement for the resolutions. However, other members of the society who supported the chief monk said the group was merely finding faults to remove Dhammaratana who was installed in 2006. Speaking to reporters after EGM today, the temple management committee president Leslie J Tilak said the committee decided that it was best for them to hold a dialogue instead of voting for the resolutions to remove the chief monk. He claimed that some members of disgruntled group have changed their mind to support the monk at the eleventh hour. Meanwhile, Dhammaratana praised the members for using the Buddha teaching to act wisely in the meeting. He urged everyone to work together after this instead of criticising each other.There are three cars that I would like to own before my time is up.
The Welsh-built Gilbern GT1800, a Gordon-Keeble and most of all, I would like my 1962 Alvis TD 21 DHC back.
The Gordon-Keeble story began in 1959, when John Gordon, who was involved with the manufacturing of the struggling Peerless/Warwick Car Company, met Jim Keeble, an engineer and racing driver familiar with American V8 engines. At the time Keeble was preparing a Corvette race car for USAF pilot Rick Neilson.
Gordon and Keeble formed a partnership and decided to fit a 215-cubic-inch Buick V8 into a Peerless chassis. Gordon designed a new body with slightly angled twin-headlights and called it the Gordon GT. This would be aimed at the Aston Martin, Jensen and Facel Vega clientele.
The chassis was comprised of a one-inch-square, tube spaceframe, with a De Dion rear axle and four-wheel disc brakes. The chassis was finished in early 1960 and transported to Italy for the coach builder Bertone to fit the Giorgetto Giugiaro styled aluminum body.
By the time the car was ready for production the name had appropriately been changed to Gordon-Keeble. Gordon had taken the prototype to Detroit for Chevrolet President Ed Cole and engineer Zora Duntov to test drive.
They were so impressed with the car they agreed to supply the 327-cu.-in. Corvette engine, gearbox and the full support of the GM dealership network in the U.S. to distribute the cars. The aluminum body was replaced with a fibreglass body, which was much cheaper to produce and could be built in England by Williams and Pritchard, one of the foremost specialist fibreglass firms.
The entire project collapsed after a mere 90 cars had been built. And all because the steering-box supplier, Adwest, suffered a lengthy labour dispute resulting in unfinished cars sitting idle. The entire workforce was laid off unpaid and Gordon-Keeble went into receivership.
The survival rate of this collectible car is very impressive. With a mere 100 examples being built between 1963 and 1966 the 90 per cent worldwide survival rate is quite remarkable. The pictured car belongs to a collector in British Columbia.
As a followup to last week’s column about the Toyota 2000GT, Lot 135 at the New York auction sold for $968,000 (including fees).
Reader Michael Jillings contacted me and brought to my attention that although Albert Goertz took the credit for designing the Datsun 240Z, credit should rightfully go to Yoshihiko Matsuo and his design team.
Nigel Matthews is the director of sales and marketing for Hagerty Canada, LLC. Hagerty is the world’s leading specialist insurer of collector cars and boats. You can contact him at nmatthews@hagerty.com or visit hagerty.ca.So here we go: Republicans—and, no doubt, the Koch Brothers—are crowing that David Jolly’s win over Alex Sink in the special election in Florida’s 13th Congressional District Tuesday proves that Obamacare is the death knell for Democrats this fall. Outside groups, led by the Kochs, pumped a few million into the district, largely hitting Sink over Obamacare, which she said needed to be improved although she still trumpeted its benefits for senior citizens.
Republicans will say more: that they had a flawed candidate in Jolly, a former lobbyist; that Barack Obama carried this district in 2012. The Republicans won’t say that Obama carried it over Mitt Romney by just 2 percent, and this is the very definition of a swing district. But both of these statements are factual, and Republicans will spin them hard today and tomorrow.
Most of all, Republican spin doctors will say this is a bellwether: The Democrats put loads of money and troops into Sink’s race, precisely to prove (in a winnable district) that 2014 wasn’t going to be a disaster for them. They still couldn’t win it, which, the GOP will say, just demonstrates what a bruisin’ Democrats are cruisin’ for this fall.
No denying, they might be right. For one thing, this was one of the few Republican-held House districts (held by lifer Bill Young, whose death necessitated this special) the Democrats had a shot at taking. So on that basis alone, it’s a blow to whatever remote shot Nancy Pelosi had of moving back into the Speaker’s office.
It would be absurd to deny that Obamacare, wasn’t a factor the race and maybe the crucial one. The outside groups went big on it, no doubt about that. But there were other issues in this race. Jolly attacked Sink for using a state plane to “get to a vacation in the Bahamas.” Politifact judged the Jolly ad half-true, but in congressional campaigns, half-true is usually true enough. The ad had bite, and that surely made some difference too. It seems to be the case that the lion’s share of the undecided swing voters broke for Jolly late in the game, and a pile of data suggests that swing voters care about good-government things like the use of state planes. Their minds were probably made up about Obamacare, so it’s not implausible that something else swung them.
But there’s no doubt that the issue going forward is going to be health care. What health-care-related lesson is each party going to take out of this? For the Republicans, it’s easy: push push push. And there’s reason for them to do so: Sink, remember, wasn’t in Congress; she didn’t even vote for the thing. Kay Hagan and Mary Landrieu and Mark Begich and all the other vulnerable Senate Democrats defending their seats this fall did.
The Democrats are likely to take, as they often do, the wrong lesson. They’ll want to run and hide. But they should look a little more closely. Sink was no warrior for Obamacare. Her campaign was a textbook exercise in trying to thread the needle (unsuccessfully). Does her loss mean that Democrats should run away from it?
I say no. Let’s watch how this result affects the Florida gubernatorial race for starters. Democrat Charlie Crist has been defending Obamacare—in terms of accepting the Medicaid money—far more aggressively than Sink did. Crist leads Republican Rick Scott in recent polls, by about seven points. Watch how hard Scott—who actually supported taking the Obamacare-Medicaid money for a short time—hits Crist on this point, and how Crist responds, and how the polls change, if they do. Rather than just getting the vapors from Sink’s loss, this is what Democrats nationally ought to be watching. If Crist’s lead shrinks, then Democrats really will run for the hills.
There’s other evidence out there in the world that Obamacare is a political disaster only if the Democrats don’t fight for it. The media didn’t write much last week about a very interesting WashPost-ABC poll result. The survey asked people if they’d be more or less likely to vote for a candidate who backed Obamacare. It came out less likely 36, more likely 34. That’s a margin of error tie, but it’s also a huge change from four months ago, when Republican opponents had a 16-point advantage in that realm. The new poll also reported that Americans said they trusted Democrats more on health care by 44 to 36 percent.
Perhaps the best evidence though that Obamacare wasn’t a real issue came from Jolly himself, who didn’t even mention the ACA in his victory speech. He told reporters later, “This was a closely run race, we know that. I don’t take a mandate from this.”
Just hours before Jolly’s victory on Tuesday night, the Department of Health and Human Services announced that 4.2 million people have signed up for health care under the ACA. By November, eight months from now, will statistics like this make more difference than what happened in Pinellas County Tuesday night? I remind you that in the one high-profile congressional special election held in the May, 2010, the Democrat won it—Mark Critz in Pennsylvania (Like Jolly, Critz was the annointed successor of a longtime incumbent as well). Six month later, Democrats lost 63 seats in Congress. In other words, spring special elections shouldn’t be taken as harbingers.
They’re only harbingers if the losing party accepts them as harbingers. The Republicans laughed off the Critz win, sold it to the media as something that didn’t matter for November, and kept on saying they were going to win 75 seats. The Democrats need to be similarly nonchalant about this one. It’s an embarrassing loss but it’s not the end of the world, unless Democrats think it is..by Zack Davisson in From Mizuki Shigeru, Magical Animal Stories, Tanuki Stories, Yōkai Stories Tags: From Mizuki Shigeru, mysterious animals, tanuki, Yōkai Stories
Translated and Sourced from Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujyara, The Catalpa Bow, Myths and Legends of Japan, Occult Japan, Japanese Wikipedia, and Other Sources
There are eight million gods and monsters in Japan, and more than a few of them like to ride around in human bodies from time to time. Yurei. Kappa. Tanuki. Tengu. Kitsune. Snakes. Cats. Horses. Almost anything can possess a human. But when they do, they are all known by a single name—Tsukimono, the Possessing Things.
What Does Tsukimono Mean?
Tsukimono is a straight forward term. It combines the kanji憑 (tsuki; possession) +物 (mono; thing). There is a different word for actual possession憑依 (hyoi), which is the kanji 憑 (tsuki again, but this time pronounced hyo—because Japanese is hard) + 依 (I; caused by).
Although they are collectively known as tsukimono, different types of tsukimono use –tsuki as a suffix, such as kappa-tsuki (河童憑; kappa possession), tengu-tsuki (天狗憑; tengu possession), or the most common of all, kitsune-tsuki (狐憑; fox possession).
(憑 is an odd kanji by the way. It can do double duty not only as the verb tsuku (憑く; to possess) but also as a kanji for tanomu (憑む; to ask a favor). So in a strange way, possession means asking a favor of someone—really, really hard.)
Shinto God Possession
Spirit possession is an ancient and ubiquitous belief in Japan. In his 1894 book Occult Japan, Percival Lowell wrote:
“The number of possessing spirits in Japan is something enormous. It is safe to say that no other nation of forty millions of people has ever produced its parallel….”
Probably the most ancient form of the phenomenon is God Possession. There have long been mediums who could voluntarily drawn the power of kami or ancestor spirits into their bodies to serve as oracles. As in many spiritual traditions, the medium goes into a trance and clears their mind so that the kami can enter. The medium is just an empty vessel that gives voice to the kami.
The kami can be singular or plural, an ancestor spirit or merger of |
hard to hold a low opinion of yourself, like, “Oh, I’m just not funny,” when your friend is constantly laughing throughout the conversation and telling you you’re funny, especially if it’s not just only one friend, but also your therapist and many of the people in a support group or online community who enjoy your company.
In the same way, it’s hard to hold your own humor in high esteem when you are surrounded by people who scorn and mock you when you attempt make a joke. These types of people only reinforce the lies we were told. As that evil bastard Joseph Goebbels said:
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”
In this way, by sharing the worst opinions of ourselves with multiple people and by asking for feedback, we are like a scientist putting his worldview to the test. These combined interactions become a kind of laboratory experiment. In other words, we are submitting our hypothesis of “I’m boring,” to the scrutiny of pear review.
Though “blind spots” usually refer to negative aspects about ourselves that we have trouble seeing, we can also become blind to many wonderful aspects of ourselves, especially if we’ve been shamed and told lies about those parts all of our life. The accumulated evidence of third-party accounts — whether from a trusted therapist, friend, or support group — shows us who we are, and can help inoculate us from the infection of historical propaganda and help us see our blind spots.
Such is the power of empiricism and finding one’s tribe.
Further Study
More on inner moms, critics, and other altars:Throughout the offseason, The Devils’ Den will break down the 2010-2011 Devils season. We’ll cover the big team stories, but also offer a breakdown of individual player performances. In our final review, we focus on Anssi Salmela.
Anssi Salmela entered the 2010-2011 regular season as one of the biggest question marks on the New Jersey Devils’ roster. After tearing his ACL in the World Championships, no one knew exactly what he could contribute. As the season progressed, it seemed the rookies would force Salmela from the lineup. But the defenseman found his way back, contributing solid minutes.
That’s about all he’d contribute. Salmela played 48 games this season, but didn’t post great offensive numbers or really stand out. He flew under the radar, which was simple considering his relatively bad play. He ranked second-to-last among all skaters in even-strength plays, and contributed little to special teams. He never stood out this season, and never quite met the already low expectations.
Salmela At Even Strength
Salmela almost exclusively played even strength this season. The defenseman averaged 17:23 of ice time and 23 shifts per game. He only 0.31 points per 60, and managed to pull down a minus-1.26. The rest of the numbers aren’t pretty either.
The Devils’ defenseman didn’t help the offense at all. On the ice, Salmela helped New Jersey score 1.47 goals per 60 (19 total) and put 23.7 shots on net. Off the ice, both of those numbers improved. Goals for per 60 shot up to 2.12, and shots for jumped to 25.7.
Defensively, he wasn’t much better. Opponents scored 2.33 goals with him on the ice and averaged 25 shots on net. With Salmela on the bench, goals against per 60 dropped to 1.72 and shots against fell to 20.6. It’s no wonder that his rating sat so low. On the ice, Salmela’s plus/minus rating was a minus-0.85. Off the ice, the rating jumped to a plus-0.40.
The Corsi numbers wrap his ineffectiveness up nicely. On the ice, Salmela recorded a minus-3.18, one of five skaters with over 40 games played carrying a minus rating. Off the ice, the team recorded a plus-9.13 rating. On the ice, Salmela didn’t help this team offensively, and couldn’t prevent scoring chances. Off the ice, they simply played better.
Conclusion
Salmela wasn’t good by any stretch of the imagination. You can’t look at the numbers and give him credit for being solid anywhere. He finished fifth among defenseman in overall points (seven), but that isn’t impressive considering the offensive ineptitude of most blueliners. He finished behind a rookie, Mark Fayne, and the offensively challenged Anton Volchenkov.
Overall, Salmela finished with a 0.9 GVT rating. That ranked him third last among all defenseman, above replacement rookies Olivier Magnan and Alexander Urbom. He once again finished behind Fayne in this category. Yet he still skated in 48 regular season games. He provides some type of value, but not much.
Salmela enters the offseason as one of the Devils’ restricted free agents. He was outplayed by one rookie this season. The organization expects other young defenders, like Urbom and Matt Taormina, to play significant minutes next season. Salmela may be squeezed out of a roster spot.
If the numbers from this season are any indication, Salmela isn’t a great defenseman. The Devils can, and should, upgrade their blueline. Salmela barely fit in last season, and with better prospects coming through the system, he may need to find a new team soon.
AdvertisementsMONTREAL — Casually checking out another guy’s foxy girlfriend got a senior stabbed in Laval Wednesday night.
The incident began at a dépanneur on Meunier St. in the Pont Viau district at 7:30 p.m.
The victim, a 66-year old man, was buying some candy in the store when he allegedly ogled the backside of the girlfriend of one of the two suspects, age 22 and 25. The younger men took offence.
After a yelling match outside the store, the 66-year-old got into his car and one of the two younger men kicked the vehicle. The 66-year-old got out of his car, a fight started, punches were thrown, and one of the younger men pulled a knife and stabbed the older man in the shoulder. The blade of the knife went far enough down to puncture a lung.
The victim was taken to hospital, where he remains in stable condition. The two young men and the woman ran off.
Based on a description given by witnesses, three suspects were caught by police and will appear in court Thursday on charges of armed assault.A troupe of artists on Monday apparently snuck into a park in Brooklyn and mounted a bust of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden to the top of a war memorial.
“We have updated this monument to highlight those who sacrifice their safety in the fight against modern-day tyrannies,” read a statement from the artists given to the website Animal New York.
Animal tagged along with the artists to film and photograph the stunt. The site gave TPM permission to publish two of the photos.
The bust, 4-feet tall and weighing about 100 pounds, was planted on top of one of the four columns surrounding Prison Ship Martyrs Monument in Fort Greene Park. The memorial was built in tribute to Revolutionary War soldiers buried near the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
The artists snuck into the park early on Monday morning and fused the hydrocal sculpture to the stone.
On the base of the column, the artists attached the letters, “SNOWDEN.” They named their work, “Prison Ship Martyrs Monument 2.0,” according to Animal.
“There’s a media landscape that has painted him as a criminal,” said one of the artists based in New York. “You need something theatrical and large to counterbalance the Fox News-iness of the texture of the conversation out there.”
At the time of Animal’s report, the bust remained untampered with in Fort Greene Park, though the artists noted that they fully expect their work to be destroyed.
Here is a full shot of the memorial, courtesy of Aymann Ismail/ANIMALNewYork:If Loui Eriksson were two years younger, the Bruins would have an easy decision to make.
They would give Eriksson a long-term extension, perhaps as many as seven years at around $5 million annually. It would be market price for a smart, strong, and versatile wing who has been one of the Bruins’ three best players this season.
But Eriksson is 30 years old with a concussion history. His trade value is high enough to net the Bruins a major score before the deadline. It’s hard to project how many productive seasons Eriksson can play before his skates start to slow.
Advertisement
It leaves general manager Don Sweeney and his hockey operations colleagues with the most important decision of the season: whether to re-sign or trade Eriksson.
Get Sports Headlines in your inbox: The most recent sports headlines delivered to your inbox every morning. Sign Up Thank you for signing up! Sign up for more newsletters here
It is not an easy call.
There was no doubting Eriksson’s talent and value, even before his hat trick in Thursday’s 4-2 win over Minnesota at TD Garden. Eriksson has nine goals and eight assists for 17 points, trailing only David Krejci (22) and Patrice Bergeron (18). Only Krejci (20:05) is averaging more ice time than Eriksson (19:50). Eriksson has a team-best 56.2 Corsi For percentage.
He’s played both wings. He’s seen time on the first and second lines. He’s been the net-front and goal-line presence on the best power-play unit in the league. He’s killed penalties. He’s done everything for the Bruins short of selling popcorn and showing fans to their seats.
“As much as he scored three goals and we can all look at that, it was a great accomplishment, he also was good in the other areas — the penalty kill and in our D-zone,” said coach Claude Julien. “He was one of those guys that had his stick in the right places, taking away some of their slot opportunities that they excel in. He was really on top of his game. Not only does he deserve to be the best player tonight because of those three goals, but it’s because of the rest of his game as well.”
Advertisement
The decision is in Eriksson’s hands. It is up to the ex-Star, with counsel from agent J.P. Barry, to determine his worth in term and salary and communicate that to the Bruins. If it is reasonable — four years and $24 million, for example — the Bruins would be best served to draw up the papers as soon as possible to give Eriksson long-term security.
But if Eriksson aims higher, the Bruins will hesitate. Based on his play, age, and the leaguewide market, Eriksson could seek one final long-term score, regardless of who signs his checks. He owes it to himself and his family after double-barreled concussions in 2013-14 via John Scott and Brooks Orpik turned his first Black-and-Gold season into a nightmare.
“The first year, I got that concussion, so that was not the best time in that first year,” Eriksson said, referring to the Scott wallop. “Last year, I felt more comfortable. I felt really good last year. So I was just trying to build on it, try to get better this summer, and keep it going here through this season. It’s been working pretty good.”
If Eriksson flips the pages on his calendar to July 1, 2016, a possible payout will not be as bountiful as it could have been a few years ago. The Canadian exchange rate (currently 75 cents to the US dollar) is not pointing toward a healthy increase in the salary cap — if it goes up at all. Teams are already tight against the ceiling. Owners will be watching their GMs’ pens and ensuring they don’t sign players to contracts that handcuff them in future seasons.
But it only takes one team desperate for a do-it-all forward to drive up Eriksson’s price. Last week, Detroit signed Justin Abdelkader to a seven-year, $29.75 million extension. Compared with Eriksson, Abdelkader is two years younger and half the player.
Advertisement
If Eriksson wants similar term and Barry believes he can get it, Sweeney will be busy calling his counterparts. Eriksson’s hockey IQ is high. He’s in good shape. He’ll make plays with his stick that he can’t make with his legs. But high-producing forwards 35 and older are the exception (Jarome Iginla, Shane Doan) more than the rule (Patrik Elias, Vincent Lecavalier).
This season and for several years after, trading Eriksson would not make the Bruins better. He’s been excellent with Krejci, both on his left and right flanks.
On the power play, he does not plow into the crease and graft his backside onto a goalie’s face like fellow Swede and former Red Wing Tomas Holmstrom. Instead, Eriksson quietly finds soft spots between defensemen, screens goalies, and puts himself in position for tips and short-range garbage goals.
But the Bruins cannot risk holding on to Eriksson and seeing him walk on July 1. If the Bruins put Eriksson in play, they can expect a haul in return. Last year, the Coyotes landed a first-round pick and prospect Klas Dahlbeck from Chicago for Antoine Vermette. The Maple Leafs acquired Zach Sill, a second-round pick, and a fourth-rounder from Toronto for Daniel Winnik. Calgary obtained second- and third-rounders from Washington for Curtis Glencross. Eriksson is better than all three rentals. The Bruins could demand a first-rounder and a high-level prospect.
The Bruins have time before they must make up their mind. The trade deadline is Feb. 29. By then, Eriksson’s asking price could go up.
Fluto Shinzawa can be reached at fshinzawa@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeFlutoA study, published today in the American Journal of Psychiatry, is the first to find that immune cells are more active in the brains of people at risk of schizophrenia as well as those already diagnosed with the disease.
The finding could completely change our current understanding of schizophrenia, raising the possibility that testing people most at risk of the disorder ahead of time could allow them to be treated early enough to avoid its most severe symptoms.
Researchers at the Medical Research Council’s (MRC) Clinical Sciences Centre, based at Imperial College London, in collaboration with colleagues at King’s College London used positron emission tomography (PET) scans to measure levels of activity of immune cells in the brain. These cells, known as microglia, respond to damage and infection in the brain, and are also responsible for rearranging the connections between brain cells so that they work as well as possible; a process known as pruning.
The team tested a group of 56 people including those already diagnosed with schizophrenia, those at risk of the disease and those with no symptoms or risk of the disorder. They found that activity levels of microglia in the brain increased according to the severity of symptoms in people with schizophrenia and that people with diagnosed schizophrenia had high levels of activity of these immune cells in their brain.
Peter Bloomfield, lead author of the study at the MRC Clinical Sciences Centre, said: “Our findings are particularly exciting because it was previously unknown whether these cells become active before or after onset of the disease.
“Now we have shown this early involvement, mechanisms of the disease and new medications can hopefully be uncovered.”
Dr Oliver Howes, head of the psychiatric imaging group at the MRC Clinical Sciences Centre, added: “Schizophrenia is a potentially devastating disorder and we desperately need new treatments to help sufferers, and ultimately to prevent it.
“This is a promising study as it suggests that inflammation may lead to schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders. We now aim to test whether anti-inflammatory treatments can target these. This could lead to new treatments or even prevention of the disorders altogether.”
Professor Hugh Perry, Chair of the Neuroscience and Mental Health Board at the MRC, added “Schizophrenia, like other mental health disorders, is a complex disease that we know is caused by an interplay of genetic, behavioural and other contributing factors.
“This study adds to a growing body of research that inflammation in the brain could be one of the factors contributing to a range of disorders – including Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia and depression – and with this new knowledge comes the hope of life-changing treatments.”
About this schizophrenia research
Funding:Source: Susan Watts – MRC
Image Source: The image is adapted from the MRC press release
Original Research: Abstract for “Microglial Activity in People at Ultra High Risk of Psychosis and in Schizophrenia: An [11C]PBR28 PET Brain Imaging Study” by Peter S. Bloomfield, Sudhakar Selvaraj, Mattia Veronese, Gaia Rizzo, Alessandra Bertoldo, David R. Owen, Michael A.P. Bloomfield, Ilaria Bonoldi, Nicola Kalk, Federico Turkheimer, Philip McGuire, Vincenzo de Paola, Oliver D. Howes in American Journal of Psychiatry. Published online October 16 2015 doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.2015.14101358
Abstract
Microglial Activity in People at Ultra High Risk of Psychosis and in Schizophrenia: An [11C]PBR28 PET Brain Imaging Study
Objective:
The purpose of this study was to determine whether microglial activity, measured using translocator-protein positron emission tomography (PET) imaging, is increased in unmedicated persons presenting with subclinical symptoms indicating that they are at ultra high risk of psychosis and to determine whether microglial activity is elevated in schizophrenia after controlling for a translocator-specific genetic polymorphism.
Method:
The authors used the second-generation radioligand [11C]PBR28 and PET to image microglial activity in the brains of participants at ultra high risk for psychosis. Participants were recruited from early intervention centers. The authors also imaged a cohort of patients with schizophrenia and matched healthy subjects for comparison. In total, 56 individuals completed the study. At screening, participants were genotyped to account for the rs6971 polymorphism in the gene encoding the 18Kd translocator protein. The main outcome measure was total gray matter [11C]PBR28 binding ratio, representing microglial activity.
Results:
[11C]PBR28 binding ratio in gray matter was elevated in ultra-high-risk participants compared with matched comparison subjects (Cohen’s d >1.2) and was positively correlated with symptom severity (r=0.730). Patients with schizophrenia also demonstrated elevated microglial activity relative to matched comparison subjects (Cohen’s d >1.7).
Conclusions:
Microglial activity is elevated in patients with schizophrenia and in persons with subclinical symptoms who are at ultra high risk of psychosis and is related to at-risk symptom severity. These findings suggest that neuroinflammation is linked to the risk of psychosis and related disorders, as well as the expression of subclinical symptoms.
“Microglial Activity in People at Ultra High Risk of Psychosis and in Schizophrenia: An [11C]PBR28 PET Brain Imaging Study” by Peter S. Bloomfield, Sudhakar Selvaraj, Mattia Veronese, Gaia Rizzo, Alessandra Bertoldo, David R. Owen, Michael A.P. Bloomfield, Ilaria Bonoldi, Nicola Kalk, Federico Turkheimer, Philip McGuire, Vincenzo de Paola, Oliver D. Howes in American Journal of Psychiatry. Published online October 16 2015 doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.2015.14101358
Feel free to share this Neuroscience News.In a Sporting News piece on Urban Meyer’s legacy at Florida, writer Matt Hayes dredges up a rather alarming incident involving one-time Gator and current Vikings star Percy Harvin. It seems Meyer had something of a special arrangement for Harvin and his other big-time players, essentially allowing them to do whatever they wanted. This (not shockingly) created something of an undisciplined culture within the Florida program, and according to Hayes, Harvin took full advantage of the chaos to act like a colossal jerk. Hayes recounts:
It was Harvin, more than anyone, who epitomized the climate Meyer created. While former players say Harvin always was treated differently as a member of Meyer’s Circle of Trust, it was the beginning of his sophomore season—after he helped lead the Gators to the 2006 national title—that it became blatant. That’s also when it began to contribute negatively toward team chemistry. During offseason conditioning before the 2007 season, the team was running stadium steps and at one point, Harvin, according to sources, sat down and refused to run. When confronted by strength and conditioning coaches, Harvin—who failed to return calls and texts to his cell phone to comment on this story—said, “This (expletive) ends now.” “The next day,” a former player said, “we were playing basketball as conditioning.” It only got worse as Harvin’s career progressed. At one point during the 2008 season, multiple sources confirmed that Harvin, now a prominent member of the Minnesota Vikings, physically attacked wide receivers coach Billy Gonzales, grabbing him by the neck and throwing him to the ground. Harvin had to be pulled off Gonzales by two assistant coaches—but was never disciplined. When asked about the Harvin incident, Gonzales—now offensive coordinator at Illinois—said, “I think it’s a little overblown. I mean, every great player wants his voice to be heard.” Said Meyer: “Something did happen and something was handled. I don’t think it’s fair to Percy Harvin or Billy Gonzales to talk about it.”
This all happened in 2008 when Percy Harvin was only 20. He’s 23 now and by all accounts has grown up a lot. However, when we read the above account, we can’t help remembering that Harvin has also gotten into an altercation with a coach during his pro career. In 2010 at the height of the Vikings’ meltdown, Harvin reportedly had to be pulled away from Brad Childress. Not long afterward Childress was gone. That’s two incidents with coaches at two different stops. In neither case was Harvin punished. In both cases the coach ended up leaving.
Does this mean we should worry about Harvin turning into some little raging Terrell Owens-like figure who has no respect for authority and thinks he can get away with anything as long as he produces on the field? Since Leslie Frazier took over as coach, there’s been little evidence to suggest that Harvin is anything but a model teammate. There was a small incident last year where he sold out some other players for not knowing where to line up but that was frustration more than anything. A player occasionally speaking his mind is not a bad thing, especially when he doesn’t name names.
If Harvin has received any criticism as a Viking, it’s mostly been for the perception that he doesn’t enjoy practice and often uses physical ailments as a way of getting out of it. This is probably an unfair criticism. Probably. Then again, Harvin did obviously get into some bad habits at Florida. It would be silly to think those habits just magically went away as soon as he became a pro. It’s more likely that Harvin is still somewhat of a whiny little b-word but in a professional environment this trait is less of an issue. Obviously Urban Meyer let the inmates run the asylum and this probably was the main reason Harvin behaved the way he did.
In short, I wouldn’t worry too much about Percy Harvin. We’ve seen players who acted up way more than him and gave much less of an effort on the field (Bryant McKinnie anyone?). It’s likely Percy has left most of that disruptive stuff in his past. It would be nice if he’d practice more, but nobody’s perfect.
Like The Viking Age on Facebook.
Follow Dan Zinski on Twitter.LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WHAS11) -- Taking care of animals is good for our health, and petting a dog or cat can calm us down, even cheer us up.
It's not unusual to see therapy animals in hospitals and nursing homes, but normally you think of dogs and cats. But did you ever think about a therapy duck?
A Prospect woman says she's training her pet duck to do volunteer work.
“I didn't have plans for this, then I started researching all this, but mainly because I started taking her out and saw how happy it made other people that made me think about doing it with volunteer work,” said duck owner Shellie Powell.
And why not, since her duck already wears diapers, walks on a leash and loves people.
Diva the duck is five weeks old, she's been with Shellie since she was hatched.
Shellie says ducks are almost as smart as dogs, and her duck has her own Instagram account.A decade ago, MTV debuted a show called Punk'd in which Ashton Kutcher would play elaborate practical jokes on celebrities before the big reveal at the end of each episode. While the setup isn't quite the same, it's possible that Japan's Nikkei played the role of Kutcher this Sunday and the Wall Street Journal acted as the duped celebrity with a breathless report suggesting iPhone orders are about to fall off a cliff. Apple's stock has been under a ton of pressure lately, falling about 30 percent from its all-time high and this latest bit of apparent bad news has helped drive it down more, to below $500 a share today.
It started when the Journal reported: "Apple's orders for iPhone 5 screens for the first quarter, for example, have dropped to roughly half of what the company had planned to order, the people said." What's missing from that quote, however, is what Nikkei originally included and can still be found on Reuters (although no longer on WSJ): "Apple has asked Japan Display, Sharp and LG Display Co Ltd to roughly halve supplies of LCD panels from an initial plan for about 65 million screens in January-March, the Nikkei cited people familiar with the situation as saying." And that 65 million number we know is completely absurd. Just how absurd? Well, let's break it down.
For calendar fourth quarter, the one that just ended, the iPhone forecast is for 43-63 million phones. (Not all of those are iPhone 5s, of course, given that the 4s and 4 are still available.) The median of those estimates is around 49 million and a high estimate would put the iPhone 5 at 40 million of those. Since the latest iPod Touch uses the same screen, it's possible another 5 million screens would be used in the Christmas quarter for that. So let's say there is a total need for 45 million screens in the quarter that just ended.
Every year since the iPhone has launched, Apple has seen some seasonal drop off from the end of the year into the first quarter (what Apple calls Q2, but what is the first calendar quarter). The iPod Touch, in particular, sees a huge drop off. So no matter how strong iPhone 5 is selling, if the company needed 45 million screens last quarter, it would need fewer this quarter. How many? Perhaps 40 million or so. Of course, if Apple had ordered more than it needed last quarter to make sure that it was ahead of the game, it would need fewer still going into winter and might only require 30-35 million. The truth is, we don't know,, but then neither does Nikkei, or its unnamed sources.
None of this stopped a credulous WSJ from running the story as front-page news just eight days ahead of Apple's Jan. 23 earnings announcement. It's pile-on season for the Cupertino, Calif. consumer-electronics giant, which has apparently "lost its edge" according to most everything you read these days. It's an interesting spin given that the company sold 37 million iPhones in the holiday quarter this year and even the lowest end of the forecast would be a 20 percent boost to that number. (At 50 million, year-over-year growth would be 35 percent.)
Nevertheless, the latest rumors about Apple slashing component orders, in fact, come on the heels of supposedly positive developments at competitors. First, we heard "good news" from Nokia, which reported shipments of 4.4 million Lumia phones in the year-end quarter. Never mind that we are talking less than 2 percent market share for Nokia or that sales were boosted by heavy discounting, often down to $99 at retail -- less than half what competing phones sell for. This is good news in the land of Nokia. It might not be repeatable as the Windows Phone platform has yet to prove especially popular, but was unequivocally spun as a positive pretty much everywhere it was reported.
Similarly, Cnet was very excited about Samsung's announcement that the Galaxy S phone line had crossed the 100 million mark in total sales. The phone is so desirable, "Sales of the flagship Galaxy S3 reached 30 million units in 5 months, and 40 million in 7 months, with average daily sales of about 190,000 units." You'd think that it's the hottest thing going with those numbers. Of course, as we were just discussing above, in the quarter just ended, Apple will have sold about as many iPhone 5's as Samsung has sold Galaxy S3's in 7 months! This is what the "experts" are already calling trouble and they haven't seen the numbers yet.
Now, of course, Samsung is also selling the prior generation S2, which Cnet tells us, "...is described as a steady bet after recording sales of over 40 million in 20 months." So that's about 2 million a month for that model to go with the 17 milllion S3 phones Samsung apparently moved in Q4. In other words, if we just compare the last two generations of phones, Apple sold somewhere around 35-45 million last quarter while Samsung moved about 23 million. It's certainly true that Samsung has a number of less-expensive entry models and will outsell Apple in raw numbers. But when one looks at "profit share" and wonders why Apple will continue to earn more of it in smartphones than Samsung, those numbers tell the story.
Certainly, if iPhone 5 demand is indeed falling off the cliff that the WSJ claims it is, things will change next quarter. And perhaps Apple's earnings report next week will tell us more about that. Then we'll find out who's really getting punk'd.
Follow @maxrogo
More on Forbes:Senator Rand Paul, who met with Donald Trump Tuesday in an attempt to thrash out the repeal and replacement of Obamacare, today compared nationalized healthcare to a Soviet gulag.
Appearing on under fire CNN, the Senator was arguing in favor of voluntary groups being able to buy healthcare policies, rather than having to fork out to insurance companies for expensive individual insurance.
Paul described it as “a way out of that individual conundrum,” adding that a “big group”has the “leverage to demand” more extensive coverage at a more affordable cost.
When CNN host Erin Burnett attempted to spin Paul’s idea into a an argument for a monolithic socialist healthcare system, the Senator wasn’t impressed.
"We have very specific asks" to vote yes- @RandPaul. One of them:young men shouldn't have to buy pregnancy insurance https://t.co/sOOF9lMqH7 — Erin Burnett (@ErinBurnett) June 27, 2017
“So why not go for the biggest group of all and just have insurance for everybody?” Burnett asked the Senator.
“Socialism’s not a good idea,” Paul exclaimed, adding “Socialism’s an utter failure,” and pointing to Venezuela as a current example of the failure of such a system.
“You did just make a great argument for nationalized health care,” Burnett claimed.
“You said ‘the bigger the group, the lower the cost,’ so all I’m taking is your argument to its logical conclusion.” she added.
Paul responded succinctly, urging “I was talking about voluntary groups, not the gulag.”
The Senator tweeted out Tuesday that he was scheduled to meet with President Trump to “fix” the Republican healthcare bill and achieve a “real repeal” of Obamacare.
I'll discuss w/ him how to fix bill & get more to a YES on real repeal, things I've tried to tell Senate leaders with no result so far — Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) June 27, 2017
After the meeting, Paul told reporters that Trump is open to his ideas on the bill:
Just came from WH. @realDonaldTrump is open to making bill better. Is Senate leadership? — Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) June 27, 2017
Paul also appeared on CBS programming Wednesday morning to discuss the progress of the bill:
“We’ve kept 10 out of the 12 regulations….you have to repeal the regulations if you want to bring down prices for people” — Sen @RandPaul pic.twitter.com/VeYZLPi3eX — CBS This Morning (@CBSThisMorning) June 28, 2017
Paul has described the bill in its current form as ‘terrible’, saying it retains too many provisions of the original Obamacare legislation, and may even pave the way for more subsidies.MOL Ship Caught in Japan-China Tensions
By MarEx 2014-04-21 07:01:00
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has sent a ritual offering to the Yasukuni Shrine, seen by critics as a symbol of Japan's past militarism, angering both South Korea and China on Monday and putting regional ties under further strain.
Adding to unease in the region, a Chinese maritime court in Shanghai seized a ship on Saturday owned by Japanese shipping firm Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, a move that Japan warned could have an adverse impact on its businesses in China.
The court said the company had failed to pay compensation stemming from a wartime contractual obligation. China's Foreign Ministry said the disagreement was a normal commercial dispute.
Japan said the ship seizure, apparently the first time the assets of a Japanese company have been seized in a lawsuit concerning compensation for World War Two, was "extremely regrettable".
"It is inevitable that this will have an adverse impact on Japanese companies in China," said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga. "We strongly urge the Chinese government to make the proper response."
The spat over the ship was a "regular business contract dispute", China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said, adding that the government would safeguard the rights of foreign investors.
"This case has nothing to do with compensation from the Chinese-Japanese war (World War Two)," Qin told a regular news briefing.
"Nothing has changed in the Chinese government's position on adhering to, and defending every principle in, the Sino-Japanese Joint Statement," he added, referring to an announcement in 1972 that the two countries were establishing official ties.
At the time, Japan also recognized the government in Beijing as the sole government of China and China gave up claims to Japanese war reparations.
"China will continue to protect the interests and rights of foreign investors in China according to law," Qin said.
"MISTAKEN ATTITUDE"
The offering by Abe, who visited the shrine in December but did not go in person this time, was sent just before U.S. President Barack Obama begins a three-day visit to Japan on Wednesday.
The United States has said it was "disappointed" with Abe's shrine visit last year, which infuriated Beijing and Seoul.
China protested on April 12 after internal affairs minister Yoshitaka Shindo visited the shrine, where 14 Japanese leaders convicted as war criminals by an Allied tribunal after World War Two are honoured, along with Japan's war dead.
Abe made his latest offering to the shrine as a private individual so it was not the government's place to comment, Suga, the chief government spokesman, told a news conference.
"It will not have an impact on the U.S.-Japan leaders meeting," he said.
Qin, China's foreign ministry spokesman, said Beijing had already lodged a protest with Tokyo, adding that Abe's move reflected Japan's "mistaken attitude towards history".
"SLAP IN THE FACE"
China's official Xinhua news agency condemned Abe's offering as a provocative move that threatened regional stability and was a "slap in the face of the leader of Japan's closest ally".
South Korea's Foreign Ministry also responded angrily.
"We deplore the fact that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has romanticized Japanese colonialism and its war of aggression by paying tribute to the Yasukuni Shrine," it said in a statement, noting it had happened despite expressions of concern from the international community.
Abe has said that, like predecessors such as former premier Yasuhiro Nakasone who visited the shrine, he had high regard for Japan's ties with China and South Korea, which suffered under Japanese occupation and colonisation in the 20th century.
A group of lawmakers is also expected to visit the shrine during its spring festival this week.
Several court cases demanding compensation for forced wartime labour have arisen in China and South Korea. In February, two Japanese firms were sued in what media said was the first time a Chinese court had accepted such a case.
A spokesman for Mitsui O.S.K. said the company had been informed of the seizure order but was still trying to assess what was happening at the port. It did not confirm that the vessel was in the hands of the court.
The ship, "Baosteel Emotion", is a 226,434 deadweight-tonne ore carrier.
Despite Tokyo's protest, one analyst said the impact of the seizure was likely to be limited, and noted that it seemed to be another case of China putting pressure on Japan, adding it was also unclear if this represented the policy of China's leaders.
"Companies that are currently involved with such issues will likely think twice about Chinese businesses, but I believe most Japanese companies have nothing to do with these problems," said Akio Takahara, a professor at the University of Tokyo.
"They might take this development as one factor when they think about investments in China, but I don't think this is a decisive factor at the moment."
In addition, a senior executive with Toyota Motor Corp said on Monday the company was considering expanding capacity in China significantly in its efforts to catch up with global rivals.
Obama's visit to Asia, which kicks off in Japan, will also take him to South Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines.
Copyright Reuters 2014.Socialising as I do with many people who have had opportunities to travel, conversations about different corners of the world come up frequently, and those conversations often make me deeply uncomfortable. One such example is the "the people are so beautiful!" conversation, in which the residents of a given nation are described as gentle and kind and loving, so warm and welcoming. This creates a mental image for me of noble savages, of a simple, |
ipped by overworked salarymen are made by infusing mirin with various medicinal herbs, but most people don’t realize they contain mirin at all.
It was not until the early 1800s, in the late Edo Period (1603-1868), that mirin started to be used as a cooking ingredient. In Edo around that time, the type of dark, rich soy sauce that typifies the Kanto area became more popular than the previously preferred light, salty soy sauce from the Kansai area. This dark soy sauce was combined with mirin as well as sake, and later on sugar, to create a new type of Edo cuisine, and dishes that feature this sweet-salty combination of flavors and ingredients are still popular today. These include eel kabayaki, mentsuyu (the dark, rich dipping sauce used for cold noodles), teriyaki and sukiyaki.
For most home cooks, though, mirin continued to be too expensive to use as an ingredient until the postwar period, when taxes on it were drastically reduced and it became more affordable.
There are three types of cooking mirin on the market: mirin seasoning, fermented-mirin seasoning; and hon-mirin, or real mirin. Mirin seasoning, sometimes called aji-mirin, is not mirin at all — it’s an alcohol-free substitute that contains sweeteners (sugar or high-fructose corn syrup), salt and monosodium glutamate. It was created as a cheap alternative to mirin that could be sold in regular grocery stores. Hon-mirin has an alcohol content of around 14 percent, so a liquor license is required to sell it. Fermented-mirin seasoning is real mirin (with alcohol) but with salt and other seasonings added to it, rendering it undrinkable.
Hon-mirin has a sweetness with more depth and complexity than sugar, and the alcohol helps to counteract the gaminess and fishiness of meat, poultry and fish. It’s an indispensable ingredient in all kinds of Japanese dishes, such as the ones already mentioned, to which it imparts a mild sweetness and shiny appearance. Mirin is usually used in cooked dishes, so most of the alcohol content evaporates, but if you’re using it for uncooked dishes like aemono (dressed salad dishes), boil it off at a high temperature first and use the cooled liquid. This method is called nikiri, and is used for sake too.
Mirin-boshi — fish marinated in mirin and soy sauce and dried for a couple of days — is a great way to enjoy the sweet, complex flavor of mirin. The recipe with this article uses horse mackerel (aji), but you can use butterfish (kisu) and similar small fish. Commercial mirin-boshi often contains sugar and other seasonings, which are omitted from this simple homemade version.
Makiko Itoh is the author of “The Just Bento Cookbook” (Kodansha USA). She writes about bentō lunches at www.justbento.com and about Japanese cooking and more at www.justhungry.com.
Recipe: Mirin-boshi (dried marinated fish)
Serves 4
Ingredients
4 fresh small to medium horse mackerel (aji)
3 tablespoons hon-mirin
1.5 tablespoons dark soy sauce (2:1 ratio of mirin to soy sauce)
1 teaspoon grated ginger
salt
sesame seeds
metal skewers
1. Cut the heads off the fish and butterfly them by slicing through the stomach side, opening them up and removing the intestines. Rinse and dry very well with paper towels.
2. Sprinkle the fish with salt on both sides and leave for 15-30 minutes. Wipe off any moisture that comes out of the fish. Combine the mirin, soy sauce and ginger and marinate the fish in the mixture for 15 minutes.
3. Skewer each fish lengthways with two metal skewers and sprinkle sesame seeds on both sides. Leave them in a well ventilated area for 2 to 3 days, turning them occasionally.
4. Grill over a low flame until done and serve with plain rice.How the Spurs' three-game road trip proves the importance of Boris Diaw
With less than a week to go in the regular season and the Spurs locked into the two seed, the Silver and Black find themselves two games into a three-game mini road trip. And so far the most important factor hasn't been Kawhi Leonard or even LaMarcus Aldridge—it's been the lack of Boris Diaw.
The Spurs announced Monday that the Frenchman would not travel with the team to square off against the Jazz, Warriors, or Nuggets. Sidelined with an adductor injury, the portly power forward is at home in San Antonio, where I can only assume he’s killing the time by picking up the occasional shift at Creme de la Creme, the haute food truck opened last month by his countryman Tony Parker.
The Spurs escaped Salt Lake Tuesday night with a two-point victory after surrendering a sixteen-point fourth quarter lead. With 4:24 left in the contest, and the Jazz’s Rodney Hood and Joe Ingles having their way, Gregg Popovich pulled Tim Duncan—who has played fewer fourth quarter minutes than any Spur other than Matt Bonner. (Not than I’m complaining—it bears reminding that Duncan is just a few weeks away from his 40th birthday and playing on one good knee.)
Pop brought in Kyle Anderson, who, despite a fine offensive effort, found himself in the situation below, matched up with Trevor Booker and getting switched onto Rodney Hood, who blew through him like a saloon door for a floater.
A healthy Diaw with his size and crafty footwork fits better into those Duncan fourth quarter minutes.
Last night, the Spurs fell to the Warriors 112-101, in the first meeting of these two juggernauts since their glacially-paced March 19 match-up at the AT&T Center. In that game, with Andrew Bogut, Festus Ezeli, and Andre Iguodala injured, Steve Kerr started a pseudo-version of the Warriors’ small-ball, Draymond Green-at-center lineup.
Pop countered by playing Tim Duncan off the bench (for just the third time in the Big Fundamental’s career) and inserting—you guessed it—Boris Diaw into the starting lineup at center.
In both that game and last night’s contest, the Spurs seemed committed to switching every Steph Curry pick and roll—a strategy that only works when the big man getting switched onto Curry has the mobility to stick with him. Boris Diaw has the requisite footwork; Tim Duncan does not. See below as Old Man Riverwalk—again, 40 years old, one good knee, etc.—switches onto Curry and gets torched.
Without Diaw, the Spurs’ bench also lacks sorely for passing and playmaking, with no other big man who comes close to Diaw’s ability to effortlessly flip a no-look rocket over those big shoulders or use those Shakira hips to clear out space and get a good look. Last night, the bench started the game 1-8 from the field and never really picked up much more momentum during the competitive part of the game.
So on this Friday afternoon, let’s raise a cappuccino to the Big Croissant.
Tonight his teammates will take on the Denver Nuggets, just a day after the NBA Players’ Association ran a piece profiling Diaw’s extra-curricular interests, including, among other things, his plans to become an HBO documentarian and travel to outer space. He truly is a Renaissance Man. But don’t take it from me when you can take it from the great Bill Walton.Latin (including words used only in scientific / medical / legal contexts): ~29%
French (Latin): ~29%
Germanic: ~26%
Others: ~16% According to one study, the percentage of modern English words derived from each language group are as follows:Latin (including words used only in scientific / medical / legal contexts): ~29%French (Latin): ~29%Germanic: ~26%Others: ~16%
The core of English language descends from Old English, the language brought with the Angles, Saxon, and Jutish settlers to what was to be called England in and after the 500s. The bulk of the language in spoken and written texts is from this source. As a statistical rule, around 70 percent of words in any text are Anglo-Saxon. Moreover, the grammar is largely Anglo-Saxon.[1]
A significant portion of the English vocabulary comes from Romance and Latinate sources. Estimates of native words (derived from Old English) range from 20%–33%, with the rest made up of outside borrowings. A portion of these borrowings come directly from Latin, or through one of the Romance languages, particularly Anglo-Norman and French, but some also from Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish; or from other languages (such as Gothic, Frankish or Greek) into Latin and then into English. The influence of Latin in English, therefore, is primarily lexical in nature, being confined mainly to words derived from Latin roots.[2]
While some new words enter English as slang, most do not. Some words are adopted from other languages; some are mixtures of existing words (portmanteau words), and some are new creations made of roots from dead languages.
Word origins [ edit ]
A computerized survey of about 80,000 words in the old Shorter Oxford Dictionary (3rd ed.) was published in Ordered Profusion by Thomas Finkenstaedt and Dieter Wolff (1973)[3] that estimated the origin of English words as follows:
A survey by Joseph M. Williams in Origins of the English Language of 10,000 words taken from several thousand business letters gave this set of statistics:[4]
French (langue d'oïl): 41%
"Native" English: 33%
Latin: 15%
Old Norse: 5%
Dutch: 1%
Other: 5%[5]
Languages influencing the English language [ edit ]
Here is a list of the most common foreign language influences in English, where other languages have influenced or contributed words to English.
Words are almost absent, except for dialectal words, such as the Yan Tan Tethera system of counting sheep. However, hypotheses have been made that English syntax was influenced by Celtic languages, such as the system of continuous tenses was a cliché of similar Celtic phrasal structures; this is controversial, as the system has clear native English and other Germanic developments.
The French contributed legal, military, technological, and political terminology. Their language also contributed common words, such as the names of meats: veal, mutton, beef, pork, and how food was prepared: boil, broil, fry, roast, and stew; as well as words related to the nobility: prince, duke, marquess, viscount, baron, and their feminine equivalents.[6]:254-258 Nearly 40 percent of English words (in an 80,000 word dictionary) may be of French origin.
Scientific and technical words, medical terminology, academic and legal terminology.
Scientific and medical terminology (for instance -phobias and -ologies), Christian theological terminology.
Castle, cauldron, kennel, catch, cater are among Norman words introduced into English. The Norman language also introduced (or reinforced) words of Norse origin such as mug.
There are many ways through which Dutch words have entered the English language: via trade and navigation, such as skipper (from schipper), freebooter (from vrijbuiter), keelhauling (from kielhalen); via painting, such as landscape (from landschap), easel (from ezel), still life (from stilleven); warfare, such as forlorn hope (from verloren hoop), beleaguer (from beleger), to bicker (from bicken); via civil engineering, such as dam, polder, dune (from duin); via the New Netherland settlements in North America, such as cookie (from koekie), boss from baas, Santa Claus (from Sinterklaas); via Dutch/Afrikaans speakers with English speakers in South Africa, such as wildebeest, apartheid, boer; via French words of Dutch/Flemish origin that have subsequently been adopted into English, such as boulevard (from bolwerk), mannequin (from manneken), buoy (from boei).[7]
Words relating to warfare and tactics, for instance flotilla and guerrilla; or related to science and culture, whether created in Arabic, originated in Amerindian civilizations (Cariban: cannibal, hurricane; Mescalero: apache; Nahuatl: tomato, coyote, chocolate; Quechua: potato; Taíno: tobacco), or Iberian Romance languages (aficionado, albino, alligator, cargo, cigar, embargo, guitar, jade, mesa, paella, platinum, plaza, renegade, rodeo, salsa, savvy, sierra, siesta, tilde, tornado, vanilla etc.).
Words relating to some music, piano, fortissimo. Or Italian culture, such as piazza, pizza, gondola, balcony, fascism. The English word umbrella comes from Italian ombrello.
Words relating to culture, originating from the colonial era. Many of these words are of Persian origin rather than Hindi because Persian was the official language of the Mughal courts. e.g., pyjamas, bungalow, verandah, jungle, curry, shampoo, khaki.
German words relating to World War I and World War II found their way into the English language, words such as Blitzkrieg, Führer and Lebensraum; food terms, such as bratwurst, hamburger and frankfurter; words related to psychology and philosophy, such a gestalt, Übermensch, zeitgeist and realpolitik. From German origin are also: wanderlust, schadenfreude, kaputt, kindergarten, autobahn, rucksack.
Words of Old Norse origin have entered English primarily from the contact between Old Norse and Old English during colonisation of eastern and northern England between the mid 9th to the 11th centuries (see also Danelaw). Many of these words are part of English core vocabulary, such as egg, sky or knife.
Words used in religious contexts, like Sabath, kosher, hallelujah, amen, and jubilee or words that have become slang like schmuck, shmooze, nosh, oy vey, and schmutz.
Trade items such as borax, coffee, cotton, hashish, henna, mohair, muslin, saffron; Islamic religious terms such as jihad, hadith and sharia; scientific vocabulary borrowed into Latin in the 12th and 13th centuries (alcohol, alkali, algebra, azimuth, cipher, nadir); plants or plant products originating in tropical Asia and introduced to medieval Europe through Arabic intermediation (camphor, jasmine, lacquer, lemon, orange, sugar); Middle Eastern cuisine words (couscous, falafel, hummus, kebab, tahini).
Counting [ edit ]
Cardinal numbering in English follows two models, Germanic and Italic. The basic numbers are zero through ten. The numbers eleven through nineteen follow native Germanic style, as do twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, and ninety.
Standard English, especially in very conservative formal contexts, continued to use native Germanic style as late as World War I for intermediate numbers greater than 20, viz., "one-and-twenty," "five-and-thirty," "seven-and-ninety," and so. But with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, the Latin tradition of counting as "twenty-one," "thirty-five," "ninety-seven," etc., which is easier to say and was already common in non-standard regional dialects, gradually replaced the traditional Germanic style to become the dominant style by the end of nineteenth century.
Opposition [ edit ]
Linguistic purism in the English language is the belief that words of native origin should be used instead of foreign-derived ones (which are mainly Romantic, Latin and Greek). "Native" can mean "Anglo-Saxon" or it can be widened to include all Germanic words. In its mild form, it merely means using existing native words instead of foreign-derived ones (such as using "begin" instead of "commence"). In its more extreme form, it involves reviving native words that are no longer widely used (such as "ettle" for "intend") and/or coining new words from Germanic roots (such as word stock for vocabulary). This dates at least to the inkhorn term debate of the 16th and 17th century, where some authors rejected the foreign influence, and has continued to this day, being most prominent in Plain English advocacy to avoid Latinate terms if a simple native alternative exists.
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]Here is a note from an Army captain who is serving his country overseas:
While Tom expressed quite a bit of dismay at an apparent upsurge in incidents involving inappropriate relationships in the Canadian Army (Brig. Gen. Daniel Menard, and that other Canadian captain, whatever his name is), I’m not surprised. I think we keep forgetting that human beings have been thinking about and having sex for all of recorded history: you can read it in writings as far back as Ovid and Pietro Aretino.
Even the Greatest Generation, our noble forefathers, were once described by the British as ‘over-sexed, over-paid, and over here,’ apparently liberating as many European women from the girdle of Nazi oppression as they did from their, eh, you get the point.
It’s no secret that sex happens, even in combat zones, despite General Order Number One (widely interpreted as a ban on sex). It’s little more than a sign of the times. Today’s operational tempo doesn’t lend itself well to relationships with those outside the military, with frequent year-long deployments and a hectic training schedule. It shouldn’t be any surprise that troops are searching for companionship within our own ranks, particularly when they’re cooped up on a FOB or COP with no other means of getting their jollies (even, according to GO1, from porn).
The case of the Canadian captain caught in an inappropriate relationship with an enlisted soldier is, in my eyes, a grey area. Until ten years ago, relationships between officers and enlisted service members were actually legal in the U.S. Army, so long as there was no superior-subordinate relationship between the two. (As an aside, I’d venture that the distinction between officers and enlisted is far less drastic than it is in the other services, particularly the Navy). With this history, it’s easy for many to view these sorts of relationships not as immoral, per se, but rather, as yet another seemingly-arbitrary policy change. Oddly enough, I’ve seen a number of officer/enlisted relationships result in marriage, resulting in bizarre interpretations of morality. Why did the Army arbitrarily change its tune when it comes to officer/enlisted relationships? (Make no mistake, though: inappropriate relationships between superiors and subordinates is a clear breach of ethics, even if both parties were both officers or enlisted members)
Most commanders take a stern stance against these sorts of relationships. Should an investigation find that there was an inappropriate relationship, the next bit of tricky business is ensuring that both parties receive equal treatment. With the Uniform Code of Military Justice being what it is, there are different procedures for punishing officer and enlisted misconduct. Officer misconduct is generally adjudicated by general officers, placing all sorts of attention on these sorts of relationships. An officer might receive a letter of reprimand, and the enlisted party might be reduced a grade. The punishments actually even out — while an officer won’t be demoted, he or she may have to live with the letter in their file for the rest of their career, hurting their chances for promotion. The enlisted party, on the other hand, can always regain his or her lost rank and move on with their career.
Again, I’ve seen married couples punished under this policy — one which seems to have changed arbitrarily. I do think we need to go back and revisit it."Watch out, cybercriminals! China's got eyes on you.
China's central government has arrested 15,000 people for alleged cybercrimes as part of a sweeping six-month probe called "Operation Clean Internet," according to a statement from the Ministry of Public Security.
The ongoing campaign, launched in July, is aimed at stamping out cybercriminal gang networks and improving overall cybersecurity. To date, the agency said it has investigated 7,400 domestic cases, a majority of which involve hacking and the theft of personal and financial data.
A statement issued by the government provided details on 10 of the investigations, including a cyberattack on a telecoms company, the theft of financial information via spam text messages, a campaign to defraud people with disabilities and even a fake online investment platform.
Related: Cars can be hacked by their tiny, plug-in insurance discount trackers
China's Internet itself is already tightly controlled and regulated by the government -- foreign news and social media sites are routinely blocked, including Google (GOOG) and Facebook (FB). The state-sponsored censorship program, which took years to build, is called the "Great Firewall."
Online posts that criticize the government are often scrubbed away. In an effort to control what is published on the Internet, Beijing even requires online bloggers to register with the government, and to use their real names on the Web.
The Chinese government has long been accused by the U.S. of waging cyberwarfare -- everything from corporate to military espionage -- but Beijing has denied those claims, saying China itself is a victim of cyberattacks.
Beijing recently released a draft cybersecurity rule that it says will protect government agencies from attack. But critics are worried that the proposed law would make it hard for large foreign companies to operate in the country.Anyone who knows me knows how much I love Vim. I even wrote a post about it. In the past few months, however, I’ve found some things that made me start looking elsewhere for a great editing experience. It was time for a replacement.
Recently I’ve gotten back into Android development which, unfortunately, requires programming in Java. Anyone that has written Android code knows how much an IDE can do for you. Vanilla Vim just doesn’t cut it. Yes, there are ways to make Vim behave like an IDE (Eclim), but none of them are amazing.
Rediscovering IntelliJ IDEA
About a year ago, Google released an offical Android IDE called Android Studio, which is a modified version of IntelliJ IDEA (created by Jetbrains).
I really liked Android Studio when I first tried it, but the Vim plugin IdeaVim was missing a key feature which prevented me from using it – key mappings. I use the Colemak keyboard layout, so having the ability to remap keys is an absolute necessity. During my search for a Vim replacement, I looked into IdeaVim again to see if it had gotten better. It had. In fact, it now supports a subset of.vimrc commands, including key remapping. Hooray! This means that I can use the same.vimrc file for both Vim and Android Studio.
I didn’t just want to do Android development though. I needed an editor that supported writing code in any language. After a quick search, I found out that if you purchase the full version of IntelliJ, Jetbrains’ most expensive IDE, you can add the features of all of their other IDEs (PhpStorm, PyCharm, Webstorm, etc) by installing the necessary plugins. Amazing! That was enough to convince me to install the trial.
Impressions After Two Months
I’m going to try and keep this post to the point, so here is a short description of my favorite things about IntelliJ after my first two months of use.
1. The Interface
The thing that really sets IntelliJ apart from other IDEs, like Eclipse, is the interface. IntelliJ comes with an optional dark theme (called Darcula) and it’s beautiful. Yes, it’s still a Java app, but at least it looks good.
Besides a pretty dark theme, IntelliJ’s UI exceeds in another area – minimalism. If you want, you can hide every toolbar and window leaving just the editor in view. That’s right, IntelliJ doesn’t have to look gross and busy like most out-of-the-box IDEs. Here’s a basic screenshot of me editing Insomnia, a React project.
title: “Switching from Vim to IntelliJ” slug: “switching-from-vim-to-intelliJ” date: “2015-04-04” url: “blog/2015/04/04/switching-from-vim-to-intellij.html”
2. Search Everywhere
Search Everywhere is by far my most used IntelliJ feature. It’s like the ctrl-p (or cmd-p ) shortcut of Sublime Text, but on steroids. As you can see in the screenshot below, this feature lets you search things like files, symbols, IDE actions, and even IDE settings. And, if a boolean setting appears in the list, IntelliJ lets you toggle it right from the dropdown!
3. Diff Visualizer
I use (and you should too) version control for every project. I used to use a tool on Ubuntu called Gitg to look at Git diffs, but IntelliJ actually does a better job.
4. Code Editing Features
Here are a few features that IntelliJ offers that make writing code much easier:
refactoring tools rename variables change function arguments etc…
auto import of files and libraries
go-to-definition easily jump to the definition of a function, class, etc it even works for symbols in external libraries
find usages search the codebase for all the usages of a class, function, etc
more than simple linting code linting for all major languages smart analysis of function arguments, etc will tell you if a variable hasn’t been defined, or function args don’t match
This is a pretty messy list of things so it may not mean much to you, but I am continually impressed by small editing features like these. Something that impressed me most is that these features also work surprisingly well for less-strict languages like Python and Javascript.
5. Plugins
The plugin ecosystem of IntelliJ is awesome. As I mentioned before, the only reason I can use IntelliJ is because the Vim plugin is so good.
Besides IdeaVim, I have installed many other plugins for things like editing Markdown, formatting JSON, programming language support (coffeescript, JSX, etc), and many other things that I’m probably forgetting.
6. Honorable Mentions
Here are some other (more minor) things that are pretty cool.
you can build your own toolbars from the ground up
settings can be synced with your IntelliJ account
package management is built in (Python Pip, Node NPM, etc…)
built in terminal that lets you plug in whatever you want (Bash, ZSH, Fish, etc)
diagram generation for class hierarchies or database relations
Where IntelliJ Fails
It can’t all be good right? This post has listed a large number of things I like about IntelliJ, but what about the things I don’t like? Here’s a few examples.
1. Quick File Edits
IntelliJ is an IDE, which means it’s inherently centered around a project. The downside of this is that it’s not good for creating one-off files that aren’t tied to any specific project. An example of this is writing a one-off script, or editing system dotfiles like.zshrc or.bash_profile.
IntelliJ offers support for scratch files, which are one-off files, but the ease of use of these is nowhere near that of editing a file in Vim from the command line.
2. Resource Hog
This is an obvious one. IntelliJ is a large Java application that does a massive amount of computation and code analysis behind the scenes. I develop on a Dell XPS 15, which is a top-of-the-line laptop, but every once in a while things freeze up for a second or two. This only seems to be a problem on larger-than-average projects, but it’s something to keep in mind.
IntelliJ does offer the ability to tune the amount of background checking it does, but I can never bring myself to turn any of those features off. After all, that’s one of the largest benefits of using an IDE.
3. Buggy Plugins (nitpick)
This isn’t really IntelliJ’s fault, but a few of the plugins I’ve found have either crashed or have interrupted my editing experience in some way.
4. Cost
Elephant in the room! IntelliJ is not cheap. I don’t mind paying for the tools that I use every day, but cost seems to be the highest barrier for everyone that I talk to about IntelliJ.
Conclusion
So that’s it. I’ve been using IntelliJ for two months now and am pretty happy with it. I still use Vim for a few things, but since I can share the same.vimrc file between both it’s easy and familiar to switch back and forth any time.
I’m definitely going to keep using IntelliJ for the foreseeable future, but I’m sure something different will catch my interest eventually.On Thursday, Donald Trump named Andy Puzder, CEO of CKE Holdings, the parent company of Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s, as his pick for secretary of labor. Puzder is a controversial choice for a host of reasons, including his attitudes about—and alleged treatment of—women.
Consider the infamous Carl’s Jr. ads. You may remember them—the spots featured scantily-clad celebrities like Kate Upton and Paris Hilton eating the company’s burgers in graphic closeup. The ads, which have been repeatedly compared to porn, inspired boycotts and criticism.
Puzder’s response? “We believe in putting hot models in our commercials, because ugly ones don’t sell burgers,” said the CEO in a 2011 press release. “We target hungry guys, and we get young kids that want to be young hungry guys.” He continued defending the commercials as recently as last year, when he said: “I like our ads. I like beautiful women eating burgers in bikinis. I think it’s very American.”
Subscribe to The Broadsheet, Fortune’s daily newsletter on the world’s most powerful women.
And his issues with women may go well beyond objectification. In the wake of Puzder’s nomination, the Riverfront Times reported that the CEO’s first wife accused him of domestic abuse in the 80s, when the police were twice called to the couple’s house. Puzder’s first wife accused him of domestic abuse in the ’80s, when the police were twice called to the couple’s house. The CEO has repeatedly denied the allegations, which were recently walked back his ex-wife.
It’s difficult to avoid drawing a parallel between Puzder and Trump, who has also been accused of objectification and abuse of women. (Charges the president-elect has vehemently denied.) Even without those echoes, it raises another red flag about the way Trump thinks about women. Clearly, he doesn’t believe that any of Puzder’s statements or behavior disqualify the CEO from serving in a post that’s tasked with protecting the rights of workers—including working women.Welcome to your sudden but inevitable future of ubiquitous surveillance.
To an extent, I appreciate the arguments made by supporters of the GCSB Bill - it's not really a huge encroachment of mass surveillance powers, it is, mostly, just the formalisation of mass surveillance powers that have been encroaching for a decade. We are not fucked off because of the bill itself, really, but because we've finally been forced to pay attention to the barftastic overreach of state surveillance that's been happening around us.
At least, that's true for me. Thanks to the GCSB Bill, I finally got around to reading the Kim Dotcom affidavits. It's the best example we have of how "GCSB assistance" is actually rendered. The Police asked the GCSB for help in a one-page request (page 13 of this):
Once the GCSB's lawyer had a look at it, the Police provided a list of "selectors" to the GCSB (we now know from the PRISM documents that "selectors" is the term used to describe the search terms used to make PRISM requests):
The selectors were entered into █████, in an email classified as "SECRET//COMINT//REL TO NZL, AUS, CAN, GBR, USA". In other words, the selectors were entered into a secret communications intelligence system, and this secret system was considered related to Five Eyes:
The email from the GCSB then described "traffic volume from these selectors": i.e. This secret system was capturing live traffic.
This is consistent with everything that we know about PRISM. Key has refused to comment on this.
What does this mean? It means that GCSB assistance is NSA assistance. It means that government agencies can tap into these powers as part of bread-and-butter law enforcement. Through the Bradley Ambrose case, we've seen that the Police are willing to use the full extent of their powers for entirely bullshit cases. Combine the two, and it makes me very, very queasy.
I ended my post in May with "we need to start by getting really, really fucked off". What is step two? Fortunately, there is a 25-year-old answer to this question: Encrypt everything.
Over the next however long it's going to take me, I'm going to be doing short posts on how to secretfy your stuff. Today's post is on encrypting text using public-key encryption.
Public-key Encryption (the uber-short version)
This technique is based on a pair of matching keys - one public, one private. Anything encrypted with one can only be decrypted with the other. Why? MATHS, that's why. The public key is then made public (my key is here), and anyone can use that key to encrypt a messsage. Only you - with the private key that you keep secret - can decrypt that message.
It's actually not that hard. The simplest tool for dealing with PGP keys is gpg4usb. Go download it and have a play. Purely for testing purposes, here is the public AND private keys for "John PGPKey" (right click on the link --> "Save link as.." to save the file). Open up gpg4usb and use the menu bar: Keys --> Import Key from.. --> File.
Select the.asc file you just downloaded. You can now use John PGPKey's private and public keys.
(Just to reiterate, this is for testing purposes only - you should NEVER put your real private key on the internet.)
Here is a message that's been encrypted using John PGPKey's public key. Open it up and copy and paste the garbled text into gpg4usb (including the BEGIN PGP MESSAGE and END PGP MESSAGE lines). Click on the "Decrypt" button. It'll ask you for a passphrase, which is "spicy panopticon in a dunnenad sauce" (this is a more reliable guide to making secure passphrases than your IT department).
(And no, you should not be putting the passphrases for your real private key on the internet, either. NOTE: Apologies if this didn't work before, I posted the wrong version of the key I was faffing around with.)
Enter the passphrase and BAM - you've decrypted a message! (If you haven't, check that you've copied the whole message, and check that you typed in the password properly.)
Now, to encrypt a message, just type things into the text box, select the key you want to encrypt with, and click on the "Encrypt" button. Pretty goddamn easy.
To create your own key, open up Keys --> Manage Keys. From the Key Management window, open up Key --> Generate Key. Fill out the boxes and go. You can export the public key and put it somewhere public - but let's not actually do that yet, until we have a way of securing your private key.
In the next part, we'll talk about publishing keys, verifying keys, signing with keys.Editor's note: David Frum writes a weekly column for CNN.com. A special assistant to President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2002, he is the author of six books, including "Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again," and is the editor of FrumForum.
Washington (CNN) -- The lesson of the past few years: Watch out for things that can go massively wrong. What could go massively wrong in 2011?
Let's start next door, with Mexico.
From the Dallas Morning News, January 1:
"Mexico's drug violence in 2010 was striking not only for its scale but also for its brutality.
In the northern city of Santiago, the mayor's body was found with the eyes gouged out. In the picturesque town of Cuernavaca, four decapitated men were hanged from a bridge along a heavily traveled highway. And in Ciudad Juárez this week, two university students were hunted through a maze of streets and killed with bullets to the head, their bodies set on fire."
An estimated 13,000 people met a violent death in Mexico in 2010, compared with 9,600 in 2009. Altogether, perhaps 26,000 people have died violently since the acceleration of the drug war in 2006.
The violence rages with special intensity in the city of Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas. The Associated Press reported October 23:
"Gunmen stormed two neighboring homes and massacred 14 young people at a birthday party in the latest large-scale attack in this violent border city...
Attackers in two vehicles pulled up to the houses in a lower-middle-class Ciudad Juarez neighborhood late Friday and opened fire on about four dozen partygoers gathered for a 15-year-old boy's birthday party.
The dead identified so far were 13 to 32 years old, including six women and girls.... The majority of the victims were high school students, a survivor said."
Why attack a birthday party? Mexico's rival criminal gangs are fighting for control of the drug trade to the United States. Perhaps one of the partygoers was a member of a rival gang. Or a gang member's child. Or nephew. Or perhaps the attacking gang simply had the wrong address.
In Ciudad Juarez, more than 3,000 people were killed in 2010. It's really Mexico's own 9/11.
Mexican authorities have struggled to restore order. More than 100 police officers have died in Juarez, often horrifically. But so far, the security forces are not winning. Dangerously often, the police are themselves the problem. Bribed or intimidated, some outright work for the drug cartels.
The war in Mexico is not only Mexico's problem. The U.S. and Mexico are increasingly interpenetrated. About one out of every 8 Mexican-born people has moved to the United States |
by Hank Moody South of Heaven by Hank Moody
At Dusk We Die by Richard Castle
by Richard Castle Bullets and Bracelets by Richard Castle
by Richard Castle A Calm Before The Storm by Richard Castle
by Richard Castle Dead Man's Chest by Richard Castle
by Richard Castle Deadly Storm by Richard Castle
by Richard Castle Death of a Prom Queen by Richard Castle
by Richard Castle Driving Storm by Richard Castle
by Richard Castle Flowers For Your Grave by Richard Castle
by Richard Castle Gathering Storm by Richard Castle
by Richard Castle Hell Hath No Fury by Richard Castle
by Richard Castle In a Hail of Bullets by Richard Castle
by Richard Castle Kissed and Killed by Richard Castle
by Richard Castle One Bullet, One Heart by Richard Castle
by Richard Castle A Rose for Everafter by Richard Castle
by Richard Castle A Skull at Springtime by Richard Castle
by Richard Castle Storm Approaching by Richard Castle
by Richard Castle Storm Fall by Richard Castle
by Richard Castle Storm Rising by Richard Castle
by Richard Castle Storm Season by Richard Castle
by Richard Castle Storm Warning by Richard Castle
by Richard Castle Storm's Break by Richard Castle
by Richard Castle Storm's Last Stand by Richard Castle
by Richard Castle Unholy Storm by Richard Castle
by Richard Castle When It Comes to Slaughter by Richard Castle
The Berenstain Bears Forgive a Hit-and-Run Driver
The Complete Works of Tyler Perry
Eating your Honey
Mein Balloon Animal by A. Hitler
Angels & Demons and Whatever The Hell This is by Dan Brown
by Dan Brown Goodnight Forever Moon
The Pitcher in the Oat by J.D. Stephenger
by J.D. Stephenger Stephen Colbert's Alpha Squad 7: Lady Nocturne: A Tek Jansen Adventure [8]
Where the Wild Things Hide Their Assets by Maurice Sendak
by Maurice Sendak Where the Wild Things Were by Maurice Sendak
The Cyber Chef by Digit LeBoid
by Digit LeBoid Cookin' with the Didge by Digit LeBoid
The Flame Tree [9] by Sylvie Baptiste (later revealed to have been written by her sister, Lizzie)
by Sylvie Baptiste (later revealed to have been written by her sister, Lizzie) The Hand You're Dealt by Eugene Sutton
by Eugene Sutton Day of Reckoning by Frank O'Toole
by Frank O'Toole The Moscow Mule by Frank O'Toole (unfinished)
by Frank O'Toole (unfinished) With My Little Eye by Frank O'Toole
by Frank O'Toole Paradise Mislaid by Gillian P. White (unfinished)
Ta Da! Finding the Now by Mark-Paul Gosselaar (ghostwritten by Vivian Dante) from the episode "A Reunion..."
by Mark-Paul Gosselaar (ghostwritten by Vivian Dante) from the episode "A Reunion..." The Zen Hustler by K. Wingate, from the pilot episode
Astrophysics for Morons
Da Rules, Fairy Godparent rule book
, Fairy Godparent rule book The Rat in Spats, a parody of The Cat in the Hat
Caddyshack, the novelization
, the novelization Curious George Goes to his Gym Teacher's Apartment
Dogs Who Look Like Presidents.
Everybody Poops Blood
Faster Than the Speed of Love by Brian Griffin
by Brian Griffin For the Last Time, I'm Not Mr. T by Ving Rhames
by Ving Rhames Goodnight Moon of Chernobyl
Goodnight Town from Footloose
The Guide to the Occult by Beverly Cleary
by Beverly Cleary The Hopeful Squirrel by David Chicago
by David Chicago The Hopeful Squirrel 2 by David Chicago
by David Chicago Horton Hears Domestic Violence in the Next Apartment and Doesn't Call 911!
Horton Hears A Suicide, Japanese children’s book
, Japanese children’s book Lesbian Butts In 80's Jeans, coffee table book by Peter Griffin, Joe and Quagmire
, coffee table book by Peter Griffin, Joe and Quagmire The Little Engine That Will, Or Get Great Shame, Japanese children’s book
, Japanese children’s book Magic Tome
Much Ado About Humping, erotic novel
, erotic novel Nobody Poops But You, unsuccessful toilet training book, parody of Everyone Poops
, unsuccessful toilet training book, parody of Peter and His New Friends
Scratch-and-sniff Lindsay Lohan Goes Jogging
The Single Girls' Guide to Happy Hour
T and Me by George Peppard
by George Peppard Time Life: Killers of Quahog
Tommy Lee Goes Boating
Wish It Want It Do It by Brian Griffin
by Brian Griffin Wish It, Want It, You Blew It by Vinny
by Vinny You and the Guys Killed and Buried a Man by David Sedaris
by David Sedaris You Poop Now, Japanese children’s book
, Japanese children’s book You're a Naughty Child, and That's Concentrated Evil Coming Out the Back of You, Catholic toilet training book
, Catholic toilet training book Peter Griffin wrote a series of erotic novels dubbed "Peterotica": Angela's Asses Catcher in the Eye Harry Potter and the Half-Black Chick The Hot Chick Who Was Italian or Maybe Some Kind of Spanish Shaved New World What I Would Do Sexually to Hillary Clinton
The episode "The Castle" details excerpts from The History of True Crime in the Midwest on the Massacre at Sioux Falls. [10]
on the Massacre at Sioux Falls. Ennis Stussy wrote a series of novels under the name "Thaddeus Mobley": The Dungeon Lurk [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] Organ Fish of Kleus-9 [16] [12] [17] [18] [19] [20] The Plague Monkeys [16] [12] [17] [19] [21] The Planet Wyh [16] [11] [12] [14] [17] [19] [15] A Quantum Vark [12] Space Elephants Never Forget [16] [12] [22] [17] Toronto Cain: Psychic Ranger [16] [23] [12] [17] [19] [21] [24]
Gary Lineker's Book of Ghost Stories
The Gothic Sea by Joe Carroll
by Joe Carroll The Poetry of a Killer by Ryan Hardy
by Ryan Hardy The Havenport Tragedy by Carrie Cooke
Slow Tango in South Seattle by Thomas Jay Fallow [25]
by Thomas Jay Fallow Time Flies Tomorrow and the unpublished manuscript The Chameleon's Song by T.H. Houghton, an analogue for J.D. Salinger. [26]
and the unpublished manuscript by T.H. Houghton, an analogue for J.D. Salinger. Don't Change, You're Perfect, two additional self-help books, and an unpublished manuscript by Dr. Honey Snow [27]
1001 Yuk ‘Em Ups
Dungeons, Dungeons, & More Dungeons: Rules vol. 1
Journals 1, 2 and 3 by Stanford Pines
by Stanford Pines Mabel's Scrapbook
The Sibling Brothers in The Case of the Caper-Case Caper
The Sibling Brothers in The Telltale Fable of the Unstable Table
Trick or Treating Memories
Why Am I Sweaty?
Wolfman Bare Chest
Final Approach by Harvey Birdman
by Harvey Birdman Fright Attendant by Harvey Birdman
by Harvey Birdman A Mater of Wife and Death by Harvey Birdman
by Harvey Birdman Violent, Deadly People by Harvey Birdman
by Harvey Birdman Full, Upright And Dead by Harvey Birdman
by Harvey Birdman Hit Or Missile by Harvey Birdman
by Harvey Birdman Cross Death And All Fall by Harvey Birdman
by Harvey Birdman Terror On The Tarmac by Harvey Birdman
by Harvey Birdman Peanuts, Pretzels, Or Death by Harvey Birdman
by Harvey Birdman Scare Pocket by Harvey Birdman
by Harvey Birdman Approved For Bump Off by Harvey Birdman
by Harvey Birdman One Personal Item by Harvey Birdman
by Harvey Birdman Dial MTA For Murder by Harvey Birdman
by Harvey Birdman Overheadless Compartment by Harvey Birdman
by Harvey Birdman Cleared For Stabbing by Harvey Birdman
by Harvey Birdman Ice Or No Ice by Harvey Birdman
by Harvey Birdman Fright Train by Harvey Birdman
by Harvey Birdman Full Scream Ahead by Harvey Birdman
by Harvey Birdman Die Priority by Harvey Birdman
by Harvey Birdman Connecting Fright by Harvey Birdman
by Harvey Birdman Frequent Dier by Harvey Birdman
by Harvey Birdman The Slayover by Harvey Birdman
by Harvey Birdman The Terminal Station by Harvey Birdman
by Harvey Birdman Fright Plan by Harvey Birdman
by Harvey Birdman Greyhound Of The Baskervilles by Harvey Birdman
by Harvey Birdman Exit To The Fear by Harvey Birdman
by Harvey Birdman United States of Amnesia by Phil Ken Sebben
by Phil Ken Sebben Violent, Deadly Peep Hole by Harvey Birdman
Fabled Diseases of Old Long Since Debunked by Modern Science
Little House by the Dairy by Agatha Caulfield
by Agatha Caulfield The Weird-Headed Boy and the Mean Old Witch by Agatha Caulfield
Enigmas of the Mystical, from episode "Tailgate"; a parody of the Time-Life Books "Mysteries of the Unknown" series
, from episode "Tailgate"; a parody of the Time-Life Books "Mysteries of the Unknown" series Life Among the Gorillas by Dr. Birnholz-Vazquez
by Dr. Birnholz-Vazquez Of Course You're Still Single, Take a Look at Yourself, You Dumb Slut by Anita Appleby
Blood Curdling Indian Tales
The Mockingbird Murder Mystery
Bigfoot: True or Real?
The Jonas Book of World Records
Never Ever EVER Hit a TV Star by Johnny Bravo
by Johnny Bravo Ringo on Ringo by Squint Ringo
Boo! by Donald Dane
by Donald Dane Hey, There's a Spider on Your Back! by Donald Dane
by Donald Dane There's a Spider on Your Shoulder
A Dinner of Onions by Nora Harmony Wallace
by Nora Harmony Wallace The Dust Gatherers
How to Blow Stuff Up
The Loveliness of Woman
The Male Sex Organ
Organic Gardening for Morons
Buddhism for Dummies
Blood Magnolias (Lord Fantomas series, book 2) by Carlotta Francis, from episode "Collective"
(Lord Fantomas series, book 2) by Carlotta Francis, from episode "Collective" Darkness Takes A Daughter (Lord Fantomas series, book 1) by Carlotta Francis, from episode "Collective"
(Lord Fantomas series, book 1) by Carlotta Francis, from episode "Collective" Fearsome Gods by Malcolm Bryce (on living with a South American tribe), from episode "Graansha"
by Malcolm Bryce (on living with a South American tribe), from episode "Graansha" The Ripper's Mask (Lord Fantomas series, book 3) by Carlotta Francis, from episode "Collective"
How I Became a Millionaire in 12 Months by Oscar Zimmer, from episode "Ward's Millions"
by Oscar Zimmer, from episode "Ward's Millions" Red River Sam in Hawaii from episode "Ward's Millions"
Acting for Demis by Demi Lovato
by Demi Lovato The Go-Thin Diet by Gollum
by Gollum How to Math
Macho Manual
Rancor For Dummies
Telephone for Demis by Demi Lovato
by Demi Lovato Writing for Demis by Demi Lovato
After Elizabeth Was Brought Home by Ed and Lois Smart
by Ed and Lois Smart Break in the Ice
Elizabeth’s Favorite Taco Recipes by Ed and Lois Smart
by Ed and Lois Smart Gone With the Wind My Ass by Nautica Brown
by Nautica Brown Judging For Dummies
Miracle Cures by Robin Kirkley
by Robin Kirkley Sex Horse by Dan Oster
by Dan Oster Shakespeare for Complete Idiots
The Ultimate Guide to the Female Orgasm
Unbridled Passion by Dan Oster
by Dan Oster Wild Mustang by Dan Oster
Baseball for Blondes
Football for Blondes
Kids - You're Bigger Than They Are
Sports With Balls
Sports Without Balls
The Rooster Crowed at Midnight
The Boy's Book of Boys ("will not suit all tastes")
("will not suit all tastes") The Hackenthorpe Book of Lies by Ron Hackenthorpe, Derek Hackenthorpe, Jeff "The Nozz" Hackenthorpe and Luigi V. Hackenthorpe (in four handsomely bound volumes)
by Ron Hackenthorpe, Derek Hackenthorpe, Jeff "The Nozz" Hackenthorpe and Luigi V. Hackenthorpe (in four handsomely bound volumes) Hello, Pianist, a pamphlet about Peter Illych Tchaikovsky by the BBC
, a pamphlet about Peter Illych Tchaikovsky by the BBC Hello, Sailor by humanist lecturer Dr. Tom Jack
by humanist lecturer Dr. Tom Jack My God by theologian Monsignor Edward Gay
by theologian Monsignor Edward Gay The Oxfod [sic] Simplified Dictionary
[sic] The Problems of Kierkegaard, by Dr. Tom Jack
In "The Wrestling Epilogue" (from Episode 2: "Sex and Violence"):
Hello Sailor by Dr Tom Jack; later, Eric Idle published a real novel with this title
by Dr Tom Jack; later, Eric Idle published a real novel with this title My God by Monsignor Edward Gay (who is referred to as an "author of a number of books about belief")
In the "Bookshop Sketch" (from Monty Python's Contractual Obligation Album):
By J.B. Fletcher:
All the Murderers
Ashes, Ashes, Fall Down Dead
The Belgrade Murders
Calvin Canterbury's Revenge
A Case of a Half of Murder
The Corpse at Vespers
The Corpse Danced at Midnight
The Corpse Swam by Moonlight
The Corpse That Wasn't There
The Crypt of Death
The Dead Man Sang
The Dead Must Sing
Dirge for a Dead Dachshund
Endangered
A Faded Rose Beside Her
Good-bye, Charlie
The Killer Called Collect
A Killing at Hastings Rock
The Launch Pad Murders
Lover's Revenge
The Messengers of Midnight
Murder at the Asylum
Murder at the Digs
Murder at the Inn
Murder at the Ridge Top
Murder Comes to Maine
Murder in a Minor Key
Murder in White
Murder on the Amazon
The Mystery of the Mutilated Minion
The Poison in My Heart
Runway to Murder
Sanitarium of Death
The Stain on the Stairs
Stone Cold Dead
The Triple Crown Murders
The Umbrella Murders
The Uncaught
The Venomous Valentine
Yours Truly, Damian Sinclair
Z is for Zombie by Nick Miller [33] [34]
by Nick Miller The Pepperwood Chronicles by Nick Miller[35]
The Complete History of the Universe by Donald Boom
by Donald Boom Up the Amazon by Colonel Lloyd Menninger
By Dick Loudon:
101 Uses For Garden Hoses
Anything Can Be a Lamp Base
How to Make Your Dream Bathroom
Let's Build a Barbecue
Murder at the Stratley
Pillow Talk (with Joanna Loudon)
(with Joanna Loudon) Shelf Help
You Too Can Carve
Celebrity PI by S. E. Eckhart, from episode "Blackwater"
by S. E. Eckhart, from episode "Blackwater" Deep Six by Timothy McGee
The Time Hump Chronicles, erotic sci-fi by Suzanne Warren from Season 3[36]
The Baron's Betrayal
Theory of Advanced Physics
How to Make Your Own Pop-up Book: Step by Step Instructions Anyone Can Follow! by Chas Spielman, from episode "Smell of Success"
by Chas Spielman, from episode "Smell of Success" Li'l Gumshoe (unpublished), a pop-up book by Emerson Cod
(unpublished), a pop-up book by Emerson Cod The Magic Book of Magic by The Great Herrman
by The Great Herrman The New Patriots Pop-up Book: A Three-Dimensional Instructional Telling You Everything You Need to Know about Building Bombs of all Shapes and Sizes by Chas Spielman, from episode "Smell of Success"
by Chas Spielman, from episode "Smell of Success" The Pop-up Book of Sports Related Deaths by Chas Spielman, from episode "Smell of Success"
by Chas Spielman, from episode "Smell of Success" Pop-up Pin-up by Chas Spielman, from episode "Smell of Success"
by Chas Spielman, from episode "Smell of Success" The Smell of Success by Napoleon LeNez, from episode "Smell of Success"
Necrobics - Hologrammatic Exercises For The Dead
Pop-up Kama-Sutra: Zero-Gravity Edition
The History of Ashen Hill Manor by an unknown author
by an unknown author UNIT: Fighting for Humankind by Sarah Jane Smith
by Sarah Jane Smith Wraith World by Gregory P. Wilkinson
Daddy's Little Whore: A Damn Shame by Barbara Birmingham
by Barbara Birmingham Harry Potter and the Cursed Blankets
Harry Potter and the End of Trees by JK Rowling
by JK Rowling I Wanna Be A Ho by Velvet Jones
by Velvet Jones I Wanna Drive a Pink Cadillac, Wear Diamond Rings and Kick Women In The Butt by Velvet Jones
by Velvet Jones Keep it in the Family by The Invest Twins
by The Invest Twins Mein Boyfriend by Adolf Hitler
by Adolf Hitler Mrss Claus and the Christmas Fest
My Big Thick Novel by Jack Handey
by Jack Handey The Pictures A Little Fuzz' by Danny Bangs
The Realm by Jedediah Purdy
by Jedediah Purdy Rock Paper Scissoring Volume I by LeJean Noween
by LeJean Noween Rock Paper Scissoring Volume II by LeJean Noween
by LeJean Noween Rock Paper Scissoring Volume IV by LeJean Noween
by LeJean Noween "True Tales From The Sea
Women Good, Men Bad, a 1980s pop-psychology book
Astonishing Tales of the Sea
The Big Game by Donald O'Brien
by Donald O'Brien A Coffee Table Book About Coffee Tables by Cosmo Kramer
by Cosmo Kramer Fair Game by Alton Benes
by Alton Benes Let's Go the Budget Guide to Tunisia 1997
Venetian Blinds by Art Vandalay (a fictional book even in-universe, merely made up by George)
2 World Cups in a Row, Can We Make It...3? (Bobby Robson)
(Bobby Robson) How I Became Prime Minister (Michael Heseltine)
(Michael Heseltine) How I Won the World Cup (Bobby Robson)
(Bobby Robson) Peter Goes Destabilizing the Wilson Government (Peter Wright)
(Peter Wright) A Pile of Crap (Jeffrey Archer)
(Jeffrey Archer) Worst Among Sequels (Jeffrey Archer)
How to Become a Fancy Waiter in Less than 20 Minutes, from SpongeBob SquarePants
, from How to Torture, seen in "Krab Borg"
Star Trek universe universe [ edit ]
Girls Like it on Top by Sofia Reyes
by Sofia Reyes Tap That by Phil Roth
X-Files and Millennium Theand [ edit ]
The Caligarian Candidate by Jose Chung
by Jose Chung Dance on the Blood-Dimmed Tide by Onan Goopta
by Onan Goopta The Hacked-Up Hack by Onan Goopta
by Onan Goopta Doomsday Defense by Jose Chung
by Jose Chung From Outer Space by Jose Chung
by Jose Chung A Lapful of Severed Tongues by Jose Chung
by Jose Chung The Lonely Buddha by Jose Chung
by Jose Chung To Serve Man by Jose Chung
Miscellaneous from television [ edit ]
Fictional books from films [ edit ]
Mind Over Matrimony by Mortimer Brewster
by Mortimer Brewster Marriage: A Fraud and a Failure by Mortimer Brewster
The First Time by Catherine Tramell
by Catherine Tramell Love Hurts by Catherine Tramell
The Organic Squirrel Gets a Bike Helmet
Rainbow Alligator Saves the Wetlands
The Secret Door by Cameron Cryer
by Cameron Cryer The Silent Fart by an unknown author
by an unknown author The Sudden Spear by an unknown author
The Grey and the Blue by Sherman Hoyle
by Sherman Hoyle Indians in Exile by David Broadfoot
by David Broadfoot My Union Soldier by unknown author
by unknown author A Northern Wind by unknown author
by unknown author Of Belles in Blue by unknown author
by unknown author The Yankee by Thomas Dixon, Jr.
The Doubtful Debutante, a novel by John Keating [38]
, a novel by John Keating Understanding Poetry by Dr. J. Evans Pritchard[39]
Avalon Landing by William Forrester
by William Forrester Sunset by William Forrester
I Came, I Sawed, I Conquered, the autobiography of an unnamed magician
, the autobiography of an unnamed magician My Life, the autobiography of Adam Lang
Great Marriage, Open Marriage by David LaBella
by David LaBella How to Make it to the Top by Starting at the Bottom by David LaBella
by David LaBella You Can Have The Marriage You Want by Dr. Bernard Feld
Matt Lauer Can Suck It by Dr. Rick Marshall
by Dr. Rick Marshall My Other Car is a Time Machine by Dr. Rick Marshall
Misery's Quest by Paul Sheldon
by Paul Sheldon Misery's Search by Paul Sheldon
by Paul Sheldon Misery's Challenge by Paul Sheldon
by Paul Sheldon Misery's Trial by Paul Sheldon
by Paul Sheldon Misery's Triumph by Paul Sheldon
by Paul Sheldon Misery's Dilemma by Paul Sheldon
by Paul Sheldon Misery's Love by Paul Sheldon
by Paul Sheldon Misery's Child by Paul Sheldon
by Paul Sheldon Misery's Return by Paul Sheldon
by Paul Sheldon Untitled by Paul Sheldon
by Paul Sheldon The Higher Education of J. Philip Stone by Paul Sheldon
Book of Armaments (fictional book in the Bible)
Disappearance of the 6th Grade by Burris Burris
by Burris Burris The Francine Odysseys by Gertrude Price
by Gertrude Price The Girl from Jupiter by Isaac Clarke
by Isaac Clarke The Light of Seven Matchsticks by Virginia Tipton
by Virginia Tipton The Return of Auntie Lorraine by Miriam Weaver
by Miriam Weaver Shelly and the Secret Universe[40] by Nan Chapin
By Adam Shadowchild:[41][42]
Broadside at Cassiopeia
Jenny Starpepper series: Jenny Starpepper and the Great Brass Hen Jenny Starpepper and the Huge White Gibbon Jenny Starpepper and the Spitting Worm
series: Jupiter Praxis
The Moon Whisperer
Night of the Moths
Planet Fall trilogy: Planet Fall: Book 1 Planet Fall: Book 2 Planet Fall: Book 3: Fluxing Uranus
trilogy: Prisonhulk 441
The Robot's Mistress
Sky Farm series: Sky Farm 1 Sky Farm 2: Dark Harvest Sky Farm 3: Strong Cheese
series: The Venusian Pangenesis
By Clive Gollings, illustrated by Graeme Willy:
Jelva, Alien Queen of the Varvak
Paul: Sometimes it's Nice to feel a Little Alien
Accounting for Everything: A Guide to Personal Finance by Henry Sherman (nonfiction)
by Henry Sherman (nonfiction) Dudley's World by Raleigh St. Clair (nonfiction)
by Raleigh St. Clair (nonfiction) Erotic Transference by Margot Tenenbaum (play)
by Margot Tenenbaum (play) Family of Geniuses by Etheline Tenenbaum
by Etheline Tenenbaum Nakedness Tonight by Margot Tenenbaum (play)
by Margot Tenenbaum (play) Old Custer by Eli Cash (novel)
by Eli Cash (novel) The Peculiar Neurodegenerative Inhabitants of the Kazawa Atoll by Raleigh St. Clair (nonfiction)
by Raleigh St. Clair (nonfiction) Static Electricity by Margot Tenenbaum (play)
by Margot Tenenbaum (play) Three Plays by Margot Tenenbaum
by Margot Tenenbaum Wildcat by Eli Cash (novel)
Getting Better: The Sacred Energy in All Life Forms by Dr. Madeline Gravis
by Dr. Madeline Gravis Getting Blissed Out: Happiness Through Medication by Dr. Madeline Gravis
by Dr. Madeline Gravis I Don't Feel Well Today by Dr. Madeline Gravis
by Dr. Madeline Gravis If I Were You by Dr. Madeline Gravis
by Dr. Madeline Gravis It's Raining Too Loud: Surviving an Emotional Downpour by Dr. Madeline Gravis
by Dr. Madeline Gravis Little Winky by Horace Azpiazu
Belson Rising by Wayne Davidson
by Wayne Davidson Belson's Lament by Wayne Davidson
by Wayne Davidson I Believe I Can Fly by Linda Gergenblatt of Wanderlust Press (original title The Penguin with Testicular Cancer )
by Linda Gergenblatt of Wanderlust Press (original title ) Money Buys Nothing by Carvin Waggie (sold for only $13.99)
by Carvin Waggie (sold for only $13.99) One Flick of the Finger by Shari Selman and Pierre Cheneviere
by Shari Selman and Pierre Cheneviere Rick is a Horrible Jerk by Marisa Gergenblatt
Miscellaneous from film [ edit ]
Fictional books from video games [ edit ]
Creative Shelving for Beginners
The Crooked Crusader Caper by Molly Peagram (also known as Nigel Peagram), a medieval detective story
by Molly Peagram (also known as Nigel Peagram), a medieval detective story The Crusader Families of Ireland by Molly Peagram (under the name Professor Peagram)
by Molly Peagram (under the name Professor Peagram) Hypnosis for Fun and Profit
Address to the Faculty by Academician Prokhor Zakharov
by Academician Prokhor Zakharov But For The Grace Of God by Sister Miriam Godwinson
by Sister Miriam Godwinson The Centauri Monopoly by CEO Nibuwake Morgan
by CEO Nibuwake Morgan Conversations with Planet by Lady Deirdre
by Lady Deirdre The Feedback Principle by Academician Prokhor Zakharov
by Academician Prokhor Zakharov For I Have Tasted The Fruit by Academician Prokhor Zakharov
by Academician Prokhor Zakharov Looking God In The Eye by Chairman Sheng-ji Yang
by Chairman Sheng-ji Yang Nonlinear Genetics by Academician Prokhor Zakharov
by Academician Prokhor Zakharov Now We Are Alone by Academician Prokhor Zakharov
by Academician Prokhor Zakharov Planet: A Survivalist Guide by Colonel Corazón Santiago
by Colonel Corazón Santiago See How They Run by Academician Prokhor Zakharov
by Academician Prokhor Zakharov We Must Dissent by Sister Miriam Godwinson
Miscellaneous from games [ edit ]
Fictional books from music [ edit ]
Fictional books from radio programmes [ edit ]
53 More Things to Do in Zero-Gravity, a bestselling book that was ousted from the bestselling lists by the HHG2G
, a bestselling book that was ousted from the bestselling lists by the The Celestial Home Care Omnibus, a popular book, but less popular than the HHG2G
, a popular book, but less popular than the Encyclopaedia Galactica, an encyclopaedia that has been supplanted by The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in some parts of the galaxy,as the HHG2G is slightly cheaper than the Encyclopaedia Galactica and has the words "Don't Panic" on its cover. The Encyclopedia Galactica was borrowed from Isaac Asimov's Foundation series.
, an encyclopaedia that has been supplanted by in some parts of the galaxy,as the is slightly cheaper than the and has the words "Don't Panic" on its cover. The was borrowed from Isaac Asimov's series. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, an electronic book developed by MegaDodo Publications as a travel-book for hitchhiker's travelling about the Milky Way
, an electronic book developed by MegaDodo Publications as a travel-book for hitchhiker's travelling about the Milky Way Where God Went Wrong, Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes, Who Is This God Person, Anyway? and Well, That About Wraps It Up for God, controversial philosophical works by Oolon Colluphid that are proven to be less controversial than the HHG2G, despite their overtly atheistic attitudes about God
Miscellaneous from radio programmes [ edit ]
I Knew Terence Neuk by Eileen Beardsmore-Lewisham, referenced in one episode of The Goon Show
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
This literature-related list is incomplete; you can help by.More than 500 claimants – surviving victims and families of the deceased – given permission to seek compensation
More than 500 victims of the NHS contaminated blood scandal have been given permission to sue the government for compensation.
The claimants, a mix of haemophiliac survivors and relatives of those killed by infected blood products over the past 30 years, were granted a group litigation order to begin proceedings in the high court at a preliminary hearing in London yesterday. The judge dismissed attempts by Department of Health lawyers to delay the claim.
More than 2,400 people are estimated to have died after receiving blood plasma products manufactured in the United States during the 1970s and 1980s. The products were infected with Hepatitis C and HIV.
For decades many of the families did not openly talk about the deaths because they felt there was limited public sympathy for Aids victims. Some disguised the reasons for fatalities.
The claims have been brought partly out of frustration at government delays in establishing a public inquiry into the contaminated blood scandal. On 11 July, the prime minister, Theresa May, announced there would be an investigation but since then no chair has been appointed and its terms of reference have not been agreed.
What is the contaminated blood scandal? Read more
Lawyers for the families have argued that limited legal settlements reached in the 1990s are invalid because key facts were withheld at the time from surviving patients and bereaved relatives about the blood products.
“Freedom of information requests have unearthed minutes of meetings and recommendations to the government which strongly suggest that the risks and dangers were known from at last 1983,” Steven Snowden QC told the hearing. Yet that information was not passed on to patients until 1986/7, he said.
The number of survivors and relatives planning to join the group litigation claim has now risen to at least 500 people, the court heard.
Hannah Slarks, for the government, said that some claimants would “face substantial obstacles in attempting to resurrect claims” previously settled in the 1990s. She asked for a postponement until legal issues became clearer.
But the judge hearing the application, Senior Master Fontaine, ruled: “It would not be sensible to delay further. The question of a public inquiry is a matter within the government’s hands.”
Jason Evans, 28, from Coventry, the lead claimant in the case, said he was “elated by the decision”. His father, Jonathan, died at the age of 31, from hepatitis C and HIV. “My father was infected in November 1984 but they didn’t tell him until 1985,” Evans said. “He died in 1993. He was a haemophiliac.
Contaminated blood survivor: 'I think they just expected us to die' Read more
“He was given factor 8 intravenously. It was derived from blood plasma given by people who were paid to donate, including drug addicts and prisoners in the USA. It was all mixed together. So you only had to have one person who was infected to contaminate the batch.
“I was born in 1989. My mum and dad know they were taking a huge risk. Neither I nor my mother were infected. I remember my dad’s funeral. I knew that he had died from Aids. I was taunted at school but I really didn’t understand it at the time.
“The public inquiry needs a chair as soon as possible. At the moment nothing is happening. The Department of Health is in charge of it so there is a conflict of interest [in their involvement in this case].
“This country had failed to become self-sufficient in factor 8 so we had to import it from the States. David Owen, who was then health minister, told parliament that it was policy for us to become self-sufficient in 1975 but it was never seen through.” There are estimated to be around 2,000 infected haemophiliacs still alive.
Chris Smith, 39, from Bedford, another claimant, lost his father when he was eight years old. “It was pretty devastating,” he said. “I had never realised there was anything wrong with him. Because of the stigma [associated with] Aids, we used to tell people he died of cancer or in a car crash.
“It has taken more than a year and a half to get the medical records. They kept on telling me they didn’t have anything but then a month ago they gave me 120 pages. One of the notes was from a doctor. It said: ‘I have not yet told Mr Smith the results, however, I see him frequently and when he comes into the lab to collect his supplies, I will try and catch him...’”
The Department of Health has extended consultations on the inquiry until 18 October.[hulu id=ohwzawxkhaii83qo2clgba width=600]
Today is the premiere date for Behind the Mask, a 10-episode documentary/comedy series that follows the life of four mascots at different levels of sports: Lebanon (Pennsylvania) High School's Rooty the Cedar Tree, UNLV's Hey Reb, Wilkes-Barre Scranton's Tux the Penguin, and the Milwaukee Bucks' target="_blank">dunking deer, Bango.
As all four allude to in the trailer, there's a fascinating dichotomy in their lives inside and outside the costumes. Rooty is adored by cheerleaders when he's in the outfit, but ignored by them out of it. The student behind Hey Reb is on the Bluto/Van Wilder academic track, currently in his sixth year. Tux has half the income and twice the happiness he once had, as he pursues his dreams of working in the NHL. And Bango must juggle five kids along with injuries sustained from being a self-described "adrenaline junkie".Hurricane Irma, currently barrelling through the Caribbean toward Florida as a strong Category 5 storm, is showing up on instruments used to measure earthquakes.
"What we're seeing in the seismogram are low-pitched hums that gradually become stronger as the hurricane gets closer to the seismometer on the island of Guadeloupe," the U.K.'s University of Southampton seismologist Stephen Hicks told USA Today.
The hurricane is not causing earthquakes, Hicks said, but the high winds it produces, as well as the swaying of trees, transfer energy into the ground. Waves crashing against the shore also are a contributor.
Since the seismometer is near the ocean, that energy is picked up, Hicks said.
"Earthquakes occur 10s of (miles) deep inside Earth's crust, a long way from the influence of weather events, and there is no evidence to suggest that hurricanes and storms directly cause earthquakes," he added.
Strong storms often show up on seismic instruments.
"We saw this for Hurricane Harvey on seismometers located close to Houston," Hicks said.
As Irma gets closer to the sensors, "we will see a dramatic increase in the amplitude of the seismic recordings," he said.GULF OF MEXICO – It’s called a rainbow sheen.
It has nothing to do with Rainbow Brite, of course, and should never be confused with either Martin Sheen or Charlie Sheen.
This rainbow sheen is the result of a natural gas leak in the Gulf of Mexico, about 74 miles southwest of Port Fourchon at a well site owned by Talos Energy of Houston.
Talos was in the process of plugging and permanently abandoning the well when the accident occurred about 130 feet below the surface.
Talos says all five workers got off the platform safely.
The U.S. Coast Guard flew over the site and a rainbow sheen four miles wide and three-quarters of a mile long on the surface of the water.
In a statement on its web site, Talos says about 250 gallons of light crude oil leaked out, and that they expect it to evaporate quickly.
Even so, environmentalists say any oil spill can damage fish that swim into it.Senators Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders will hope that their underdog campaigns get a boost from Wisconsin voters in the state's primary Tuesday.
Most polls show Cruz leading Republican front-runner Donald Trump in the Badger State. The Democratic race appears to be much closer, but recent polls have shown Sanders, the self-described democratic socialist, holding a slight lead over Hillary Clinton.
While Sanders remains a force in the Democratic primary, a win in Wisconsin would do little to significantly cut into Clinton's lead in delegates that will decide the party's nomination. The stakes are higher for Cruz, who trails Donald Trump in the GOP delegate race and sees Wisconsin as a crucial state in his effort to push the party toward a convention fight.
"We are seeing victory after victory after victory in the grassroots," Cruz said during a campaign stop Monday. "What we are seeing in Wisconsin is the unity of the Republican Party manifesting."
Losses for Trump and Clinton in Wisconsin could be problematic with the next big contest on the primary calendar, in delegate-rich New York, not until April 19. |
floor vote on the legislation received the highest weight of the year in our annual Rating of Congress. The bottom line, from our perspective, is that President Obama and Congressional Democrats are using rhetoric traditionally associated with the right to promote a bill that is anathema to conservative principles."Donald Trump has an "entirely plausible" path to winning the 270 electoral votes needed for a White House victory, according to Washington Post blogger Chris Cillizza.
Citing a New York Times analysis asserting that a narrow path to victory for Trump would depend on his sweeping three big swing states — Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, Cillizza declares that scenario "is not pie in the sky."
Cillizza notes Democrats have won 18 states, plus the District of Columbia — accounting for 242 electoral votes — in every presidential election since 1992.
The GOP nominee has won 13 states in every one of those six elections, for a total of 102 electoral votes.
But "that so-called 'Blue Wall' has almost nothing to do with Trump," he writes.
"For all of the worry about the Blue Wall and Trump's historically poor numbers among Hispanics, the path laid out by the Times for Trump to get to 270 electoral votes is entirely plausible."
An electoral map with Trump winning Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania — and assuming nothing else changes from the 2012 election — gives Trump 273 electoral votes, to Clinton's 265, he notes.
"Polling — at least as of today — suggests that Trump is very much in the game against Clinton in all three" of the blue-collar swing states, he adds.
"The map … is not pie-in-the-sky for Trump and Republicans," he writes. "A credible path to 270 electoral votes still exists for Trump."Former scout Robert Walker shares his experience I worked for Tottenham, West Ham and Portsmouth. The life of a scout involves long hours, unpredictable weather, being prepared to travel anywhere at a moment’s notice, and watching three or four games in one day. When I first started it was a case of picking up the phone, calling the club and telling them you had spotted someone that you felt had a chance. You then went to see the parents, offered a trial and made travel arrangements. But in the 1990s it all started to change and now you have to send lots of reports on players on every single aspect of their game including height, weight, pace, intelligence and mental strength.
Different scouts look for different things in a player. I like more technically gifted footballers with bright minds who are willing to listen and take ideas on board. It is surprising the number of brilliantly gifted players who can’t. Talent is an absolute must, but reaching the top requires tremendous work ethic, mental toughness to overcome adversity and the desire to prove to the manager why you should get back into the team when you've been dropped.
What makes the job worthwhile? Firstly, you can go to games for months and see talented young players but they aren’t just good enough, and then all of a sudden this little gem pops up, your heart starts racing a little more, and then the chase is on. Secondly, when the club signs one of your players and he eventually makes the first team, what a feeling that gives you. Finally, when a player you spotted makes his international debut, that is probably the best feeling of all.Alan Partridge the movie, now entitled ‘Alpha Papa’, has a teaser trailer. And it is a teaser so don’t expect to see much costume, yet what we do see is magnificent. Casual red shirt, biscuit varsity jacket, brown leather belt and pale blue denim jeans; the jeans of which perhaps we see too much.
It cannot be overstated how vital costume design is to the character of Alan Partridge. We know Alan so well by what he wears, we recognise him in society. He is that guy in a salmon pink Gabacci polo shirt and maroon Greenwoods cords. It is a very specific style that may look thrown together but takes an age to compile. His v-neck sweaters, zipper jackets, rollnecks, cardigans, snug jeans, pastel shirts; patterns that clash and colours that bleed. However most important is his blazer, usually in jade green, mustard or plum, and emblazoned with breast pocket crest. No blazer, no Partridge.
Alan Partridge is inadvertently trapped in another era, adopting early what Alan Titchmarsh would probably have worn on BBC’s Pebble Mill during his heyday, i.e. early 1990s. We call it hideous, Partridge calls it smart casual, or ‘sports casual’ if he’s modelling for a fashion shoot. The regional aspect is important as this is not London style, Alan would detest that as obnoxious, but instead his beloved Norwich style. He would shop locally too, somewhere with cravats in the window, somewhere he would still refer to as a ‘gentleman’s outfitter’.
Steve Coogan has worked with several costume designers over the years but likely Alan’s sartorial blueprint was created by Coogan himself, co-creator Armando Iannucci and costume designer Marcia Stanton, as she is credited with Alan’s first solo appearances as a sports pundit on The Day Today (1994) and then as full-blown chat show host on Knowing Me Knowing You (’94). Stanton has collaborated with Coogan many times since the early nineties – including all the Coogan’s Run characters – though not since Saxondale in 2007. Alpha Papa’s costume designer is Julien Day whose credits were previously television heavy though now comprise the Mod Brighton Rock remake, Berberian Sound Studio and Ron Howard’s upcoming seventies set racing drama Rush starring Chris Hemsworth.
Ever the most ironic thing about Alan Partridge is that he enjoys clothes. He really likes fashion; he does not understand it, but he would love someone to glance his way and perhaps say to themselves, “That man has classic style, elegant and refined, like an ad for Cinzano or Aramis”. Thankfully Alpha Papa already looks like a GQ editorial waiting to happen. We really don’t see enough biscuit these days either.
Alpha Papa, aka Partridge the movie, is released on 16th August.
© 2013 – 2014, Lord Christopher Laverty.Man did I luck out! My snacks Santa went all out for me. I can't wait to dig into this pile of goodness! I am taking them all to work so I don't have to share, hehehehe. My daughter has already been asking me if she can "try" them... but we all know what that means. Try becomes devour and these delicacies - all the way from the UK - are meant to be savored. Oh who am I kidding. I'll be the one to devour them :)
Update:
Okay, okay, I shared with my daughter :)
Coincidentally, we agreed completely on the order of our favorites.
Least Favorite, but still enjoyed were the Jaffa Cakes. Next were the Wagon Wheels. We both really liked the Party Rings. It was a close call, but the runner up was Maryland Gooeys. Leaving our favorite as the JAMMIE Dodgers!
Thanks SO MUCH Santa (moocow232)!“The reaction on this side of the Hudson was slow, and New Yorkers have paid the price,” said Anthony Michael Sabino, a lawyer who specializes in the oil and gas industry and lives in Nassau County. “The crisis became much worse because when people were left to their own devices, a panic set in.”
Compounding the problem was the lack of a centralized way for officials to coordinate with counterparts in the region’s complicated fuel-distribution network — as the city works with utilities like Consolidated Edison.
New York City’s rationing effort coincided with one that began on Friday in Nassau and Suffolk and followed odd-even rules imposed for 12 counties in New Jersey. On Friday (Nov. 9), cars with either odd numbers or letters at the end of their plates were able to get gas. On even days, cars with even numbers or 0 at the end of their plates will be able to get gas.
Throughout the area, long lines continued. There were no reports of arrests, though at some stations, drivers with the wrong numbers at the end of their plates were seen getting gas.
At a Hess station in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, the wait for gas on Friday was about 20 minutes — far shorter than it had been in recent days, said Tony Dazzo, 35, an engineer who lives in Queens.
“They should have done it sooner,” he said. “It gets half the people off the line and moves it a lot more quickly.”
Even with a gas-rationing program in place, Mr. Bloomberg said the shortage might persist for days to come; and oil industry experts were even gloomier, cautioning that a lack of fuel could hamper travel during the busy Thanksgiving holiday.
Advertisement Continue reading the main story
Mr. Cuomo’s aides declined to discuss any internal deliberations about the rationing, but noted that he had repeatedly singled out the gas shortage as a major problem.
Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content, updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters.
“If you want to paralyze a region as we’ve seen, just stop the fuel delivery for two days,” he said at a news briefing on Friday.
The storm cut off power to thousands of gas stations across the state, but perhaps more critically, it caused widespread damage to refineries and a network of ports and terminals that deliver gas to the pumps. But as Mr. Cuomo and industry executives have repeatedly warned, panic buying and hoarding among drivers have only slowed recovery efforts by placing more stress on the entire system.
In New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie imposed a gas-rationing system last Saturday.
“The major problem is the terminals, but the mayor should have followed Governor Christie faster to curb some of the hoarding,” said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service. “When you have 200 people on line for gasoline, it doesn’t take long for a station to run out.” Placing extra strain on supplies has been the demand from emergency responders and people using generators.
The center of the problem was Linden, N.J., oil industry executives said, the heart of the metropolitan supply chain and a place where New York officials have no jurisdiction. It is where the Colonial pipeline ends, bringing petroleum products up from the Gulf of Mexico, and where the Buckeye pipeline begins taking petroleum products to Long Island and other areas.
Six- to eight-foot waves surged through the area, crashing into a Phillips 66 refinery and into a cluster of terminals on or close to the Arthur Kill waterway that receives refined products from the Colonial pipeline and local refineries for shipment throughout the region.
In addition, while the main pipelines have recovered power, 20 or so terminals in and around Linden will take more time to build to normal operations. Eight to 14 are in various stages of repair and limited operations, while 6 are still out of commission. Docks were flooded and damaged, along with equipment that lifts refined product to the barges from pipelines and tanks. The surge blew out control-room windows and lifted and damaged marine docks and lifting equipment essential for putting the products on the barges.
“Hurricane Sandy gave us a major shot to our distribution network,” said James Benton, the director of the New Jersey Petroleum Council, a trade organization. He said the northeaster was a blow, as well, since “it delayed damage assessments for the larger facilities and recoveries for some of the smaller facilities.”
The extent of the damage to the gas-distribution network was not fully understood by state and city officials, said Ralph Bombardiere, executive director of the New York State Association of Service Stations and Repair Shops.
Advertisement Continue reading the main story
A New York State energy office created amid gas shortages in the 1970s was dissolved in the 1990s. And, Mr. Bombardiere said, there was little if any coordination or monitoring of the entire distribution network before the hurricane. “There’s more damage than anybody knew,” he said. “There was no plan or diagram of how this industry worked or who you can call to find out what’s happening. ”
Connecticut, which did not experience a gas shortage, established a task force before the hurricane arrived that took steps to prevent a gas shortage.
In New York, some critics have also charged that state and city officials simply took too long to act when the gas crisis started escalating. “I think that the city, state and federal government need to do a better job of coordinating their responses to this gas crisis,” said Councilman David G. Greenfield of Brooklyn. “Quite frankly, it’s shocking.”
Howard Wolfson, a deputy city mayor, said that discussions about gas rationing began shortly after the storm ended but took on urgency only after it became clear that it would continue longer than anyone in the industry or region had said. “Within the last 48 hours,” Mr. Wolfson said, “it was clear that the problem wasn’t getting any better.”When Zach Braff created a Kickstarter project two weeks ago to finance his new film, Wish I Was Here, the introductory remarks included in his pitch contained a flagrant contradiction of terms. In the first paragraph, Braff claimed he was a fan of Kickstarter, but he “didn’t imagine it could work on larger-scale projects.” Yet, in the following paragraph, after discussing how he was inspired by the similarly “larger-scale” Kickstarter project for Rob Thomas’ Veronica Mars film, he “couldn’t help but think… maybe there is a new way to finance smaller, personal films that didn’t involve signing away all your artistic control.”
So what is it, Braff? Is Wish I Was Here a “larger-scale” project, or is it a “smaller, personal” film? Presumably, the answer is that Braff can’t imagine making a film for less than $2 million, the goal of the project, and so the project is “large” in the sense that no one outside of the current independent film industry could dream of finding that kind of money, and “small” in the sense that it will cost less to make than, say, Oz: Great and Powerful. I use Oz not as an arbitrary example, but because Braff co-starred in it, if not for $2 million, then at least for enough to finance several Kickstarter campaigns in their entirety.
Braff is abusing the admirable crowd-sourcing community created by Kickstarter. His project raised $1 million in less than one day and currently sits at a little over $2.3 million, enough to ensure that his film will get made. Although Braff’s stated goal on the project was to avoid having financiers meddle with his vision of the film, it’s really more a way for Braff to avoid taking any personal financial risk on the project. Braff reportedly earned $350,000 per episode for his role on TV’s Scrubs during its later seasons, which means that he could have financed Wish I Was Here on less than half a season’s worth of earnings. Even if he doesn’t have $2 million to spare right now, he could almost certainly get a loan for that amount, especially if the film is fully insured.
Yet fans are more than willing to separate with their money on a Braff project because he is a brand. His last film, the Wes Anderson-aping Garden State, has aged rather poorly in the past nine years, but still has a solid fan base amongst those people of the world who like their men angsty, their humour quirky, and their soundtracks to be carefully curated collections of only the most innocuous indie rock.
Braff’s venture, however, isn’t even the worst abuse of Kickstarter. If you donated to Wish I Was Here, you put your cash in the trust of one man, who, if he is to be believed, attempted to find money through more traditional channels. If, in contrast, you are one of 91,585 “backers” that donated over $5 million to the Veronica Mars feature film, then you have effectively given your money not to director Rob Thomas, but to Warner Bros, who produced the television show and holds the rights to the project.
Whether reacting to the news positively or negatively, many people have pinpointed the Veronica Mars film as a watershed moment in alternative methods of film financing, and with Braff jumping on the metaphorically crowd-sourced wagon, they have their confirmation. Together, these two projects have set a terrible precedent. Filmmaking is an art, but it’s also a business. It’s a profit-seeking venture done by people and businesses with enough money to risk millions of dollars on a product that people may or may not want to see. That risk is the essence of capitalism. You’re supposed to spend money to make money. You have to make a sacrifice to reap the rewards.
Those who have donated to Veronica Mars have given over $5 million to Time Warner (Warner Bros’ parent company), a multinational corporation, for an unknown commodity. Those who have donated money to Zach Braff have given millions to a millionaire for another unknown commodity. Collectively, fans have said that it’s OK for rich people to eliminate the factor of risk when they make films. The past five years, with its bitter recessions and global financial crises, has effectively removed the make-up from late capitalism’s ugly, bitter face, but these two Kickstarters are a sign that capitalism is eating itself, bit by bit, starting with the entertainment industry.
The incentives offered to “backers” of these two films are laughable. A range of collectible production items, promotional material, and access to advance screenings. For $600, approximately $587 more than the price of a movie ticket, you can get a personalized video greeting directly from Kirsten Bell (Veronica Mars herself!). For $10 000, one lucky “backer” gets to have a line in Braff’s movie. Usually, that sort of thing is called acting, and on a “larger-scale” project, the actor receives money instead of giving it out. So not only is that “backer” giving $10,000 to a rich person, (s)he’s also taking money away from some needy Los Angelino Starbucks barista that could use the gig.
The incentives, like the overwhelming success of these Kickstarter accounts, is a sign of commodity fetishism run amok. The idea that just being in a Zach Braff movie, any Zach Braff movie, is worth $10,000, is an insult to the collaborative nature of filmmaking; it’s insulting to the people that use services like Kickstarter and IndieGogo because they actually need the money; and it’s insulting to fans who are told that they need to sacrifice, with no potential for a financial return, if they want to see their favourite TV show return to life for a couple more hours.
Kickstarter itself stands to gain quite a bit from this turn of events. Prior to Veronica Mars, the biggest film project on the crowd-sourcing service was the $400 000 gained for the Charlie Kaufman-scripted Anomalisa. But if the website wants to maintain its status as a place for cash-strapped filmmakers, video game creators, and musicians to find funding for their projects, it should find a method to prevent wealthy members from abusing the system. It’s unfair to ask these artists to compete with the likes of Warner Bros.
I don’t know if Kickstarter can find an effective way to prevent one-man (or one-woman) operations like Zach Braff from using their services, but it would be fairly easy to bar corporations like Warner Bros from getting a piece of the pie. Of course, this probably won’t happen. A precedent has been set and it’s not likely to reverse itself. I guess this is the nature of capitalism in 2013, the 1% no longer has to offer a product to the public before taking its money.
____
Alan Jones is a Toronto-based writer whose work has appeared in VICE, Exclaim!, and Toronto Standard. You can follow him on Twitter at @alanjonesxxxv.
For more, follow us on Twitter at @torontostandard and subscribe to our Newsletter.Disclaimer: I do not own the world of Harry Potter. This is a work of fanfiction, and the only benefit I receive from writing this is my own smug sense of self-satisfaction at dropping JKR's characters into a scenario of my choosing. This particular scenario is not appropriate for children.
Author's note: While this is hardly an original premise (there are a number of stories out there in which Hermione and Sirius stumble upon one another in the middle of the night at Grimmauld Place), I did attempt to present their union in a light that seems to be less common, at least in the realm of smutty one-shots. My intention was to portray them both as somewhat innocent but not naïve, confident but not without doubts, and a little bit cynical but not beyond optimism. It is my hope that I've kept them, for the most part, in character, and have managed to add depth to an encounter that mostly revolves around sex. I also wanted to give Hermione the first time that I think every young woman deserves, but so rarely gets. Whether I've accomplished these things or not is ultimately up to you. I hope you enjoy it.
xXx
Jasmine Tea
Finally giving up on the possibility of sleep, Hermione Granger slid out of bed to head down to the kitchen of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place to make herself a cup of tea. She had hoped for at least a few hours of rest before she, Harry, and Ron set out in search for the next horcrux, but unfortunately that didn't seem to be in the cards for her tonight. She was much too anxious to do anything but lay awake and stare at the ceiling while she contemplated her fragile mortality.
So instead of sleeping, she found herself silently padding down the stairs in her night clothes: an old soft t-shirt featuring the logo of her father's favorite rock 'n' roll band, and a pair of cotton shorts. Glamorous it was not, but it was comfortable in more ways than one, and besides, who did she need to impress? Nobody else was awake to see her at this ungodly hour anyway.
As she pushed the kitchen door open, she realized with a start that that wasn't true. She froze like a deer in the headlights, her gaze meeting with the form of Sirius Black. He was seated at the far end of the table, illuminated by the fireplace and sipping on what was presumably his own cup of tea, with a satin robe hanging open over his tattooed chest.
"Oh!" she exclaimed. "I didn't realize anyone was still up. I was just going to make some tea, but if you wanted to be alone, I can…" she trailed off as she realized he was watching her with an amused look on his face, and suddenly she became aware of how little she was in fact wearing. Spots of red blossomed on her cheeks and she stared down at her bare feet in embarrassment, watching her toes curl in under themselves.
"Don't be ridiculous, Hermione. The kettle's still warm; it won't take but a minute to heat back up. I'd be delighted to have your company." His voice was velvet as it glided over her. She was certain that he knew the effect that he had on her, and did nothing in an attempt to dampen it. After twelve years in Azkaban, and another three years locked away in his ancestral home, she supposed it was only natural for him to take advantage of any opportunity he could find to entertain himself, and so she couldn't bring herself to fault him for it, even if it was occasionally at her own expense. It was, after all, harmless.
The first time that she had noticed him, in the way that one notices a member of their preferred sex, was when she had stayed in his house during the summer before her fifth year of school. She had arrived with the Weasleys, and as she stepped into the main parlor to set down her trunk and receive her room assignment, she glanced up and saw him sitting draped over a couch, sporting a look that was slightly disheveled in that accidently-on-purpose way. Cleaned up and properly nourished, he was a sight to behold, exuding a casual elegance that alluded to his aristocratic upbringing.
Something in her had tightened at the realization that her best friend's godfather was an attractive man, and she quickly tucked away the feeling into the recesses of her psyche, only allowing herself the indulgence of thinking about him in that regard when she was completely alone and had the luxury of exploring her developing body with her own hands.
And though wholly inappropriate for countless reasons, Hermione thought that Sirius must have noticed her at some point too, because aside from the lighthearted flirting that seemed to just be his normal mode of communication with the opposite sex, she had caught him watching her, once or twice, with the strangest look in his eye. If she wasn't mistaken, it was admiration tinged with a bit of guilt, as if he knew that it was wrong to be looking at her with such interest, but just couldn't help himself.
Of course, nothing had happened between them beyond the noticing. Neither of them spoke of it, let alone acted on it, because nothing could happen between them. She was Harry's teenaged friend, and he was Harry's father figure. It was just not allowed.
But tonight… Hermione wasn't sure if those things even mattered anymore. She was an adult now, and she might die tomorrow.
Her world was out of control, and there were too many bad things going on and not enough good to balance them out. She was hopeful, and determined, and had the conviction of her beliefs on her side, but was it enough? Putting an end to Voldemort's reign of terror was a cause worth dying for, but what was she living for? The friendship and love she shared with Harry and Ron, certainly. The hope of someday reuniting with her poor parents, so blissfully unaware of their only daughter's existence, absolutely. The dream of attending Oxford, when all of this madness was finally nothing but a bad memory, definitely.
But those were all thoughts and ideas- intangible concepts that she clung onto with her mind.
She needed something visceral, something that she could hold in her hands and feel against her skin.
Hermione made a decision.
She looked up, her eyes locking with his, and the air was suddenly heavy in the kitchen. She knew that he knew that something had just shifted between them in that moment, because the teasing expression fell from his face as he cleared his throat and abruptly rose from his seat.
"Right," he muttered, turning to the stove. "I'll just put that kettle back on for you."
"Sirius." She took a step toward him.
Something in her voice made him pause in his actions, with one hand on the kettle and the other on the knob to the stove. "I'm drinking a really lovely jasmine tea, but there's some chamomile here too if you'd prefer something more… traditional…" His voice faltered as he set the kettle on the burner and glanced over his shoulder to watch her take another step toward him.
She took a deep breath and summoned all of her Gryffindor bravery. "I changed my mind. It isn't tea that I want."
He squeezed his eyes shut and seemed to struggle to find his own Gryffindor bravery. After a long moment, he opened his eyes and said her name softly, like an apology. "Hermione…"
Closing the remaining distance between them, she stood within arm's reach of him and grasped the bottom hem of her shirt. Trembling with anticipation of what she was about to do, she then pulled it up and over her head in one fluid motion, letting it fall to the floor.
His eyes locked on her bare breasts: two small handfuls each of soft, creamy flesh, peaked with rosy pink nipples that were hardened by the cool air. Seconds passed in silence, and then the tea kettle began to shriek. He finally tore his gaze away from her chest to turn off the stove and remove the kettle from the burner. "How about the jasmine then?" he asked, still fumbling with the kettle as he tried to regain his composure.
She shook her head slowly. "I don't need tea tonight, Sirius. I need to feel alive. I need you."
Setting the kettle on a trivet, he held his hands out in front of him, palms flat and facing outward as if to say stop. "We can't… I mean, you're beautiful, Hermione, but… I can't… You're still so young," he stammered.
Gently taking his hands and setting them lightly on either side of her ribcage, she said, "I'm of age. It's not illegal for you to touch me."
He swallowed visibly, pressing his eyes shut again for a moment. "It may not be illegal, but that doesn't make it moral. I'm Harry's godfather…"
"But you're not mine. Tell me you don't want this."
His fingers flexed infinitesimally, the tips pushing against her skin with the barest amount of pressure. "It doesn't matter what I want," he insisted weakly.
"What about what I want?" she asked. "I can't sleep, thinking about all the things that might happen to me tomorrow when we go to the Ministry to try to get that stupid locket. We might get caught. I could get captured and turned over to the Death Eaters. I could die, or worse. I don't know what's going to happen, and I want to know what it feels like to be with a man, before I have to face all of that. I want you to touch me before I risk my life to save others. Is that really so wrong?" Her thumbs brushed across the backs of his hands as she held them in place against her sides, willing him to understand.
"You've never…?" His eyes searched hers, and his expression melted into something so tender, it looked like his heart was breaking.
"Not all the way, no." She leaned in closer to him, so that the fronts of their bodies were almost touching. "Sirius, please," she breathed, closing her eyes.
And then she felt his lips make contact with hers, softer than a whisper. He kissed her with such an unexpected gentle precision that she gasped against his mouth in surprise, and he took the opportunity to caress his tongue across her bottom lip. She sighed into the kiss and released his hands so that she could trail hers up his arms and over his shoulders to rest on either side of his neck.
Apparently dismissing whatever inhibitions had remained, he wrapped one arm around her waist and cupped his other hand under her bottom, hoisting her up and sitting her down on the nearby tabletop. He settled himself between her knees and leaned back just far enough to look into her face properly. "You're sure that you want to do this, Hermione?"
She nodded. Though she hadn't planned it before stepping into the kitchen, she knew with both her head and her heart that this was it; this was the right moment, and he was the right person to give her what she needed. "I'm sure. I'm ready, and I want this. I trust you."
He grinned suddenly, teeth glinting in the firelight. "Then I'm going to show you that your trust isn't misplaced," he said, tracing the line of her jaw with a finger. "I'm going to worship you the way that a brilliant-" he dropped a kiss on one cheek "-gorgeous-" he moved to the other cheek "-ferociously brave and intensely sexy-" a third kiss landed on the tip of her nose "-young woman such as yourself deserves to be worshipped."
A blush formed across her cheekbones and she could feel the warmth spread all the way down to her chest. "You really think I'm all of those things?" she asked with a shy smile. It wasn't that she was insecure; it was more that she was caught off-guard that he saw her in such a flattering light.
He smiled into her hair as he pulled her close. "Don't you?"
"I am pretty brilliant," she conceded, nuzzling against his warmth and relishing in the way she could feel his barking laugh rumble through his chest.
"Your modesty is, perhaps, my favorite of all your virtues," he joked, loosening their embrace and drawing his wand from a pocket in his robe. He paused, eyeing her speculatively before continuing, "A few precautions are in order, don't you agree?"
"Of course," she agreed. "Safety first, and all that."
Sirius first cast a silencing charm on the kitchen and warded the door against entry, which was wise. The last thing they needed was to be interrupted by Harry or Ron. Yikes. Hermione tried not to grimace at that thought. He then turned back to her and performed the standard contraceptive spell. Finally, he put a cushioning charm on the table before stowing his wand back in his pocket and shedding his robe entirely.
She sat there on the table in only her sleep shorts, looking up at him from beneath her lashes. He was handsome like nobody else she that she knew. Refined in a manner that couldn't quite be muted by the scruff on his face or tattoos on his skin. Though he was quite a bit older than her, it seemed right somehow. She was mature beyond her years, and combined with his signature youthful mischievousness, the age difference seemed insignificant.
She was certain she had never been more attracted to anyone than she was to Sirius Black right now, shirtless in the glow of the firelight, gazing at her with a look of pure adoration.
He moved forward into her embrace, capturing her lips in a kiss that went deep beyond their first; he plundered her mouth with his, and suddenly she realized that he might need this just as much as she did. She had a moment to wonder when he had last had the opportunity to be intimate with a woman, and then his kisses began trailing their way down her jaw, and the time for rational thought was over.
Her head tipped back and her chest involuntarily arched toward him, and his muffled response was a chuckle against her throat. "You like that?" he murmured, pressing his mouth to her pulse and suckling lightly.
Shuddering with delight, she managed a hoarse, "Mmm hmm," before a gasp caught in her throat as his tongue found a particularly sensitive spot. She rested her hands on his shoulders, tracing the swell of muscle around to the back of his neck, where her fingers twisted into his hair.
Continuing in his exploration of her body, he laid a chaste kiss to her sternum before pulling away just enough to watch himself palm her breasts. "Sweet Morgana," he breathed, his eyes flickering to hers for a second before returning to the pert mounds in his hands. His thumbs brushed over her nipples; once, twice, three times, and a moan rose from somewhere deep within Hermione as he leaned forward to capture one of the flushed peaks in his warm mouth. As his tongue circled her nipple, her pleasure mounted until she was sure she was being driven mad from it.
"Sirius," she pleaded, her fingers weaving deeper in his hair. He gave her breast one last hard suck before releasing it with a soft pop.
"Yes, love?" he answered, looking up at her with his usual smug grin.
"I need…" she faltered, realizing that in that moment, she wanted too many things to articulate.
His grin somehow both softened and darkened at the same time. "Don't worry, sweetheart. I know what you need."
And he did indeed.
His mouth returned to her body, this time on her other breast, and his hand slid slowly down her naked torso, along the curve of her hip, and down onto her thigh to gently knead the soft skin there. His deft fingers stroked her close enough to her center that, combined with the ministrations of his tongue on her nipple, she was reduced to a puddle of dripping hot desire in his hands.
Her hips ached to press forward to meet his hand, but their relative positions didn't allow for it and she let out a sigh that was half-want and half-frustration. "Sirius," she said again, insistence creeping into her voice.
Setting both hands on the waistband of her sleep shorts, Sirius said, "Lift up your bum for me, please." She complied, and he tugged her shorts down her hips. She pulled one leg free, letting them fall down to her ankle where she was able to kick them off entirely, and suddenly she was perched nude on the table in front of him, knees spread wide apart.
Heat rose to her face as he reclined back in a chair and studied the view with interest. It hadn't bothered her at first, but mild embarrassment began to wash over her as he continued to assess the sight and she realized that he was eyeballing her the way that a starving man would seize up a steak. Finally opening her mouth to say something, he cut her off with a muttered, "You're so bloody gorgeous," before diving in and placing a kiss directly on her sex.
Pleasure rippled through her body and a low, long groan escaped her throat as his tongue and lips began a probing exploration of her most intimate parts. He nibbled and sucked and teased, and before long she was crying out and trying not to rock her hips against his face too hard. She could feel herself inching toward release, and he must have felt it too, because he suddenly plunged a long finger into her, curling it deep within, and it was enough to push her off the precipice into orgasm.
He kept pumping her as she rode out her pleasure, and as the last aftershocks faded away, he rose from his chair, pushing his pants down his legs as he stood. "Are you sure you still want this?" he asked soberly.
"Oh god, yes," was her husky response, and she reached out to grasp his cock in her hand. It was thick and so hard, but his skin felt hot and soft like brushed velvet. She had only touched one other person like this- and Viktor had been more a boy at the time than a man -and her fumbling attempts in the dark suddenly seemed so woefully underwhelming compared to this.
Experimentally, she caressed the seam on the underside, from tip to base, and was rewarded by the response that it elicited. Sirius groaned slightly, his face losing some of its composure. "Do you like this?" she asked, using her whole hand to stroke him up and down a few times.
"Mmm, yes |
, 2016 at 9:50pm PDT Q: Where do you get the ideas? What inspired you?
A special drawing I made for my mom's birthday. Happy birthday, Mom. Love you ❤ #drawing #illustration #nickfilbert #present #mother #birthday #love #family #lineart #blackandwhite #instaart A post shared by Nicholas F. Chandrawienata (@nickfilbert) on Nov 13, 2016 at 10:10pm PST Q: Describe your illustrations in three little words
Flair One of my artwork in my mini artbook "Serene" 🙂 #serene #flair #artbook #instaart #drawing #sketch #illustration #nickfilbert A post shared by Nicholas F. Chandrawienata (@nickfilbert) on Jan 24, 2016 at 4:20am PST Q: How would you describe your workplace?
Keramaian Kota Yogyakarta #sketch #sketchbook #doodle #travel #arttravel #nickfilbert #instaart #drawing #yogyakarta #indonesia #city #lineart #pen A post shared by Nicholas F. Chandrawienata (@nickfilbert) on Jan 24, 2017 at 9:43pm PST Q: Do you work with a team? If so, how many people you work with?
Here we go guys! My very first mini art book Sèrene! Sold out! Thank you very much everybody! A post shared by Nicholas F. Chandrawienata (@nickfilbert) on Sep 3, 2015 at 12:15am PDT Q: In your opinion, why does your illustrations appeal so much to adults?
Tranquil - My artwork for ITGCC #artprint #illustration #vaudeville A post shared by Nicholas F. Chandrawienata (@nickfilbert) on Jan 13, 2015 at 6:01am PST Q: Why do you prefer working with digitally as opposed to pencils?
Mr. Stone Carver at Batu Bulan Morning sketch 🌞 #sketch #stonecarving #travel #arttravel #inktoberindonesia #inktober #sketchbook #drawing #bali #penonpaper #nickfilbert #indonesia A post shared by Nicholas F. Chandrawienata (@nickfilbert) on Oct 30, 2016 at 9:18pm PDT Q: Do you have special techniques and color mixes that you'd like to share with us? Any tips and tricks?
Q: What challenges (if any) did you face in making your coloring book for adults and can you give other artist any tips for solving similar problems?
Q: Do you test your illustrations on a specific group of coloring community members before publishing?
Q: If you could choose only one of your finished coloring page which one would it be? And why? To be honest, I have never coloured my own coloring book haha!
Q: What would you like to see more in adult coloring book world? More appreciation for this art form, because I think its really enjoyable and it can still grow fantasia女战神，拖拖拉拉好久，终于完结 #fantasiacoloringbook #adultcoloringbook #adultcoloringbooks #adultcoloring #nicholasfchandrawienata #nickfilbert A post shared by Chris (@chocolate_spot) on Oct 18, 2016 at 10:48pm PDT More appreciation for this art form, because I think its really enjoyable and it can still grow
Q: And last but not least, where can we find your artwork?
Hi! My name is Nicholas Filbert Chandrawienata, an illustrator from Indonesia, I have published some coloring books such as Fantasia and Lets Color Love!I started drawing since I was really young, until now I worked as an illustrator. So it came naturally for me.Drawing and coloring has always been part of me pretty much my whole life, so I do not see it as a getaway but rather a way of life.I try to prepare my mindset before anything else, I always remind myself to have fun!I get inspired when I travel to different places around the world! It is so refreshing to see a lot of stuff that we have never seen before!It is a hard question! Probably Delicate, Gentle, and ClassyReally messy!It depends on the project, I worked in a studio before, so most of the project are team based, but now as a freelance illustrator I mostly work solo.I thinks this question is better asked to people that liked my work 🙂 But for me personally maybe it is because I give 100 percent to every picture I draw.For my illustration projects, I mostly color my project digitally in Photoshop.For the industry there are some advantages for working digitally, for example it is easier to edit the picture to the client’s preference but for my personal project I prefer to work traditionallyI am not the best colourist myself 🙂 But based on my experience in the industry is to learn the basics of colour, but most importantly is to enjoy the process because it will reflect on the resultThe challenges would be to keep the high quality in each and every pages of the book, my tips is to keep yourself interested and loving what you do, and for me personally its by travelling.I did not do that because there will be a lot of feedback that will influence the result of the book, for me, as long as you work your best and have fun, people will share the same feeling and enjoy your workMy favourite thing is to see a lot of people enjoying my work, to see coloured images of your drawings from around the world is really out of this world.Nothing but happiness, when I started creating my first book, all I want is people to at least enjoy whenever they colour my book.Because most people draw or color from their early age, and we cannot separate ourself from art. And this trend is another art form. It can be done pretty much anywhere, anytime and most importantly it is really fun!I would like to say I love Kerby Rosanes' Sketchy Stories because I can feel his enjoyment in his work!I am currently still working on my website, so for now you can find me on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ nickfilbert/?hl=e Here is the Flip Through of Fantasia by Nicholas Filbert ChandrawienataYou can order your copy on Amazon: Fantasia: Adult Coloring Book Hope you like the interview and coloring book!It’s another month, so that means it’s time to find out what the next batch of BandFuse: Rock Legends DLC will feature. Did you catch the stream? Much like last month it features 10 songs, one of which is by Jimi Hendrix. Of note, however, is that 5 of those songs seem to be kept secret from us for now. The anticipation is killing us! While I initially expressed disappointment at how many songs appeared in Rock Band before, I quickly reminded myself that a lot of them didn’t feature Pro Guitar/Bass. Also, the Pretenders’ classic Back on the Chain Gang finally shows up in a rhythm game. Yay! Also, like last month, the songs will retail for $2.99. There doesn’t seem to be any sign of a pack, either. The songs will be available on February 25th.
Are you happy with this month’s DLC? Do you see cases of right band/wrong song? Do you wish it was the Stevie Ray Vaughan version of Little Wing included instead? What other songs do you think will be released this month? Tell us in the comments below!Coal Minister Piyush Goyal has asked for a status report on all missing files.
The coal ministry has asked its officials to prepare microfilms of all crucial files that contain documents on the coal blocks allocation scam to prevent the disappearance of vital evidence."All crucial files are going to be microfilmed,'' Piyush Goyal, the new coal minister told NDTV, adding, "Ministry officials have now gathered all files related to the allocations that were initially thought to be missing. I have asked for a status report on all files which are still missing, and the papers that are missing in those files.''The alleged irregularities in the allocation of coal blocks became one of the important corruption cases that singed the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre. Reports that important files pertaining to the scam surfaced last year, lending credence to the Opposition charge that there was something amiss in the case.Opposition parties led by the BJP disrupted parliamentary proceedings, forcing Manmohan Singh, the then prime minister, to intervene on the standoff by issuing a statement in the Rajya Sabha on September 3. He assured the House that the government had nothing to hide.He told the Rajya Sabha that over a lakh files relating to controversial coal block allocations had already been handed to the CBI and efforts were being made to find the rest."If the records are found missing, the government will carry out a thorough investigation and ensure that the guilty are brought to book," he said. In an affidavit filed a few weeks earlier, the Centre informed the Supreme Court, which is monitoring the case, that the CBI, which was investigating the scam, needed 43 files, of which all but seven had either been located, or delivered to the CBI.(Photo: drsmith7383; Edited: JR / TO)Washington – Since 1978, a secret court in Washington has approved national security eavesdropping on American soil — operations that for decades had been conducted based on presidential authority alone.
Now, in response to broad dissatisfaction with the hidden bureaucracy directing lethal drone strikes, there is an interest in applying the model of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court — created by Congress so that surveillance had to be justified to a federal judge — to the targeted killing of suspected terrorists, or at least of American suspects.
“We’ve gone from people scoffing at this to it becoming a fit subject for polite conversation,” said Robert M. Chesney, a law professor at the University of Texas. He said court approval for adding names to a counterterrorism kill list — at least for American citizens abroad — “is no longer beyond the realm of political possibility.”
A drone court would face constitutional, political and practical obstacles, and might well prove unworkable, according to several legal scholars and terrorism experts. But with the war in Afghanistan winding down, Al Qaeda fragmenting into hard-to-read offshoots and the 2001 terrorist attacks receding into the past, they said, it is time to consider how to forge a new, trustworthy and transparent system to govern lethal counterterrorism operations.
“People in Washington need to wake up and realize the legal foundations are crumbling by the day,” Mr. Chesney said. That realization seemed evident at Thursday’s confirmation hearing for John O. Brennan as C.I.A. director, which became a raucous forum for complaints about the expansion of counterterrorist strikes and the procedures for deciding who should die.
Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, was one of those who complained that he could not get the administration to even list the countries where lethal strikes had been carried out. Among Republicans, Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia said he thought that killing had become a dubious substitute for capture. A program that began in the shadows was dragged for the first time into the spotlight of Congressional debate.
Today, with Al Qaeda’s core in Pakistan hugely diminished and Osama bin Laden dead, the terrorist threat is far more diffuse than it was a decade ago. Most drone-fired missiles now kill not high-level terrorists plotting to attack the United States, but a mixed bag of midlevel militants and foot soldiers whose focus is often more on the Pakistani or Yemeni authorities than on the United States. And since a September 2011 drone strike deliberately killed an American citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, who had joined Al Qaeda in Yemen, the legal and moral rationale for such strikes has been hotly debated.
Even if they are glad Mr. Awlaki is dead, many Americans are uneasy that a president can use secret evidence to label a citizen a terrorist and order his execution without a trial or judge’s ruling. Hence the idea of court oversight for targeted killing, which on Thursday, unexpectedly, got serious discussion from senators and Mr. Brennan.
First, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, who is chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said she would review proposals for establishing such a court. Her remark got a strong second from Senator Angus King of Maine, an independent.
“Having the executive being the prosecutor, the judge, the jury and the executioner all in one is very contrary to the traditions and the laws of this country,” he said.
Mr. Brennan then made a striking disclosure: The Obama administration had held internal talks on the feasibility of such a court. “I think it’s certainly worthy of discussion,” Mr. Brennan said. “What’s that appropriate balance between the executive, legislative and judicial branch responsibilities in this area?”
An administration official who spoke of the White House deliberations on the condition of anonymity said President Obama had asked his security and legal advisers a year ago “to see how you could have an independent review” of planned strikes. “That includes possible judicial review.”
“People on the national security staff and the legal side took a hard look at it, and the discussions are still going on,” the official said. “There are a lot of complexities. You’d need legislation and probably a new judicial body.”
The FISA court was created by Congress in 1978 after revelations of widespread eavesdropping on Americans by the National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation convinced Congress that the executive branch had proved incapable of properly policing itself.
Eleven judges from around the country sit on the court, but one is on duty at a time, hearing cases in a special high-security courtroom added to Washington’s federal courthouse in 2009. In 2011, according to the most recent statistics, the court approved 1,745 orders for electronic surveillance or physical searches, rejecting none outright but altering 30.
A drone court would have the same appeal, bringing in an independent arbiter. But it is likely there would be serious limitations to its jurisdiction. Most experts say judges do not have the alacrity or expertise to rule on a frantic call from the C.I.A. every time a terrorism suspect is in its sights. A better approach would be to have the court rule on whether the government had enough evidence against a suspect to place him on the kill list.
But if the court’s jurisdiction extended to every foreign terrorism suspect, even some proponents believe, it might infringe on the president’s constitutional role as commander in chief. Senator King, for instance, said he thought the court would pass constitutional muster only if it were limited to cases involving American citizens.
With such limits, however, a drone court would not address many of the most pressing concerns, including decisions on which foreign militants should be targeted; how to avoid civilian deaths; and how to provide more public information about strike rules and procedures.
“In terms of the politics and the optics, aren’t you in the same position that you are now?” said William C. Banks, a national security law expert at Syracuse University. “It’s still secret. The target wouldn’t be represented. It’s a mechanism that wouldn’t satisfy critics or advance the due process cause much.”
Indeed, Hina Shamsi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s national security project, said that a drone court would be a step backward, and that extradition and criminal prosecution of suspected terrorists was a better answer. “I strongly agree that judicial review is crucial,” she said. “But judicial review in a new secret court is both unnecessary and un-American.”
Nor are judges clamoring to take up the challenge. At an American Bar Association meeting in November, a retired FISA judge, James Robertson, rejected the idea that judges should approve “death warrants.”
“My answer is, that’s not the business of judges,” Mr. Robertson said, “to decide without an adversary party to sign a death warrant for somebody.”
Mark Mazzetti contributed reporting.Still a beginner on Draft Kings? Want to avoid the pros? Play against other beginners in a free $1,000 NBA contest tonight! Click here.
On Tuesday's episode of Treatment, the Helpers discuss the NFL Combine from a fantasy perspective and focus on the rookie wide receivers and what with potentially fruitful situations. They also talk about how undersized receivers are starting to become more and more recognized as top options in NFL offenses and what traits to look for if you're thinking about drafting a steal in your dynasty draft this year.
How a smaller receiver like Antonio Brown has been successful
The Helpers mention Phillip Dorsett as a draft prospect that's undersized but has major potential in the NFL due to his speed. The idea that small receivers can't play like their bigger counterparts is becoming more and more of a myth. These two clips illustrate why Antonio Brown (who stands at 5'10) has been so successful at the pro level despite being undersized. In the first segment (and sorry if the audio clogs up the podcast, didn't know how to mute that), he keeps moving around looking for Roethlisberger after the Steelers' quarterback does what he does best — extends the play. He eventually comes back to the ball and makes about a 30-yard catch. On the second one, he attacks the ball with a defender draped all over him. These are the kind of traits to look for in a rookie receiver. Does he go after the ball? Does he constantly outwork defenders to get open even after the play has broken down?
We point out Antonio Brown as an example because as a fantasy football player, it's important to try and look for the qualities Antonio Brown exudes on the field in hopes that you can draft a player with similar skills in either your dynasty or redraft league. We're not comparing Dorsett to Brown at all, we're just showing you how Brown has been successful and are interested to see if Dorsett possesses any of those same qualities. Plus, if Dorsett further develops his game through refined route running and chemistry with his quarterback, he could be in line for fantastic stats and fantasy numbers.
The draft class as a whole/Maxx Williams' stock
If you've been following the NFL even remotely close this offseason, you've already heard all of the major talking points regarding this year's draft. The running backs are very strong while the tight ends are weak and the wide receivers are once again pretty good but probably not as good as last year's class. While the tight end class is indeed weak, Maxx Williams has a chance to get drafted by the Denver Broncos in the late first round, a team that is likely to lose its star tight end in Julius Thomas because of a clogged cap this offseason. If Thomas goes, Williams would immediately have a chance to see first-team reps and could be one of the top red zone threats in the league with quarterback Peyton Manning. Of course, nobody knows if the Broncos are going to take Williams, but Denver is maybe the one place where he would pose immediate fantasy value in redraft leagues.
Perriman's stock
Though he didn't perform at the combine due to injury, UCF wide receiver Breshad Perriman has some intrigue due to his size at 6'3. He also plays physical and averaged over 20 yards per catch and posted 9 touchdowns during his junior season with the Knights. Perriman has exceptional speed and displayed the ability to get behind defenders consistently in college. He could also make for a great option on inside routes due to his size. He does have a few flaws though and one of the major ones is his inconsistent hands. He dropped several easy passes in college and that can spell doom early on at the NFL level. We've seen very athletic, tall receivers fade quickly if they can't hang on to the football. Darrius Heyward-Bey among the most recent examples.
View Army Recruiting's Flickr page here.Hundreds of bikes which have been abandoned by their owners in Amsterdam are being shipped to refugee camps in Jordan, the Parool reported at the weekend.
Every year, some 30,000 bikes are left uncollected from the city’s central bike depot and the first shipment of 350 will be loaded into a container for Jordan on Wednesday.
In total, the city plans to send 1,400 bikes to two refugee camps, after they have been repaired by a team of volunteers. Bikes which otherwise may well be destroyed can be put to good use by Syrian refugees, city official Ton Buffing told the paper.
Not only can they be used as forms of transport, but the bikes can also be rebuilt into rickshaws or cargo bikes, which is good for stimulating trade within the camps, he said.
The bikes have all been collected by the city’s ‘bike police’ who remove illegally parked two-wheelers and take them to a depot in the western port area of Amsterdam. Only a small proportion of their owners ever collect them.In a few weeks, a new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, prepared by 2,000 climate scientists from around the world, will be released. Leaked early drafts reveal some frightening predictions for the next century, including a high likelihood that the globe's average temperature will rocket past the 2C target, the reddest of red lines for human existence on the planet.
Two degrees doesn't seem like much, but it takes only a few Google searches to connect the dots between the one degree of warming that has already set in, and catastrophic events like Hurricane Sandy, unprecedented wildfires in the American west and record flooding in places like the Philippines and Pakistan. Some have even pointed to extended climate-induced drought in Syria as a key driver of the conflict there. It doesn't take much sleuthing, either, to find out that humans have loaded so much carbon into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels, cutting down forests and engaging in poor agricultural practices, that the IPCC says it's now 95% certain that we're responsible for most of the warming that has happened since the industrial revolution.
Despite decades of science showing human impact on the atmosphere, and the availability of renewable energy options, from cheap solar to wind to geothermal, political will to deal with climate change in the world's richest countries has flatlined. Last year, members of US Congress received more than $34m from oil, gas and coal companies – money to ensure they do nothing on climate change – and President Obama has so far taken baby steps compared to the enormity of the climate challenge. Despite historic investments in in clean energy, moves to raise auto fuel efficiency and regulate dirty coal plants, and hopeful signs that he's ready to engage obstructionists, President Obama has not taken the United States far enough, fast enough.
In a recent address on climate change – his first since he came into office five years ago – President Obama set a high bar for the construction of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, an export pipeline that would run from Canada to the Gulf Coast. He said he would approve construction only if it "does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution". A recent independent analysis of Keystone XL (pdf) calculates that the pipeline would dump the equivalent of 51 coal power plants, or 37m cars worth of CO2 into the atmosphere per year. That's a lot of carbon. If President Obama spoke in good faith, then there is only one decision he can make: reject the pipeline.
President Obama's decision on the Keystone XL pipeline is critically important, not just because it would prevent millions of tons of carbon from spewing into the atmosphere. It would also show that he's taken responsibility for the future, taken away the right of a handful of oil, gas and coal companies to decide the destiny of our planet. It would represent a significant precedent for industrial projects; judging their worthiness on climate grounds and telling the CEOs of Exxon and Chevron and Peabody saying,
We won't be pushed around by you anymore: we're taking the future into our own hands.
And, in fact, people across the country are taking the future into their own hands, from indigenous groups stopping tar sands pipelines in Minnesota, to farmers fighting hydrofracking in Pennsylvania to communities in New Mexico shutting down coal-fired power plants. In just a few weeks, on 21 September, in hundreds of cities across the US, people will come together to physically "Draw the Line", connecting the dots between extreme weather and extreme energy projects like the Keystone XL pipeline: In New Orleans, a brass band will walk the levees that waters overtopped during Hurricane Katrina, in New York volunteers will use tape and chalk to show future water levels on buildings in lower Manhattan, and in Nebraska, a group of farmers and ranchers will erect a solar and wind powered barn in the path of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.
Climate movement activists throughout the world agree that we must fight the Keystone XL pipeline fight, but that we can't only fight bad energy projects one by one. We must also chip away at the political power of the fossil fuel industry, and revoke their social license to operate.
That's what tens of thousands of university students, pension fund managers, religious leaders and others have been doing the past year through fossil fuel divestment. Inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement of the 1980s, divestment campaigns have popped up on more than 300 campuses, calling on presidents and trustees to divest from oil, gas and coal companies. These corporations hold billions of tons of CO2 underground in fossil fuel reserves – enough to cook the earth many times over. All of us, as investors and beneficiaries of pension funds and endowments, own a part of those reserves, too.
A handful of institutions like Hampshire College, San Francisco State University and Unity College have already committed to divest their endowments from fossil fuels, joining cities like Seattle, San Francisco, Madison, religious institutions like the United Church of Christ, and large pension funds like Norway's Storebrand. The fossil fuel divestment movement is growing quickly, spreading to globally to countries like Australia, England and the Netherlands.
It's easy to fall into despair reading the recent science on climate change – atmospheric limits are hard and fast, not like the dark, ever-shifting waters of political will. But there is a glimmer of hope in the shape of this large, growing movement of ordinary citizens who, with numbers, creativity and sheer will, may just be able to turn this around before it's too late.Slovakian tennis star Dominika Cibulkova almost called off her wedding to play in the finals at Wimbledon, thanks to her winning streak in the competition.
The 27-year-old, 19th seeded player will tie the knot with fiancée of four years, Miso Navara, on Saturday in her home town of Bratislava, which happens to be the same day as the Wimbledon singles final. Cibulkova was considering canceling her wedding if she progressed to the final; however Russia’s Elena Vesnina took the slot in today’s match.
Cibulkova hadn’t anticipated making it this far into competition when planning her nuptials, but took the possibility and loss in stride.
“We planned this [the wedding] nine months ago,” Cibulkova said to the Daily Mail. “You never know what can happen.”
The Brief Newsletter Sign up to receive the top stories you need to know right now. View Sample Sign Up Now
While Cibulkova celebrates her wedding, Vesnina will face Serena Williams in the final.
Write to Cady Lang at cady.lang@timemagazine.com.Early on, the effects of Hurricane Sandy seemed quantifiable, if unprecedented, for New York City’s transportation system: flooded tunnels, entire stations temporarily wiped from the subway map, and, according to initial estimates, about $5 billion to rebuild all that was damaged.
But in the year since the weather forecasts first turned ominous, sending workers scrambling for sandbags and plywood that would in too many cases prove no match for the storm, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has been forced to adapt in ways few could have predicted, setting off a procession of management changes, unexpected system failures, and, at times, fiscal uncertainty.
The consequences, officials acknowledge, will be felt for years, most acutely in the form of persistent service disruptions that will dog riders across the system — in areas directly touched by the floods and in others where storm-related triage could delay scheduled work intended to keep the subways in a state of good repair. It can feel like far more than a year ago that the authority was cast as a hero of the storm, restoring much of its system more quickly than expected while other transit agencies flailed.
“The downside to it,” Thomas F. Prendergast, the authority’s chairman, said of the initial praise, “is I think sometimes it leaves people with the impression that we weren’t damaged that bad.”West Ham United are our opponents on the opening weekend with our first away game taking place at Watford. We host Liverpool, champions Leicester and Jose Mourinho’s Manchester United in consecutive home games in September and October.
Tottenham visit the Bridge in late November ahead of a trip to Manchester City. We have home fixtures on Boxing Day and New Year’s Eve, against Bournemouth and Stoke respectively, before the return game against Spurs kicks off 2017.
Leicester and Liverpool are the next away games with Arsenal’s visit to west London set for Saturday 4 February. Our maiden trip to West Ham’s Olympic Stadium is exactly a month later.
We play both Manchester clubs in April and bring the curtain down on the season away to West Brom and, in our final game, at home to Sunderland on Sunday 21 May.
True Blue Memberships, offering priority access to tickets, are currently on sale
Please note: All the fixtures are subject to change due to live television broadcast selections and the impact of other competitions on the schedule. Matches against opponents competing in the Europa League (currently Manchester United, Southampton and West Ham) may be moved to a Sunday due to those teams playing in Europe the preceding Thursday).
This season, a selection of Premier League games will be moved to Friday evenings for live TV coverage.
Any changes to the dates for the matches in August and September are expected to be announced by 6 July.Return to Transcripts main page
CNN LIVE EVENT/SPECIAL
Obama Revealed: The Man, The President
Aired November 3, 2012 - 21:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I, Barack Hussein Obama --
JESSICA YELLIN, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: A candidate of hope.
OBAMA: On this date, we have chosen hope over fear.
YELLIN: Inherits a nation in crisis.
DAVID AXELROD, SENIOR CAMPAIGN ADVISER: The briefing was absolutely chilling.
OBAMA: My first job when I first came into office was making sure we didn't get into a Great Depression.
YELLIN: A leader driven to make history.
OBAMA: Health care reform cannot wait.
DAVID MARANISS, AUTHOR, BARACK OBAMA: THE STORY: He doesn't want to just be another president. He wanted to be a great president.
YELLIN: Cool under pressure.
HILLARY CLINTON, SECRETARY OF STATE: It was a huge risk that the president took.
OBAMA: The United States killed Osama bin Laden.
YELLIN: His presidency marked by political division.
Speaker Boehner, he says you flinched.
OBAMA: I'm sure that's his version of events.
REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R), HOUSE SPEAKER: I think the biggest failure is the president's unwillingness to listen to the American people.
YELLIN: A man whose style would both help him and hurt him as a leader.
OBAMA: When I'm making decisions, I try to not get caught up in the emotions of the moment.
YELLIN: OBAMA REVEALED, THE MAN, THE PRESIDENT. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can't wait to tell my children about it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Watch, belts, T-shirts.
YELLIN: It was an historic moment.
CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS, U.S. SUPREME COURT: Are you prepared to take the oath, Senator?
OBAMA: I am. I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
ROBERTS: So help you God?
OBAMA: So help me God.
ROBERTS: Congratulations, Mr. President.
YELLIN: A new day with towering expectations.
AXELROD: He looked at me and said, it's been an incredible ride, hasn't it? And I said yes. He said, it's just beginning.
OBAMA: On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear. Unity of purpose over conflict and discord.
YELLIN: For many, Barack Obama and his presidency symbolized much more than political change.
REP. JOHN LEWIS (D), GEORGIA: I still cry. For the sons and daughters of the slaves, their offspring, for people who have build a capital. It means so much to every human being that live in this country.
OBAMA: May God bless the United States of America. Hope is what led me here today.
YELLIN: Candidate Obama ran on a message of hope and change.
It's not just the size of the crowds but there's something different. People come and wait for hours for him. Sometimes they start crying when he talks.
OPRAH WINFREY, TELEVISION PERSONALITY: Barack Obama.
OBAMA: I need you to stand up.
CROWD: We want change. We want change. We want change.
YELLIN: Do you think people saw in him what they wanted to?
AXELROD: There was some projection on to him perhaps more than anybody could ever live up to.
YELLIN: The country needed help and in a hurry.
OBAMA: Today, we learned that our economy shrank in the last three months of 2008. That's the worst contraction in close to three decades.
YELLIN: Rahm Emanuel would be the president's chief of staff.
RAHM EMANUEL, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: Slightly like rolling thunder because you could have taken the economy, you could have taken the auto, you could have taken the financial, you could have taken Afghanistan, you could have taken Iraq. Usually, when you have a series of things it's like that's an A, that's a B. You start -- there's like, what happens when all five are A's?
AXELROD: It was basically awful.
YELLIN: In the months leading up to inauguration. Economic adviser Austan Goolsbee watched in horror as the stock market dropped more than 500 points in a day.
AUSTAN GOOLSBEE, FORMER CHAIR, COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISERS: There was a bottle of bourbon sitting there in the campaign. And I said, man, if there ever was a day to have a drink of this emergency bourbon it' s today.
YELLIN: And then it got worse.
GOOLSBEE: The next day, dropped another 500 points. And then late in the campaign, it happens again and somebody says, where's the Bourbon? I said, the bottle's empty.
YELLIN: The emergency bourbon was gone and the economy was in dire shape. One month before his inauguration, Barack Obama called an urgent meeting during a Chicago blizzard.
LARRY SUMMERS, FORMER DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL: The president meets for the first time with all his economic advisers as a group for four hours. Everybody is in the room is struck with the gravity of the situation.
CHRISTINA ROMER, FORMER CHAIR, COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISERS: I said, Mr. President, this is your holy bleep moment. You are facing the worst downturn since the Great Depression. We're going to have to hit this with everything we have.
SUMMERS: The president is very clear. We need to act. We need to make our mistakes on the side of pulling the band aid off fast. That was the phrase he used. He made the decision that day to go for a massive stimulus program.
GOOLSBEE: When briefing's over, I go up to the president-elect and I say, you know, that's got to be the worst briefing that the president- elect had at least since 1932 and maybe since Abraham Lincoln in 1860. And the president says, Goolsbee, that's not even my worse briefing this week.
OBAMA: My first job when I came into office was making sure we didn't get into a Great Depression and the economy could start growing again.
YELLIN: Also high on the president's agenda, his campaign promise to heal the nation's bitter partisan divide.
OBAMA: We are more than a collection of red states and blue states. We're the United States of America.
YELLIN: After a month in office, a whopping 76 percent of Americans approved of the new president's job performance. Though he was only just beginning.
DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: You could create whatever you wanted out of him. He was folklore figure right out of the gate.
YELLIN: What do you think he was expected to do?
BRINKLEY: I think people didn't know that -- the problem with change is change for what.
YELLIN: The passionate speaker who electrified crowds on the campaign trail --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States. The First Lady Michelle Obama.
YELLIN: -- would become a calm, cool leader once in office.
A lot of people describe you as cool. That cuts both ways. Fair description?
OBAMA: People who know me well and people on the campaign trail, I don't think they describe me that way. I am in a lot of ways an extrovert when it comes to folks outside the beltway. I'm not sure it's hurt. Except maybe for some of my relations I think inside of the beltway here in Washington.
MARANISS: He's not easily categorized in any way. He wants it all. He's rationale, first of all. He's a little bit deliberative and cautious. But then once in a while, he'll go for the bold stroke because he wants something larger.
YELLIN: The president's next decisions would move the right to anger.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You better wake up, America.
YELLIN: The left to disappointment. And leave a nation more polarized than ever.
MARANISS: I think he came in sort of feeling his own exceptionalism. And then the realities of Washington smacked him in the head.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
YELLIN: January 2009. The president's promises of hope and change would be put to the test by the worst financial crisis in modern history.
SUMMERS: You look at any important economic statistic. They were collapsing faster in the fall of 2008 than they had collapsed in the fall of 192 |
ixon’s democratic treatment of the vinyl format means smaller bands have the opportunity to release more imaginative, unique, and, therefore, rewarding albums to fans.Writing Marius
Marie (Marius) Mason #04672-061
FMC Carswell
P.O. Box 27137
Fort Worth, TX 76127
Please address letters to “Marie (Marius) Mason.” Contrary to previous reports, Carswell is not accepting mail addressed to “Marius.” If your mail is rejected, let us know at supportmariusmason@riseup.net
Under no circumstances mention any illegal acts. Letters that mention other Green Scare prisoners may be rejected.
Marius has a list of 100 pre-approved people he can write to; this means he will be able to receive your letter but until your name is added to his list he cannot write back. Marius can request people to be added/removed but this takes time and is not always granted.
Everyone must use their first and last name when writing. If letters are not entirely in English, they may be delayed up to several months. Be sure to include your return address on the envelope and in the letter/card. You may also want to include his name and prisoner number on the letter/card in case it gets separated from the envelope during processing. Page numbers are also helpful in case of lost pages (example: page 1 of 5).
Last, do not send anything that is “affixed” to the letter or card – such as glitter, glue, or white-out. Pen, pencil, crayon and paint are fine.
Phone Calls:
Recordings of phone conversations with Marius are not allowed and will result in punitive repercussions for Marius. Any recordings must be approved by the prison.
Donate to Marius’ Support Fund
Please donate to Mason’s support fund! All donations made through this website are used for Marius’ support.
Donations help Marius pay for postage and telephone calls home. Art supplies, magazine subscriptions, books, and other materials. Visitors, including his children, friends, and supports must fly to Texas to see him where they have rent a car and stay in a hotel near the prison. Marius is vegan and must buy additional food from the prison commissary. Marius’ attorneys – even though they work pro bono – have many expenses as well.
Make checks or money orders out to “Support Marie Mason” and send to:
Support Marius Mason
POB 201016
Ferndale, MI 48220
You can also make a donation via Paypal.
Send Books
Books must be sent via Amazon or directly from publisher but Marius can receive hard and softcover and more than one book at a time. Your name must be included as the sender (although Marius doesn’t always receive this info so please also send him a separate card or a letter telling him you sent the book so he knows who sent it).
Marius frequently requests books on art, poetry, animals, social struggle, political theory, and how-to books on drawing/ painting.
Marius also has a wish list:
General Support flyers
Spread the word about Marius! Below are some zines, flyers, and posters to be copied and distributed.It was a rainy Florida morning when my husband carried in a horribly tape package from Amazon that was half opened and soggy. Upon seeing my username on the package, I stood up faster than I ever have in the morning and tore into the package. And what did I receive? A book that will teach me the constellations and their stories and a book of Ukulele songs! And not only are these two awesome skills to learn but they are two items directly off my bucket list! My Santa found my blog and is going to help me complete number 46 (learn all the constellations and their stories) and 48 (play at least 20 songs on my Uke from memory) on my life list! Thank you, Jason! I can't wait to up my hippie-ness as I play my memorized songs on my uke on the beach, telling tales of the stars!Review: 2014-02-15, a fight in which almost every period could be a candidate for Round of the Year, it is definitely a Fight of the Year! Daniel Rosas vs Rodrigo Guerrero gets five stars because it was a brutal war with nonstop pace and both fighters exchanged shot for shot in a very exciting and epic fight: a bout to watch and rewatch! The undefeated Daniel Rosas entered this fight with a professional boxing record of 17-0-1 (11 knockouts) and he is ranked as the No.19 super bantamweight in the world, the only man who stopped him was Jose Cabrera in 2011 (fight ended in a draw and valid for the interim WBO super flyweight title).
His opponent, Rodrigo Guerrero, has an official record of 19-5-1 (12 knockouts) and he entered as the No.19 super flyweight, he won the IBF super-Flw title in 2011 beating Raul Martinez but then he lost the belt at his first defense when he faced Juan Carlos Sanchez Jr (=Sanchez Jr vs Guerrero); ‘Gatito’ Guerrero fought again for the same title in his last bout but he was defeated again, this time the winner was Daiki Kameda (=Kameda vs Guerrero). ‘Bad boy’ Rosas vs Guerrero is on the undercard of Roman Gonzalez vs Juan Kantun. Watch the video and rate this fight!
Date: 2014-02-15
Where: Palenque de la Feria Mesoamericana, Tapachula, Mexico
Division: bantamweight (118 lbs, 53.5 kg)
Result: Click here to show the fight’s result
Rodrigo Guerrero def. Daniel Rosas (TKO at 2:26, round 7)
Guerrero’s previous fight: Daiki Kameda vs Rodrigo Guerrero
Rosas’ next fight: Alejandro Hernandez vs Daniel Rosas
[php]
include(“banner.php”);
[/php]RENO, Nev. -- Caleb Martin scored 22 points, Jordan Caroline had 20 with seven rebounds, and Nevada pulled ahead early from UC Davis to win 88-73 on Tuesday night for its eleventh straight home victory.
Kendall Stephens added 16 points and Josh Hall had five assists for the Wolf Pack (10-2), who scored 20 points off of 16 Aggies turnovers and outscored UC Davis 19-0 on fast breaks.
Nevada led by 20 on Stephens' 3-pointer early in the second half, but the Aggies closed to 56-44 after consecutive 3s by Delveion Jackson and Siler Schneider. Two free throws by Martin with 2:08 left capped a 6-0 spurt for a 23-point Nevada lead, its largest of the game.
It was Martin's third 20-point game in a row and seventh of the season.
Martin's 3-pointer put Nevada up for good, 28-25, and the Wolf Pack led 42-27 at halftime after six lead changes and five ties.
Schneider scored 17 points, AJ John added 11 with 10 rebounds, TJ Shorts II had 13 points and Chima Moneke 10 for the Aggies (7-4).Welcome to the first edition of the TOJ mailbag! I’ve been getting asked some pretty crazy and hilarious questions lately, whether from my friends, readers of this site, or on Twitter, and I figured why not put them all in one place and give some detailed answers to the questions that REALLY matter. So here it is, the TOJ-bag, volume 1. If you have a question you want answered, be sure to ask on Twitter with the hashtag #TOJBag, or even throw one into the comment section here and I’ll try to get it answered in the next mailbag. Also, I didn’t include anybody’s twitter handles because I don’t know if anybody wants that. So if you do want a question answered and want your twitter name or whatever listed, just let me know and we’ll hook that up. Enjoy!
What Jet would you most want to hang out with? – Ryan, Long Branch, NJ
The answer to this question depends what you are looking for in a hang out. If you just want to have a manly man’s day, eat meat with your hands, drink 37 Bud Heavies (or Miller High Life if you prefer), and drop f-bombs at your leisure without a care in the world, then the answer is obviously Rex Ryan. That guy knows how to party and he doesn’t give a damn what you think, which I love. (Bonus points go here if you also get to hang out with Rob at the same time as part of like a family BBQ or something.)
The image in my head of my Day O’ Fun with Rex is quite vivid as I’ve imagined it many times. In addition to the Bud heavies and eating london broil and pork chops with our bare hands in his backyard, we’d also talk freely and bond man-to-man, especially as the empty beer can count piled up. Among the topics we’d discuss would obviously be football, beer, fights we’ve been in, fights we’ve watched, how much we hate Tom Brady, how much we hate Mark Sanchez, how much we hate Gary Myers, things to do in Oklahoma, and how much we love movies, specifically Terminator, Terminator II, and Under Siege. At the end of the day, we’d shotgun 2 more beers –each– and head our separate ways. I love Rex Ryan.
On the other hand, if you want to gel up your hair and hit up some upscale bars to meet ladies, then the answer is Mark Sanchez. The guy is rich, good-looking, and he has girls throwing themselves at him everywhere he goes, no matter how many interceptions he throws. Some might be tempted to say Antonio Cromartie here, but not me. At this point in his life, he’s married and has his act together, so I don’t think he’d be all that fun to party with, despite how much I love him as a player. If you wanna say Cro from “back-in-the-day”, then I still say no. Back In The Day Cro seems like the kind of guy that would ask you to hit up the bars with him just so he can get someone to drive him and then he’d ditch you after five minutes because he saw a girl in a skirt and couldn’t control himself. So yeah, my answer is either Rex or Mark Sanchez, depending what you are looking for in your man date.
Who would be the worst Jet to party with? – Joe, New York
Tebow. That must be excruciating.
Who is your most hated Jet? – Chris D., Old Bridge, NJ
Of all-time it would probably be Doug Brien, because seriously screw that guy. Second place is Brett Favre, but that was because I hated him for years prior to him coming here. I started to warm up to him halfway through 2008, but then he crushed my hopes and dreams and was somehow able to make me hate him more than ever with the way he closed out that season. I hate Brett Favre to this day. Other players in contention for this honor are Drew Coleman, Justin McCareins, David Barrett, Rick Mirer, Vernon Gholston, Calvin Pace, and Bubby Brister. There’s still time for you to join the list, Vlad Ducasse, don’t you worry!
What Jets players do you think have used Performance Enhancing Drugs? – Dan, Manhattan
You mean besides Calvin Pace, who was caught using them and still managed to suck? Ok, well I’m going to leave off any current Jets players here, so if Laron Landry signs with the Bills or something in a few weeks, we can re-visit this question. But for now I’ll just go over some recent former Jets I suspect of being dirty: Vernon Gholston, Wayne Hunter, Vernon Gholston, Justin McCareins, Vernon Gholston, Thomas Jones, Victor Hobson, and Vernon Gholston. I just wish they had the same effect on ol’ Vern as they did on Lattimer from The Program. Maybe then he would have gotten a “place at the table” on the starting defense instead of just becoming a punchline for a thousand jokes.
Speaking of Lattimer, I wish more sports movies were as open about steroid abuse as The Program was, so that they were more realistic. I tweeted about this recently, but was there a bigger steroid abuser around than Willie Mays Hayes of Major League fame? We should have known roids were a major problem in baseball back in ’93 when he showed up with 20 lbs. of extra muscle and went from a weak groundball hitter into a big time power hitter over the course of one offseason. Same goes for Rick “Wild Thing” Vaughn, who went off the roids after his rookie year, lost 10-12 mph on his fastball, then magically regained his heater during the playoffs. Nothing suspicious there, Rick! Even Ray Lewis did a better job of hiding it the past few years.
Just for the hell of it, here are my Top 11 Sports Movie Performance Enhancing Drug Users:
Steve Lattimer, The Program Willie Mays Hayes, Major League 2 Spike Hammersmith, Little Giants Rocky Balboa, Rocky IV Ivan Drago, Rocky IV Rick Vaughn, Major League 1 and 2 Henry Rowengartner, Rookie of the Year Marla Hooch, A League of Their Own Fulton Reed, Might Ducks 1 and 2 The Bad Guy in Bloodsport J.D. McCoy, Friday Night Lights (TV)
If Mark Sanchez had a mailbag day on Twitter, how many death threats would he get? – NyJetPrime
The answer is more than there should be of course, because even if there’s one, that’s about five too many. If you find yourself in a position where you’re threatening to kill a professional athlete on Twitter, you shouldn’t be allowed to be a member of society. You should be put on a raft and sent out to sea, but that’s beside the point. In all honesty, I don’t think there’d be all that many death threats, probably just a few. There’d be far more people just going on stupid rants and asking questions that they think are hilarious like “How bad do you suck at football?!” and “Rex must love your feet right? lolz”. In other words, it would look just like the comments section on ProFootballTalk.
Who would win in a bar brawl between John Idzik and Woody Johnson? – Steve, Boston, England
Woody Johnson definitely seems like the kind of guy that would get drunk off one and a half appletinis and grow some massive beer muscles in a bar. I can totally picture him sitting on his stool in a drunken stupor with his little Jets hat watching NFL Live or whatever on the bar TV and getting all pissed off when he hears someone say something negative about the Jets.
John Idzik, on the other hand, seems like the kind of guy who would do whatever it took to avoid a confrontation, but if you pushed him hard enough he would snap and do some kind of crazy pressure point hold that would have you pass out in 0.4 seconds, while simultaneously wetting your pants. I guess the answer to this question comes down to whether or not Woody is allowed to cheat and call in his security guards for reinforcements. If he’s not, then I’d have to go Idzik all the way.
How many sexual partners do you think Mark Sanchez has had? – Anonymous
The asker of this question asked to be anonymous because it’s a pretty creepy question, but one that needs to be answered! Let’s break this down logically. Mark Sanchez is 26 years and 3 months old, give or take a few weeks. He’s been a professional athlete for four years now, made many, many, many millions of dollars, and has been a celebrity in New York, the greatest city in the world. Prior to that, he spent four years as a quarterback and highly-touted recruit at USC and lived in sunny California, where he was also a celebrity and probably had girls throwing themselves at him pretty much every day. And let’s not pretend like he wasn’t the coolest, most awesome guy at his high school either. That’s 10+ years of being “the man” for a good looking star athlete that has had millions of dollars for the past four of those years. Actually he probably made his first million at USC with Pete Carroll, but that’s neither here nor there.
On the flip side, a lot of that time was spent practicing and focusing on football, so it wasn’t all fun and games. He also knows he has to be extremely careful, because as a celebrity, the smallest slip up can ruin his entire reputation. It’s a fine line a guy like Sanchez has to walk. I feel so bad for him. Anyway, I’m gonna guess 85.
if you could put Scott Pioli and Mike Tannenbaum in any position on a team, what would it be and why? – Hans
If you mean on the field, I think they’d make an extremely hilarious field goal kicker/holder combo. I don’t even care which of them would be which.
Off the field, I think Tannenbaum would make a great addition to the front office as special assistant to the GM. If I were the GM I’d totally want someone like him around so I can bounce ideas off him. Any time he felt adamantly about a signing or draft pick, I’d know I should do the exact opposite and I’d be doing something great. As for Pioli, that guy sucks. I’d hire him to be around at all times just so I can slap him in the face every time I get mad.
RelatedCLOSE President Obama told reporters that some CIA officials who interrogated suspects after the 9/11 attacks crossed the line into torture.
President Obama (Photo11: Susan Walsh, AP)
President Obama said Friday that some CIA officials who interrogated suspects after the 9/11 attacks "crossed a line" into torture.
"We did a whole lot of things that were right, but we tortured some folks," Obama said while discussing a forthcoming Senate report on enhanced interrogation techniques.
"We did some things that were contrary to our values."
During a brief news conference, Obama also criticized congressional Republicans for adjourning without agreement on a border bill and indicated he would soon take executive action to address the influx of migrant children from Central America.
"While they're out on vacation, I'm going to have to make some tough choices to meet the challenge, with or without Congress," Obama said.
MORE: House GOP moves ahead on revised border bill
Obama also told reporters:
• He has "full confidence" in CIA Director John Brennan, despite the admission that his agency improperly accessed Senate computers during a congressional investigation of disputed interrogation techniques.
Obama has condemned those techniques as torture before, but his administration has not sought prosecution of possible offenders. The president said Friday that people should remember all the pressure put on national security teams after 9/11, and "it's important for us not to feel too sanctimonious in retrospect about the tough job that those folks had."
• There will be an effective federal response to any threat from the Ebola virus, and that precautions are being taken ahead of next week's U.S.-African Leaders Summit in Washington, D.C.
• The United States will work to restore a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas that ended shortly after it began Friday, but "trying to put that back together is going to be challenging" at best.
"There's a lot of anger and there's a lot of despair... it's a volatile mix," Obama said. "But we have to keep trying."
He demanded that Palestinians release an Israeli soldier kidnapped during fighting Friday.
• He disputes the notion that the United States is losing influence on world affairs. Obama said that although the U.S. remains the world's most powerful nation, it "still does not control everything around the world." The conduct of world affairs, he said, is "not neat" and "not smooth."
Obama defended Secretary of State John Kerry in his Middle East efforts.
RELATED: Israeli soldier feared captured as Gaza truce fails
RELATED: Teams find human remains at Ukraine crash site
• A new labor report says the economy has created more than 200,000 jobs for six straight months for the first time since 1997.
"The good news is the economy clearly is getting stronger," though things would be even better if Congress acted on more of his proposals, Obama said.
The immigration issue gave Obama another chance to mock House Republicans for plans to sue him over executive actions he has taken in implementing the health-care law.
Though Republicans want to take him to court over some executive actions, Obama noted that some GOP members also want him to take executive action with regard to dealing with the increase of migrant children from Central America.
Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Obama "has been completely AWOL" when it comes to working with Republicans on an immigration compromise plan.
"Senate Democrats have left town without acting on his request for a border supplemental," Steel said. "Right now, House Republicans are the only ones still working to address this crisis."
After Friday, Congress will be on recess for the rest of August.
Obama said he would oppose any attempt to roll back a 2012 order that deferred deportations of young people who have been brought into the country illegally as children.
House Republicans "are not even trying to actually solve the problem," Obama said, blasting them for "extreme" proposals that would never pass the Democratic Senate.
Last month, Obama proposed a $3.7 billion budget supplement to address problems on the border. The Senate debated a plan a billion dollars cheaper but could not pass it and adjourned shortly before Obama's news conference. The GOP-led House failed to pass a bill Thursday night but continued to debate a less costly plan as Obama spoke.
Without the prospect of agreement between the House and Senate, Obama said his administration will have to re-allocate funds to meet growing needs on the border while depriving other programs.
"We've run out of money," he said.
Re-allocation has to be done to make sure "basic functions" get done, Obama said, "whether it's making sure that these children are properly housed or making sure that we've got enough immigration judges to process their cases."
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1rWYVbZOur benevolent overlords at Apple have a fickle history of what they do and do not allow us to have on the App Store. While apps like Audiobus had a rough path to approval, and beloved classics like Cantor were stripped from legitimacy, Cupertino is quite alright with this SoundBoost bullshit.
I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this scum on my daily swim through new iTunes apps. Here is an app that lets you pay real money for SoundCloud plays and downloads. The developer also has apps on iTunes for fake Twitter followers and YouTube views. As a content producer this shit really irks me. It's already hard to get your songs and YouTube videos noticed, but shit like this makes it much harder for real content to rise to the top. Artificially inflating views and likes has a big impact on discovery. Every content producer should be furious with this. Think about the algorithms that SoundCloud and YouTube use to serve up recommended related media. I know from personal experience that "Likes" on YouTube play a big role in whether a video will show in related videos lists. I'm seriously disappointed to see Apple allowing this in their walled garden. If they're going to moderate what apps we're allowed to have, they should at least keep deleterious apps out.Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
Oct. 14, 2014, 2:01 PM GMT / Updated Oct. 14, 2014, 1:56 PM GMT
A 10-year-old boy in Pennsylvania has been arrested and charged with criminal homicide in the slaying of an elderly woman.
The Damascus Township, Pennsylvania, boy was visiting his grandfather's home on Saturday morning when Helen Novak, 90, was killed. The boy's grandfather was a caretaker for Novak, the Wayne County District Attorney's office said in a news release.
The child's mother told police that afternoon that her son said he had gone into Novak's room, and Novak yelled at him. The boy "got mad, lost his temper and grabbed a cane and put it around Novak's throat," the news release said. According to an affidavit, the boy told police he pulled Novak down on the bed, held the cane to her throat, and punched her multiple times. He then found his grandfather and told him Novak was bleeding.
An autopsy Monday ruled Novak's death a homicide, and found blunt force trauma to her neck. The boy is being held with no bail and has been charged with homicide as an adult. He is scheduled for a preliminary court hearing next Wednesday.
IN-DEPTH
Police Charge Boy, 10, With Criminal Homicide
SOCIAL
— Elizabeth ChuckPHOTOS: Scenes From San Bernardino, Calif.
At least 14 people are dead and 17 wounded after a shooting Wednesday morning in San Bernardino, Calif.
The violent day ended with a police chase and shootout and the deaths of two suspects: Syed Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 27, who were responsible for the attack at the Inland Regional Center, according to San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan.
Follow the Two-Way blog for the latest information. Here are images of Wednesday's events:
toggle caption Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
toggle caption Rick Loomis/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
toggle caption Rick Loomis/LA Times via Getty Images
toggle caption Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
toggle caption David McNew/Getty Images
toggle caption Jae C. Hong/AP
toggle caption Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images
Enlarge this image toggle caption Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
toggle caption Rick Loomis/LA Times via Getty Images
Enlarge this image toggle caption Chris Carlson/AP Chris Carlson/AP
Enlarge this image toggle caption Jae C. Hong/AP Jae C. Hong/AP
Enlarge this image toggle caption Patrick T. Fallon/AFP/Getty Images Patrick T. Fallon/AFP/Getty ImagesDean Baker is annoyed at Robert Samuelson, not for the first time, and with reason. The idea of invoking Japan, of all places, to justify fears that stimulus leads to inflation or asset bubbles is just bizarre. And while there is much shaking of heads about Japanese debt, the ill-effects if any of that debt are by no means obvious.
But what remains true is that Japan has run budget deficits for many years while delivering what appears on the surface to be very disappointing economic performance. What’s the story there?
My answer would run in two parts.
First, you should never make comments on Japanese growth or lack thereof without taking demography into account. Japan has low fertility and low immigration; this has translated into a dramatically aging population and a declining working-age population. So what does Japan’s performance look like if you calculate real GDP per working-age adult? (In the picture below I define working-age as 15-64; this is one case in which you DO NOT WANT to look at FRED, which defines working age as 16+ and therefore takes no account of aging).
Photo
I’ve used a log scale, so you can view vertical distances as percentage changes. If we look at growth from the early 1990s to the business cycle peak in 2007, we have growth of about 1.2% per year. That’s actually not bad; you can argue that demographically adjusted, the whole tale of Japanese stagnation is a myth.
What is true is that there were two long periods of depressed output relative to trend, one in the mid-1990s and another, much worse, between 1997 and 2007. And one other thing: Japanese monetary policy was still up against the zero lower bound in 2007, leaving it no room to counter the Great Recession, and hence leaving Japan open to a deep slump when exports plunged.
So how do we think about this problem? Here’s my take. Japan has pretty much spent the past 20 years in a liquidity trap; as I’ve been explaining for years, one way to understand such traps is that they happen when, even at a zero real interest rate, the amount that people would want to save at full employment exceeds the amount they would be willing to invest, also at full employment:
Photo
Why is Japan in this situation? A debt overhang from the 1980s bubble surely started the process; but surely it’s reasonable to suggest that the demography also contributes, since a declining working-age population depresses the demand for investment.
What you need in this situation is a negative real interest rate — which means that you need some expected inflation, because nominal rates face the zero lower bound.
But Japanese policy has never sought to achieve this. Deficit spending has put part, but only part, of the excess desired private saving to work; this has mitigated the slump, but not produced a booming economy, except perhaps briefly circa 2007. And the Bank of Japan has always pulled back on monetary policy when the economy looks better, instead of doing what it should, which is to keep the pedal to the metal until the inflation rate is solidly into positive territory.
The point is that as an analytical matter, Japan’s experience is perfectly consistent with an IS-LM type story, with nothing in there to suggest that fiscal stimulus has somehow backfired; stimulus has done exactly what you’d expect given its limited size and the refusal to take the opportunity to break out of the liquidity trap.
What Abenomics seems to be is an attempt, finally, to do what should have been done long ago: combine temporary fiscal stimulus with a real effort to move inflation up.
Oh, and what about the US relevance? We are, for the time being, in the same situation diagrammed above. What I think you can argue is that because we don’t share Japan’s demographic challenge, our liquidity trap is probably temporary, the product of an episode of deleveraging. So in our case fiscal stimulus is much more likely to serve as a bridge to a revived era of normal macroeconomics. That said, I welcome efforts by the Fed to modestly raise inflation expectations, and would like to see more.
So, is Japan a cautionary tale? Yes, but not the tale everyone tells. Its performance isn’t that bad given the shortage of Japanese; and it’s a tale of fiscal and monetary policy that have been too cautious, not of stimulus that failed.Real Madrid Won't be able to play for Castilla
At just 17, Achraf Hakimi will be unable to play for Real Madrid Castilla again until he turns 18 this November, though he could still feature in the unlikely case Real Madrid's appeal is successful.
The defender played as a right-back during Zinedine Zidane's North American tour and has been called up for the Moroccan national team, though has yet to receive his debut.
Out of the 39 affected Real youngsters, Castilla coach Santiago Solari will have to worry about four in particular - Enzo Zidane, Luca Zidane, Alex Craninx, and Hakimi.
Given the start in two of Castilla's three league games so far, Hakimi's may prove the most difficult to overcome until he is allowed to play again.Looking for news you can trust?
Subscribe to our free newsletters.
When we first discussed working on a story about how California leads the pack on large-scale alternative energy projects, photographer Jamey Stillings immediately came to mind.
Stillings began photographing the Ivanpah Solar project in October 2010, with a flyover of the the Mojave Desert. He photographed the land that would be transformed into the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, the largest solar plant in the world. Construction on the Ivanpah solar project ended in 2014, the same year Stillings published his work—more than three years of aerial photography of the site—as a book, The Evolution of Ivanpah Solar (Steidl).
Stillings has since continued documenting alternative-energy projects in California and other states in a larger project called Energy in the American West. Below are a few images from the Ivanpah project and some of the other alternative-energy sites he’s photographed in California.When Arrow got its hands on Task Force X, fans were excited to see part of DC comics lore on the show. Then the Suicide Squad movie got announced, and Arrow very quickly had to stop using the characters. Fans have long assumed the movie killed Arrow’s plans for the team, but apparently the movie was responsible for their appearance in the first place.
Another part of Greg Berlanti’s extensive Vulture interview released this week saw the producer discuss how the TV shows can be a proving grounds for the movies and for comics characters to be considered for live-action. According to Berlanti, Task Force X was brought onto the show at Warner Bros.’ request, in order to familiarize people with the characters before the movie began:
To what extent are the comics R&D for the TV and movie properties? Does DC Comics president Geoff Johns come to you and say, “Hey, here’s something we tried out in a comic. Let’s try it here”? Sometimes, or he has other executives mention that to us. They said to us a year and a half before they started developing Suicide Squad, “Will you guys put [a version of] the Suicide Squad in your show? Because we want to have it as a film at some point.” It also happened with Geoff when Geoff and Andrew [Kreisberg] and I were creating Flash.They were both really huge fans of Cisco Ramon, [also known as] Vibe, and had written a Vibe comic [in 2013] to try and bring him back. They said, “Could we please have Vibe on the show?”
Advertisement
This is somewhat unexpected, given how much WB/DC has made it clear they want to keep their show and movie universe very separate. But it’s interesting that they were only really added as a test run for what ended up being a radically different take on Task Force X.
I guess if a DC character suddenly appears on Arrow, Flash, Supergirl, or Legends of Tomorrow only to just as quickly vanish, you can expect them to get a DC movie in the not so distant future.The Art of Cookery made Plain and Easy is a cookbook by Hannah Glasse (1708–1770) first published in 1747. It was a bestseller for a century after its first publication, dominating the English-speaking market and making Glasse one of the most famous cookbook authors of her time. The book ran through at least 40 editions, many of them were copied without explicit author consent. It was published in Dublin from 1748, and in America from 1805.
Glasse said in her note "To the Reader" that she used plain language so that servants would be able to understand it.
The 1751 edition was the first book to mention trifle with jelly as an ingredient; the 1758 edition gave the first mention of "Hamburgh sausages" and piccalilli, while the 1774 edition of the book included one of the first recipes in English for an Indian-style curry. Glasse criticised French influence of British cuisine, but included dishes with French names and French influence in the book. Other recipes use imported ingredients including cocoa, cinnamon, nutmeg, pistachios and musk.
The book was popular in the Thirteen Colonies of America, and its appeal survived the American War of Independence, with copies being owned by Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington.
Book [ edit ]
The Art of Cookery was the dominant reference for home cooks in much of the English-speaking world in the second half of the 18th century and the early 19th century, and it is still used as a reference for food research and historical reconstruction. The book was updated significantly both during her life and after her death.
Hannah Glasse's signature at the top of the first chapter of her book, 6th Edition, 1758, in an attempt to reduce plagiarism
Early editions were not illustrated. Some posthumous editions include a decorative frontispiece, with the caption
The FAIR, who's Wise and oft consults our BOOK,
And thence directions gives her Prudent Cook,
With CHOICEST VIANDS, has her Table Crown'd,
And Health, with Frugal Ellegance is found.
Some of the recipes were plagiarised, to the extent of being reproduced verbatim from earlier books by other writers.[1] To guard against plagiarism, the title page of, for example, the sixth edition (1758) carries at its foot the warning "This BOOK is published with his MAJESTY's Royal Licence; and whoever prints it, or any Part of it, will be prosecuted". In addition, the first page of the main text is signed in ink by the author.
The first edition of the book was published by Glasse herself, funded by subscription, and sold (to non-subscribers) at Mrs. Ashburn's China Shop.[2]
Contents [ edit ]
Chapter 1: Of Roasting, Boiling, &c.
Chapter 2: Made Dishes.
Chapter 3: Read this Chapter, and you will find how expensive a French Cook's Sauce is.
Chapter 4: To make a Number of pretty little Dishes fit for a Supper, or Side-Dish, and little Corner-Dishes for a Great Table; and the rest you have in the Chapter for Lent.
Chapter 5: Of Dressing Fish.
Chapter 6: Of Soops and Broths.
Chapter 7: Of Puddings.
Chapter 8: Of Pies.
Chapter 9: For a Fast-Dinner, a Number of good Dishes, which you may make use of for a Table at any other Time.
Chapter 10: Directions for the Sick.
Chapter 11: For Captains of Ships.
Chapter 12: Of Hogs Puddings, Sausages, &c.
Chapter 13: To pot and make Hams, &c.
Chapter 14: Of Pickling.
Chapter 15: Of making Cakes, &c.
Chapter 16: Of Cheesecakes, Creams, Jellies, Whipt Syllabubs, &c.
Chapter 17: Of Made Wines, Brewing, French Bread, Muffins, &c.
Chapter 18: Jarring Cherries, and Preserves, &c.
Chapter 19: To make Anchovies, Vermicella, Catchup, Vinegar; and to keep Artichokes, French Beans, &c.
Chapter 20: Of Distilling |
you enough!
Attest Media for the video productionSign #4,682 that the Senate and Obama aren't serious about entitlement reform
In July, the Congressional Budget Office put out yet another report showing that the U.S. federal debt is growing unsustainably. The biggest reason for the growth, which has already slowed the U.S. economy and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future, is entitlement spending. Yet members of Congress, especially in the Senate, appear eager and willing to avoid their responsibility to reform entitlements, particularly Social Security and Medicare. While both parties have used tremendous rhetoric about reforming both programs since 2010, Democratic unwillingness to pass a budget has been matched by Republican plans that tiptoe around the problem.
Even the allegedly conservative budget plan put out by the GOP-controlled House won't balance the budget for years, provides only general guidance on Social Security reform, and fails to begin Medicare reform in a timely manner. And yet this is the plan that has the most support of any being discussed on Capitol Hill. Things look unlikely to change in light of the Senate's approval of Shaun Donovan to head the White House's budget office – the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Who is Donovan? He was the secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) from 2009 until this week, when he was sworn in as the head of OMB. In July, he was voted by the Senate to head OMB, despite a record of incompetence and corruption at HUD and a complete lack of knowledge about the federal budget and entitlements. Among other sins, Donovan headed up HUD when it failed two straight annual audits. He is also under investigation for using illegally accessed funds to pay a consultant for three years, which, as one Hill aide told me, means that “we could see the OMB director simultaneously in office and in jail.” Donovan also failed the smell test when it came to competence on Social Security, Medicare, and the federal budget in general. As noted by Senator Jeff Sessions, a Republican from Alabama, Donovan has “not written any papers or given any talks or lectures that specifically lay out a comprehensive plan for Medicare or Social Security.” Furthermore, Donovan regurgitated talking points when questioned by Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) about the Social Security Trust Fund. Rather than answer a few simple questions from Johnson, Donovan chose to dodge. Johnson ended up opposing the nomination of Donovan because, as he told me, “Shaun Donovan was not... truthful with the American public.” Clearly, the president of the United States is not serious about entitlement reform if the top man at his budget office – which puts together the president's budget each year – doesn't know anything about effective organization or entitlement reform. Yet Obama had the gall to say that OMB would be led by “a proven, effective leader.” Likewise, it was the Senate that sent Donovan to OMB, with more than half of Republicans supporting his nomination as well as all voting Democrats. While several top Republicans, including Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and John Cornyn of Texas, opposed Donovan's nomination, it is absolutely terrifying that over 20 Republican senators thought their constitutional duty to give “advice and consent” for Obama's nominee included putting such an incapable person in a top office. What does all of this show? First, as noted above, Obama isn't serious about entitlement reform. Second, many in the GOP are willing to continue the dog-and-pony show of talking about entitlement reform without putting their votes where their mouths are. And finally, Senate Democrats are willing to absolve themselves of fiscal responsibility because the president is in their party. Perhaps 2015 and 2016 will bring about real entitlement reform, which this country desperately needs. But after what happened earlier this month, there's plenty of room for cynicism.Neanderthal Dinner: Reindeer With A Side Of Cannibalism
Enlarge this image toggle caption Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences
They were Neanderthals living roughly 40,000 years ago in a cave in Goyet, Belgium — and they were eaten by their own kind. That's the finding of a recent study published in Scientific Reports. The authors report that Neanderthal bones found in this cave show signs of being butchered, cracked to extract marrow, then used to shape tools.
These are undeniable signs of cannibalism, says anthropologist and study author Hélène Rougier of California State University, Northridge.
Though archaeologists have found evidence of Neanderthal cannibalism before (in Spain, France and in Croatia), this study is the first to show the practice in northern Europe. The discovery provides more fodder for a longstanding debate between anthropologists over how Neanderthals treated their dead and whether or not they occasionally ate them. Because the Goyet cave is located close to other archaeological sites that show no evidence of cannibalism, the authors say Neanderthal practices probably varied.
The bones that Rougier and her colleagues studied were all excavated from the cave during the 19th and 20th centuries, and put away in museum collections. Using a slew of tests, including DNA and other chemical analyses of the bones, they were able to determine that the remains belonged to five Neanderthals – four adults and one child. There were also remains from butchered animals like reindeer and horses.
Enlarge this image toggle caption A.C. Pottier/Préhistomusem de Ramiou A.C. Pottier/Préhistomusem de Ramiou
The Neanderthal bones seemed to be scarred in the same way as the animal bones. There were thin slashes from stone tools and "percussion marks," likely created by hitting the bones to extract the inner goo of fatty marrow. Other markings on the bones suggest that once the Neanderthals were finished eating, they used the bones as tools to sharpen the edges of stone tools.
Now the question gnawing researchers is: What drove Neanderthals to cannibalism? Was the practice a religious ritual for those who died naturally, convenient midnight snack, or a desperate attempt to stay alive during lean times?
"That's a tough one," says human evolutionary biologist Tim White of the University of California, Berkeley, who was not involved in the study. "Neanderthals were culturally highly sophisticated." Different groups had different burial practices. Scientists have found examples of burials but also of leaving the dead out to the elements. And while some Neanderthal bones show no sign of butchery, others do.
Even the Neanderthal communities in Belgium differed from each other in how they treated their dead, says Rougier. In a site in Spy, Belgium, she says, Neanderthals buried two of their own. "Now we need to try to understand what that means."
In Spain, at another Neanderthal site, researchers found evidence of malnutrition from tooth remains in cannibalized bones. This is a clue that starvation may have driven them to cannibalism. Desperate straits might have been in play at Goyet, Rougier says, but without clear evidence of malnutrition, she can't be sure. These Neanderthals might have simply been following a "waste not, want not" philosophy, or even fulfilling a religious rite, she says.
Unraveling the motivations behind different death rituals and burial practices is difficult, White notes, because bones and scant archaeological artifacts rarely reveal intentions. For example, the funerary practices of the Anasazi, a group that lived in the Four Corners region of the U.S. hundreds of years ago, have also befuddled archaeologists, he says. The Anasazi often buried their dead with pottery and jewelry. But during the same time period, they occasionally ate their dead. Scientists still don't understand the reasons for this variation.
Uncovering the motivations behind cannibalism in Neanderthals, who endured almost 500,000 years throughout Eurasia, is impossible in White's view. "These are very cold cases," he says. "And we don't have a time machine."
Evolutionary anthropologist Steven Churchill of Duke University, also not involved in the study, says the paper is a valuable contribution to the study of Neanderthals. It suggests that Neanderthals across Europe at least on occasion ate their dead. And it forces anthropologists to confront the less delicate dietary practices of our ancestors, he says.
"I think humans like to think humans are special and our... close relatives are special," says Churchill. That's why traditionally, even anthropologists have been uncomfortable with cannibalism in the family tree.
But accepting that our Neanderthal cousins occasionally ate their own kind doesn't imply that they were brutish, says Rougier. It could simply mean they had a complex set of rituals involving their dead. "[Cannibalism] scares people," she says, but "it doesn't mean that Neanderthals weren't a complex culture. We cannot treat them too simply."Old Hawaiian Menus Tell Story Of Local Fish And Their Demise
Enlarge this image toggle caption New York Public Library New York Public Library
In the early to mid-1900s, the islands of Hawaii were a far-away, exotic destination. People who managed to get there often kept mementos of that journey including kitschy menus from Hawaiian fine dining restaurants and hotels like like Trader Vic's and Prince Kuhio's.
Now these old menus are serving a purpose beyond colorful relics from the past. Kyle Van Houtan, an ecologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, says he's found a scientific purpose for the menus.
Years ago, he traveled to Hawaii to study sea turtles. He wanted to know where they ended up. In a shark's belly? Or as turtle soup?
One day he got one of those lightning-bolt ideas: Maybe turtle would show on old restaurant menus? Over time, he collected 500 menus.
"People had just kept them because they were beautiful," Van Houtan says. "They were memorabilia of grandma's trip and grandpa's to Hawaii in 1915."
He also combed through menus from galleries, a museum — even the Las Vegas Public Library. But Van Houtan came up empty handed. There were no sea turtles on the menus. Ever.
Enlarge this image toggle caption New York Public Library New York Public Library
What the ecologist did happen upon was a different marine discovery. After World War II, a lot of the locally caught fish were bottom feeding and reef dwellers. Van Houtan says the types of fish that lived close to shore started to disappear from menus.
"Fish like snapper and flounder and grouper," he said. "They really took a nosedive."
So, Van Houtan used fisheries data combined with his menus to calculate this interesting tidbit: Local fish numbers had dropped to about a tenth of what they once were.
"These are very desirable fish," he said. "They used to be on the menus we see them on there in the 1930s and 1940s, but they're not in any of the menus today."
Fast-forward 20 years and swanky 60s eateries like the Tropics had replaced local fish with deep ocean fish, like tuna and swordfish. Or Maine lobster, flown in from the mainland, washed down with 85-cent martinis.
There were still a few quirky island offerings, too. Apparently, tourists couldn't get enough of Hawaiian pickled onions -- not so surprising for 1960s palates.
Aside from sour appetizers, there was real scientific value in Van Houtan's fish forensics.
Here's why: Fisheries records in Hawaii were nonexistent until about 1950, and pretty spotty for years after. With these menus and fish entrees, Van Houtan was able to chronicle a crash in local fisheries and a shift to deep ocean fish.
True, changing tastes might have also played a role, but clearly something — overfishing, pollution or both — had hurt local fish populations.
Enlarge this image toggle caption Kyle Van Houtan/NOAA Kyle Van Houtan/NOAA
Van Houtan published his findings in the journal Frontiers in Ecology. One of his coauthors is Loren McClenachan, an environmental scientist at Colby College in Maine. She did similar research on Caribbean fisheries, based on diaries.
"Travelers' [diaries] mostly, so early natural history diaries," McClenachan said. "I used a published diary from a pirate who traveled around the Caribbean in the 1600s."
McClenachan says other scientists are calling them now with ideas on how to mine menus for more information.
"For example, changes in price and... rarity," she said. "Did things get more expensive before they disappear?"
If that's the case, then the Hawaiian beach-side cocktail may be headed for extinction. That 85-cent martini in 1969 is now $14 in Waikiki.With Cliff Lee‘s injury, the Phillies will call up RHP David Buchanan. Buchanan was first drafted by the Mets in the 6th round of the 2009 draft out of Junior College, Buchanan didn’t sign. The Phillies draft Buchanan in the 7th Round of the 2010 draft and signed him for $125,000.
Minor League Career:
Coming into the draft Buchanan showed a fastball that sat 92-93 that could touch 95, and a slider with good movement. Buchanan struggled with his control in college and he lacked a changeup to give him a third pitch.
Buchanan moved through A-ball in his first season, spent all of 2012 in Reading (missing half the season with a finger injury), and split 2013 between Reading and Lehigh Valley. Overall across 5 minor league seasons Buchanan has pitched 502 innings with a 3.98 ERA 2.85 BB/9 and 5.72 K/9.
Arsenal:
On the mound Buchanan will bring a fastball that sits 90-93 but will touch 94. He generally keeps the ball down in the zone and can command it around the zone. The slider has been replaced by a curveball that shows some loopiness to it. The changeup sits in the low 80s, for the most part it is a straight change that is a fringy pitch, but occasionally he will show one with good sink and arm side fade.
Right Now:
Buchanan is going to show a fastball heavy approach that he can put in the zone, but he still struggles to paint the corners with it. He will generate a good amount of ground balls with the fastball but he is not going to miss a lot of bats. He has featured more changeups of late in Lehigh Valley as he works to get feel for the pitch, and he is going to need the pitch to keep hitters off the fastball. Right now Buchanan can give the Phillies back of the rotation innings until Cliff Lee gets back. He does struggle with inconsistency and can be prone to long ABs as he lacks a go to out pitch.
Going Forward:
It is hard to see Buchanan sticking as a starter with the Phillies going forward. The secondary arsenal needs a lot of refinement before he will be effective a second time through the league. However, given his current stuff Buchanan could fit into a bullpen as a middle reliever or long man. If he continues to gain feel for the good changeup and can use the curveball effectively he could stick in the back of the rotation as a #5 starter with a chance to be a #4 starter if everything breaks right.Israel Summons Ambassadors Of Countries That Voted In Favor Of U.N. Resolution
Enlarge this image toggle caption Abir Sultan/AP Abir Sultan/AP
In remarks at the start of his weekly cabinet meeting Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed "anger and frustration" over the U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
Israel summoned 10 ambassadors to Israel from countries that voted in favor of the resolution, as well as the U.S. ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro. Netanyahu escalated his criticism of the U.S. for abstaining, even accusing President Obama of orchestrating the resolution himself.
"From the information that we have, we have no doubt that the Obama administration initiated it, stood behind it, coordinated on the wording and demanded that it be passed," Netanyahu said in Hebrew.
He added the following in English:
"Over decades, American administrations and Israeli governments had disagreed about settlements, but we agreed that the Security Council was not the place to resolve this issue. We knew that going there would make negotiations harder and drive peace further away.
"And, as I told John Kerry on Thursday, friends don't take friends to the Security Council. I'm encouraged by the statements of our friends in the United States, Republicans and Democrats alike. They understand how reckless and destructive this U.N. resolution was, they understand that the Western Wall isn't occupied territory."
Netanyahu added that he looks forward to working with the new administration when it takes office next month.
President-elect Donald Trump has been a vocal critic of the U.S. abstention, tweeting Friday, "As to the U.N., things will be different after Jan. 20th."
NPR's Bill Chappell reported on Friday:
"In explaining the U.S. abstention, Ambassador Samantha Power said the move doesn't signal diminished U.S. support for Israel; she later added that the continued construction of settlements'seriously undermines Israel's security.' "Power said, 'The United States has been sending the message that the settlements must stop, privately and publicly, for nearly five decades.' "
Benjamin Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser to President Obama, told reporters on Friday that the administration "tried everything."
"Prime Minister Netanyahu had the opportunity to pursue policies that would have led to a different outcome today," Rhodes said. "Absent this acceleration of settlement activity, absent the type of rhetoric we've seen out of the current Israeli government, I think the United States likely would have taken a different view, because our preference is for there to be a credible peace process underway."
A U.N. spokesperson said in a statement that the secretary-general welcomed the adoption of the resolution, adding that it was a "significant step, demonstrating the Council's much needed leadership and the international community's collective efforts to reconfirm that the vision of two States is still achievable."Mexico City (AFP) - Mexico's government is warning its citizens to "take precautions" amid the "new reality" in the United States, after an undocumented mother was deported to her home country.
Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos was sent back to Mexico on Thursday, a day after she checked in for a routine visit at the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Phoenix, Arizona.
A 35-year-old mother of two US-born children, her deportation sparked protests outside the immigration office, according to US media.
"The case of Mrs Garcia de Rayos highlights the new reality that the Mexican community is experiencing in US territory with the stricter application of migration control measures," the Mexican foreign ministry said in a statement late Thursday.
"For this reason, the entire Mexican community is invited to take precautions and keep contact with its closest consulates to receive the necessary help to face this type of situation."
US President Donald Trump signed executive orders last month to build a wall along the US-Mexico border and speed up the removal of immigrants living illegally in the country.
Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto canceled a White House visit over Trump's insistence that his country will pay for the wall.
Pena Nieto also pledged $50 million to his country's consulates in the United States to increase legal assistance to Mexicans living in the northern neighbor.
The foreign ministry's statement said the consulates have "intensified their work to protect fellow nationals in anticipation the tightening of migration measures by authorities of this (US) country, as well as possible violations to constitutional precepts during such operations or absence of due process."Seattle has a long history of social struggle and revolutionary politics that spans many decades. The indigenous people resisted European colonization in several wars in the 1800’s, including the Puget Sound War. Labor struggles have been a huge part of the history of this city, as have been immigration issues, especially in Chinese, Japanese, and other Asian communities. In the 1960’s and 70’s, the second strongest chapter of the Black Panther Party — after Oakland — was built here.
Big respect to all the warriors that came before us! Check out these historical images of Seattle that have been juxtaposed with the modern cityscape for some background:
“I love this waterfront shot from the 1890′s taken near the foot of present-day Broad Street. The shoreline was further inland before industry reshaped Seattle’s waterfront. Many Native Americans who remained in Seattle after white settlers arrived lived in shacks on the waterfront, including Chief Seattle’s daughter, Angeline (Kick-is-om-lo in Lushootseed). Renting a dugout canoe was a common way to get around the waterfront, or to West Seattle.”
“A lot of cities across America had “Hoovervilles,” shanty towns that sprang up after the Great Depression hit. Seattle was no exception. The future home of Terminal 46 was put on hold as the economy worsened, and the land was used for makeshift shacks, mostly occupied by single men. Seattle’s Hooverville had about 1,000 residents at its peak, elected its own mayor and enforced hygiene codes. By the time WWII began, the makeshift town was burned and bulldozed, but the site was used for nearly a decade before then.”
“A couple of Seattle’s iconic Duck tour bus-boat-things headed into a labor demonstration on 7th street in 1919.”ISIS is losing ground. And as the group retreats, it’s sending women through the front lines to blow themselves up among enemy soldiers and...
ISIS is losing ground. And as the group retreats, it’s sending women through the front lines to blow themselves up among enemy soldiers and civilians. In July 2017, an Iraqi news network captured on video a female suicide bomber holding a baby moments before detonating her explosives in Mosul, killing them both and injuring several Iraqi soldiers.
Women suicide bombers befuddle us. The idea that a woman would kill herself in the service of some radical ideology violates a host of Western norms and expectations. In fact, women martyrs make sense in ISIS’s ideology — and clearly help the group advance its narrative.
Despite a profound expansion of Western women’s rights and privileges in recent decades, we still strongly associate women with the act of giving life. A Western journalist once described a female suicide bomber as having an explosive belt wrapped around “her womb.” The reporter obviously meant to emphasize the supposed unnaturalness of a woman becoming a killer instead of a mother.
Terrorism is performative. The actual victims are in some ways less important than the audience is. For ISIS, the audience is both local Iraqi and Syrian forces and the broader, American-led coalition. ISIS wants us to see the people we think of as most vulnerable in war zones — the people we are purportedly fighting ISIS to protect — literally self-destruct in an attack against our forces.
The terrorists weaponize the vulnerable in order to inflict greater psychological damage on their audience.
Of course, female bombers possess a direct tactical advantage, as well. Because of women’s presumed vulnerability and victimhood in war, soldiers are less likely to search them at security checkpoints. Male soldiers searching women is a risky move in counterinsurgency, as it risks alienating the local populace.
ISIS’s own ideology is another reason women bombers so startle and confuse Western observers. Islamic State claims to protect women’s “purity.” You’d think the group would keep women as far from the fighting as possible.
In that context, the seemingly increasing incidence of female suicide-attackers could be evidence of ISIS’s desperation. The group’s territory has been steadily shrinking. It’s lost Mosul in Iraq and could soon lose Ar Raqqa in Syria. Administering population centers allowed ISIS to argue it was a state. With no cities to govern, the group risks losing some of its relevance in the Middle East — even if it still is the right’s favorite bogeyman in the West.
In truth, ISIS has long welcomed female recruits. As of 2015, as many as 15 percent of Westerners traveling to Syria and Iraq to join ISIS were women. While many were following male husbands or relatives, others were going alone — some seeking to marry and others looking to fight.
The question of women’s role in jihad — when jihad is interpreted as physical, violent struggle — predates ISIS. Al Qaeda, Al Qaeda in Iraq, the Taliban and Palestinian, Chechen and Kashmiri militants have all wrestled with the question … and come to different conclusions.
They all pretty much agree that women play important supporting roles in violent jihad. Women have often been recruiters for these groups, tasked with reproducing, educating and encouraging future generations of fighters.
An ISIS suicide bomber holding a baby before detonating her bomb in Mosul in July 2017. Al Mawsleya T.V. capture
Likewise, militant groups agree that women can justifiably provide medical care, cook and perform other domestic tasks in support of fighters, often as wives of fighters.
Terror groups differ on whether women should take up arms — or offer themselves up as martyrs. Many clerics extol the concept of “defensive jihad” — a woman fighting to defend her homeland against invasion. In this line of reasoning, women possess a right to self-defense — one that trumps societal norms.
Some clerics have argued that women can engage in jihad with the permission of their male guardians. Others have said that jihad is a duty so integral to the faith that women don’t need permission to engage in it, just as they don’t need permission to pray or to give to charity.
The question of women’s participation in jihad became a key point of contention between the Al Qaeda core in Afghanistan and Al Qaeda in Iraq. Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, one of the leaders of AQI until his death in 2006, argued that women could take on more active roles in jihad. Ayman Al Zawahiri, Al Qaeda’s leader in Afghanistan, disagreed.
Interestingly, the men’s debate sparked a backlash among some female adherents of Al Qaeda, with women expressing disappointment in Al Zawahiri’s statements and even saying that he wasn’t the final authority on the question. Meanwhile, female suicide bombings in Iraq spiked. report this ad
That seemingly paradoxical form of empowerment isn’t new for the women of ISIS. Before the recent bombings, the group created the Al Khansaa brigade, a group of women in ISIS’s capital Ar Raqqa who essentially function as morality police. They patrol the streets, punishing anyone breaking ISIS’s strict rules regarding public morality. They also perform an essential security function — searching other women passing through security checkpoints.
Deploying women may reflect the caliphate’s desperation, but it’s also a deliberate act of propaganda. A woman bomber holding her child before blowing herself up sends a message. We are capable of greater psychological and physical violence than our enemies are.
Deploying women behind the front lines to enforce moral strictures communicates another narrative, one that pushes against Western claims of oppression by showing women as active participants in — and not just victims of — the caliphate.
As always in the war on terror, it’s not just about specific tactics. It’s about the narrative.See what I did there? Props to our friend @teammegan for alerting me to this, as I happened to miss yesterday’s first pitch in the Dodgers-Padres game while I waded through heavy traffic and struggled with a “failed connection” on my AtBat app on the way home from work.
In Los Angeles, it’s not uncommon to see celebrities throw out the first pitch at Dodgers games. But the guests yesterday surprised me a little bit. Fall Out Boy took over Dodger Stadium to promote the release of their new album, and even in doing research just now, nostalgia is kicking in hard.
Everybody remembers their first kiss, first day of school, and first Choco Taco. But most people also remember their first concert.
Mine was most definitely headlined by Fall Out Boy in 2006. Hawthorne Heights was there, too. And some crazy opener named Heroin. Or Crack. Something drug-related and terrifying.
And not only was FOB my first concert attended, it was my first concert regretted (though I did have a great time now that I think about it). Looking back, I’m not sure what turned me against them so hard. Maybe my friends stopped listening to them (WHAT?! I WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL, THESE THINGS HAPPEN!). Or maybe I didn’t realize the athletic significance to their lyrics (“Sugar, we’re goin’ down swingin’…” — joking, again. Obviously.).
Well, at least their CD’s never got the Good Charlotte treatment from my puberty-inspired hammer-smashing rage (now that I think about it, I was kind of an idiot in high school…). Either way, Megan loves Fall Out Boy and I’m glad she tipped me off to this. All sins can be forgiven if you wear a Dodger hat. Are you listening, Giants fans?
Also, looking at the box score from last night’s loss, I believe Pete Wentz was the only pitcher wearing a Dodgers cap to actually throw a pitch and not get rocked. My goodness that’s depressing.
– Jeremy Dorn (@Jamblinman)
Follow @3u3d on Twitter and like Three Up, Three Down on Facebook for all your 2013 MLB news!
AdvertisementsRUSSIA’S currency has dived this year: since January it has lost about 40% of its value against the dollar. To slow the rouble's fall, the central bank has been raising interest rates: yesterday it did it for the fifth time (the rate now stands at 10.5%). High interest rates are dragging on economic growth: Russia is on the verge of recession.
The central bank has also been buying roubles with its foreign-exchange reserves. They have fallen sharply this year (nearly 20%) but still seem gargantuan. According to the central-bank website, in November Russia had $419 billion-worth of reserves. Even after this year’s drop, only a handful of countries have bigger reserves than Russia.
Get our daily newsletter Upgrade your inbox and get our Daily Dispatch and Editor's Picks.
But Russia’s official figures do not tell the whole story. About $170 billion of its assets sit in two big wealth funds, the Reserve Fund (worth about $89 billion) and the National Wealth Fund (worth about $82 billion). But much of what is in these funds could prove inaccessible if called on to meet short-term financing needs.
Some people allege that the National Wealth Fund is tied up in long-term infrastructure projects, which mean that the fund is entirely illiquid. Meanwhile much of the Reserve Fund is used for buying equity in Russian state banks, which again makes those assets much less liquid than cash.
But how much is really accessible to the Kremlin is anyone’s guess. “In reality”, says Anders Aslund of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a think-tank, “Russia’s effective international reserves are only $203 billion.” Other economists, including an ex-finance minister of Russia, have come up with similar figures. People at the central bank dispute this fiercely, as do some credit-rating agencies. We have put our estimate in the chart. Like so much else in Russia, it is impossible to know for sure.When ISIS stormed through northern Iraq in February, it looted what was left of the Mosul Museum, which had already been raided during the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. The museum had been home to magnificent Assyrian sculptures as well archaeological finds from ancient Mesopotamia, an area often referred to as the cradle of civilization. In addition, ISIS members destroyed statues and monuments that had been standing in modern-day Iraq for some 2,000 years.
“The destruction of sites in the region is a tragedy and absolutely heart-breaking,” says Matthew Vincent, an archaeologist who has worked in neighboring Jordan.
Vincent is the co-founder of Project Mosul, which he and his research collaborator Chance Coughenour launched in order to try to salvage a piece of this history. The project’s goal is to digitally preserve the Mosul Museum’s heritage in the form of interactive 3-D scans, like the one below.
To create these 3-D scans, Project Mosul uses photogrammetry, a process of stitching together 2-D images that works similarly to human sight. Each one of our eyes perceives flat 2-D images and our brain uses the two images from each eye to create the 3-D view we perceive around us. Photogrammetry uses that same process, replacing our brains with computer algorithms and our eyes with hundreds or thousands of photographs. The photographs are mainly supplied by ordinary people who happen to have visited the museum or archaeological sites–locals, archaeologists, and tourists.
Eventually, Vincent hopes, they will be able to create a fully immersive online museum using interactive technologies. This future museum might involve a combination of 3-D models in Sketchfab with virtual reality displays like the Oculus Rift. Another option Vincent and Coughenour fantasize about are fully virtual “walk-in” rooms like UC San Diego’s StarCAVE.
“I think new technology makes it possible to preserve these objects despite having lost their physical reality,” says Vincent. “At the same time, allowing interactive displays that not only can show the artifact or monument, but give it the context of history can reshape what museums are. Museums can become livelier places through the mashup of 3-D models with linked data.”So-called 'free trade' agreements are continually advertised as creators of jobs, yet jobs are lost and wages decline once they go into effect.
As representatives of the 12 countries participating in the Trans-Pacific Partnership gather today in New Zealand to sign the agreement, the usual unsubstantiated claims are being put forth.
Why is this so? I mean beyond the obvious answer that such claims are propaganda in the service of corporate elites and financiers.
Corporate-funded 'think tanks' that pump out a steady barrage of papers making grandiose claims for 'free trade' deals that are relied on by the political leaders who push these deals require some data, no matter how massaged.
One organization prominent in this process is the Peterson Institute for International Economics, which has issued rosy reports in expectation of deals like the North America Free Trade Agreement - for example, it predicted 170,000 new jobs would be created in the US alone in 1995 and that the Mexican economy would grow by four to five percent annually under NAFTA.
A pocketful of mumbles
One way to look at this is that the Peterson Institute is to 'free trade' agreements as the Heartland Institute is to global warming. Heartland began as a Big Tobacco outfit issuing reports denying links between smoking and cancer.
As late as 1998, Heartland President Joe Bast claimed that there were "few, if any, adverse health effects" associated with smoking and boasted to a Phillip Morris executive that "Heartland does many things that benefit Philip Morris's bottom line, things that no other organization does."
Heartland later began specializing in global-warming denial, receiving $676,500 from Exxon Mobil alone between 1996 and 2006; after which it stopped identifying its contributors. Mr. Bast seems to have no shame, writing that "Most scientists do not believe human activities threaten to disrupt the Earth's climate" in an article describing global warming as a "scam". In fact, 97% of climate scientists agree that human activity is behind global warming.
It is this same attitude toward the truth that pervades papers predicting wondrous results from 'free trade' agreements. In contrast to the Peterson Institute's rosy projections, the first 20 years of NAFTA proved to be a lose-lose-lose proposition for Canada, Mexico and the United States:
Almost 5 million Mexican farmers have been displaced with inflation-adjusted wages in Mexico barely above the level of 1980;
US food prices have risen 67% since NAFTA took effect and two-thirds of displaced manufacturing workers in the US have been forced to take work with reduced wages;
and Canadians suffered drastic cuts in government benefits while their environmental laws were reversed in the wake of corporate challenges.
Rosy reports rest on ideology, not real world
The Peterson Institute is at it again, first claiming the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will result in gains of US$1.9 trillion, and in a new report once again making extravagant claims even if scaled back. In its latest report, the Institute claims there will be no net job losses, while annual income in the US would increase by $131 billion.
These sorts of predictions are routine, and not the product of any single corporate organization. How is it that, all actual experience to the contrary, these sorts of calculations are presented with a straight face?
The political economist Martin Hart-Landsberg, in his book Capitalist Globalization: Consequences, Resistance, and Alternatives, writes that economic models that presume wondrous benefits from 'free trade' agreements assume, inter alia:
There are only two inputs, capital and labor, which are able to move instantaneously but never cross national borders.
Total aggregate expenditures in each economy will be sufficient, and automatically adjust, to ensure full use of all resources.
Flexible exchange rates will prevent lowered tariffs from causing changes in trade balances.
Thanks to these starting points, Professor Hart-Landsberg writes, "this kind of modeling assumes a world in which liberalization cannot, by assumption, cause or worsen unemployment, capital flight or trade imbalances. Thanks to these assumptions, if a country drops its trade restrictions, market forces will quickly and effortlessly lead capital and labor to shift into new, more productive uses.
"And since trade always remains in balance, this restructuring will generate a dollar's worth of new exports for every dollar of new imports. Given these assumptions, it is no wonder that mainstream economic studies always produce results supporting ratification of free trade agreements."
Given the strong biases in favor of 'free trade' agreements, all the more skeptical of the TPP we may be when we see the tiny gains forecast by the World Bank. Vietnam is expected to see the biggest boost among the 12 TPP countries, according to the World Bank forecast - a 10% gain in gross domestic product cumulative through 2030. In other words, less than one percent per year. As a TechDirt summation of this report noted:
"So according to the World Bank's figures, the US will gain an extra 0.04% GDP per year on average, as a result of TPP; Australia an extra 0.07% annually, and Canada a boost of 0.12% per year."
If this is the best that promoters of corporate hegemony can come up with for the TPP, its likely effect will surely be dismal.
The vanishing 'gains'
Jane Kelsey, a New Zealand law professor who has long sounded the alarm on the TPP, notes that even the slightly larger gain forecast for that country would actually constitute a statistical blip that may or may not actually exist. She writes:
"[The] National [government]'s glitzy new 'TPP fact' page is bad wine repackaged in new bottles. Here's a few facts they don't tell you. The projected economic gains of 0.9% of GDP by 2030 are within their own margin of error |
5165 0 0 347252 GCiampini_TCAF_ReferenceLibrary-5206 https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/GCiampini_TCAF_ReferenceLibrary-5206-100x100.jpg https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/GCiampini_TCAF_ReferenceLibrary-5206.jpg https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/GCiampini_TCAF_ReferenceLibrary-5206.jpg 1024 683 https://torontoist.com/2015/03/tcaf-store-finds-permanent-home-in-reference-library/slide/gciampini_tcaf_referencelibrary-5206/ gciampini_tcaf_referencelibrary-5206 0 0
The TCAF store, the pop-up comic book and merchandise outlet that has operated in the Toronto Reference Library since early December, announced today that it will become a permanent fixture at 789 Yonge Street. The store unveiled a logo today designed by Howard the Duck writer and Sex Criminals artist Chip Zdarsky, and its new name, Page & Panel: The TCAF Shop.
Adjacent to the main entrance of the reference library, the almost-2000-square-foot shop will occupy a space close to its marquee event, the Toronto Comic Arts Festival. The annual Mother’s Day weekend event is one of the premier comic festivals of its kind in North America, and its growth has attracted cartoonists and publishers from around the world. The 2015 edition of TCAF will use three floors of programming and exhibition space at the library, an increase from two floors that’s designed to use newly available space at the library and give patrons more breathing room to browse various comics.
Festival managing director Miles Baker, who is also the manager of Page & Panel, says that as TCAF has grown, so too has the scope of the organization; It now does outreach missions to Japan and elsewhere as part of its mandate. But TCAF is still a registered not-for-profit, and its growing scale requires increased financial support.
This store is meant to provide that financial sustainability by selling books and merchandise. Some items available for purchase include Asterix figurines, Kate Beaton–designed mugs, literary tote bags, and prints of drawings of libraries from around the city. Baker says Page & Panel is also looking to produce its own merchandise, and points to the success of a tea towel designed by Beaton and wrapping paper designed by local cartoonist and illustrator John Martz.
Page & Panel also plans to host various comic-related events, and will host a launch and signing for the Toronto-centric anthology Monstrosity II tonight at 5:00 p.m.News of the affair between senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh and television anchor Amrita Rai has been the talking point in a highly-charged election environment. Now, a third voice has emerged in righteous indignation over the relationship, this time from within the family.
Rubina Sharma Singh, who is married to Digvijaya’s younger brother Lakshman, says she finds it “ironical” that he is involved with a woman who is nearly 30 years younger, not to mention that his own children are older than the partner he has chosen.
The ‘irony’ digs up an old wound for Rubina. In an exclusive interaction with ETPanache, she alleges that Digvijaya “created a lot of tension” over her marriage to Lakshman 13 years ago. First, because she is not a Rajput and second, because there is a 13-year age gap between the couple. “It was very painful and he (Digvijaya) made my life very difficult,” says Rubina, adding that he tried to create “a lot of unnecessary tension” between her and Lakshman’s two children from his first wife, who died long before they got married. Rubina, who is designer Rohit Bal’s niece, now lives in Bhopal where she works with cancer patients. Lakhshman Singh, originally a Congressman, had shifted to the BJP for a few years before returning to the Congress last year.
Rubina claims Digvijaya’s affair began while his wife was still battling cancer. “I am not against his relationship and I have no business to comment on it. But I find it very ironical that he is doing exactly what he was against 13 years ago,” she says.
What is more difficult for Rubina to digest is that Digvijaya has not apologised “for being so nasty” to her all these years. And on the way Singh’s relationship has been panned on social media, Rubina is unsparing. “No public figure should expect that their private life will not be talked about. You can’t pick and choose what people should know about you,” she says.
On her own relationship with Lakshman, Rubina says she got introduced to him through his wife Jagriti, and got to know him better after Jagriti died. “I share a beautiful, loving relationship with Lakshman’s children,” she says. Lakshman Singh refused to comment on the issue while Digvijaya could not be reached despite repeated attempts.I know many of you were expecting me to whip up another recap addressing how and why Portland tallied their 10th consecutive loss last night, but I need to pay my humble respects to the fiercest competitor of this sporting generation. In the 4th quarter of L.A.’s victory over Golden State, Kobe Bryant fell to the floor, writhing in pain with an apparent torn Achilles, while driving on Harrison Barnes. I’ve seen him do that move a thousand times before, as have all of us who have spent the past decade and a half cheering or booing his basketball feats, but this time his number was up. Kobe is scheduled for an MRI today to confirm the season ending injury.
And what a season it was. Even using the past tense right there was unsettling. Just two nights ago I spent the evening at my keyboard, bitterly tapping away with regard to his season high 47 points against the Portland Trail Blazers. Now he can hardly walk. For all the Laker drama, personal injuries, and public criticism, Kobe Bryant has been nothing short of a general. When D’Antoni struggled to fit in, Kobe stood by him. When Pau seemed to drift away, Kobe clutched him more closely. When Dwight behaved like a child, Kobe taught him to be a man. Kobe has always given his heart, soul, and body to this franchise since day one, 17 years ago, and the Lakers are just as much Kobe Bryant as he is a Laker.
Bryant held back tears in his post game interview when asked if this was the biggest disappointment of his incredible career. He responded in earnest:
“Yeah, by far. We work so hard, we put ourselves in a position where we control our own fate, and I certainly have done a lot of work to prepare myself. It’s just… it’s just sh*t luck.”
If the Lakers hold off the Jazz for the 8th playoff spot in the Western Conference, they will almost certainly have to proceed without their leader. At 34 years old, Kobe has averaged more than 27 points a game in an effort to keep the slumping Lakers in the race. Actually, no. He did more than that. The Lakers weren’t even on the track when Kobe pulled them out of the mud and grabbed the starter pistol. I remember just a few short months ago hearing Kobe Bryant guarantee that the Lakers would make the playoffs and, If I’m being honest, I took one glance at how far they had to go and thought quite loudly to myself and those around me, “Yeah right.” Yet here we are, and the Lakers are almost there.
I was bred to hate Kobe Bryant. I think often still, my upbringing gets the better of me when I watch him decimate the teams I grew up rooting for. Yet somewhere through the years of marshaled memories I arrived at a point of respect. It was at this point that I was hit with a hard truth; Kobe won’t be around forever. How spoiled are we to have been a part of his legacy? One day I will tell my offspring of the greatest players from my youth and be met with the same stare of oblivious deference that I give my father when told tales of Bill Russell or Pistol Pete. We should cherish the decades of Bryant’s dominion (graciously or otherwise) because not everyone will get to experience his magnitude first hand. How many seasons do we have left?
Four days ago, Kobe stated that he “could play another five years.” Of course, that was probably never in his plans, but the confidence and fortitude was there. Now I’m not so sure. I have no doubt that he will return late next season with more passion than ever, but will his body be the same? This is likely the worst injury Bryant has ever suffered, and at 34 no less. In hindsight, it is easy to look at the past few days and say playing 48 minutes in the 2nd half of a back-to-back against Portland was a mistake, but a few days ago Kobe was superman. I guess I’m just a little shaken because until a few hours ago, I could sweep Kobe’s eventual retirement to the back of my mind and enjoy the idea that the dream may never have to end. Now his human vulnerability is all too real and that scares the part of me that doesn’t want to imagine basketball without Bryant. I need my nemesis.
So here’s to you Kobe, and all that you have done for the Lakers, the fans, and basketball as a whole. I wish you a speedy recovery. May you be able to play as long as you want. Just take it easy on the players I’m actually supposed to like.
Sincerely,
a reluctant fan
@davidmackaypdx | @ripcityproject | [email protected]Delhi High Court on Tuesday questioned how app-based taxi service, Ola, was operating in the national capital when the government's order banning them has not been stayed and warned that it would shut the company down if it thought it was above law.
"How are you operating post January 1 order? There has been no stay. Why is the ban not being implemented," justice Manmohan asked the counsel for ANI Technologies Pvt Ltd which operates app-based cab services under the name of Ola.
On January 1, Delhi government had banned the operation of app-based taxi services till they comply with the guidelines of Radio Taxi Scheme of 2006 which was recently amended.
The court, however, said it will pass interim orders on Wednesday when it might also put in place a temporary mechanism for running of the company, while it continues to hear the matter.
It said the matter needs to be heard as "it seems at first blush that the rules of the policy are not in tune with ground level reality".
The court, during arguments, observed that it cannot remain a "bystander" while the company "pollutes the city" as its taxis operate on diesel which is not a clean fuel.
Justice Manmohan also observed that the company was taking an "extreme stand" that it was "not amenable to any condition", instead of taking a balanced view and warned that he will shut them down if they take this "strident position" and do not follow the law.
"If you are going to take this strident position, not follow the law..., I will completely shut you down. I will enforce the January 1 order," he said.
The judge also observed that the company was acting as if it was above the law and said if needed he will "bring them down to Mother Earth". The company earned the court's displeasure after it changed lawyers and had sought time for taking instructions after addressing extensive arguments, and sought more time on Tuesday.
Justice Manmohan said that on last date he was requested not to pass orders as the company wanted to seek instructions and now it was seeking more time due to change in its counsel.
"Your clients are trying to take the court for a ride. It is very unfortunate. I have never seen litigation being conducted in this fashion," the judge said to Ola's lawyer. "I have been pushed into a corner from where I have nothing else to do but enforce the ban completely," the judge said, referring to Ola's stand.
Ola has contended that it was not amenable to the Delhi government's recently modified Radio Taxi Scheme as cabs under it already have All India Tourist Permits (AITPs) and thus, it does not need to apply for licence to operate in the city. It has also said that as per the Supreme Court orders of 1998, cabs only had to comply with Euro-II (and now Euro IV) norms and switching to CNG was not a mandatory requirement.
It said the restriction imposed by the apex court was with respect to the age of the vehicles and not the kind of fuel used. Ola was supported in this view by an association of All India Tourist Permit holders who have also sought to be made a party in the case as the livelihood of its members are also at stake.
The government, represented by advocate Naushad Khan, has taken the stand that while Ola's subsidiaries have applied for licence, Ola has not.
The government said that present petition was moved by Ola after its subsidiaries' applications for licence was denied by transport department as they had not complied with guidelines of Radio Taxi Scheme.
It also said that cabs operating under Ola have to run on CNG. The court on July 15, the last date of hearing, had said that it was inclined to allow only CNG-based cabs to provide point to point service in the national capital.
First Published: Jul 28, 2015 20:59 ISTlightbar
A Kelso police officer fatally shot Omer Ismail Ali after Ali allegedly attacked a gas station clerk, customer and the officer with a walking stick on Aug. 17, 2016.
(The Oregonian/File)
Correction appended
The man shot and killed by a police officer Wednesday in Kelso has been identified as a 27-year-old homeless man who has connections to Spokane.
A Kelso police officer fatally shot Omer Ismail Ali after Ali allegedly attacked a gas station clerk, customer and the officer with a walking stick, the Cowlitz County Sheriff's Office said in a news release. Ali died of a gunshot wound to the chest, according to the results of an autopsy performed Friday.
Ali, who immigrated to the U.S. from Sudan as a refugee in 2013, also suffered a "gunshot wound of the jaw and neck," deputies said.
Warning: This video contains graphic content.
Ali tried to shoplift from a Flying K gas station food mart in West Kelso shortly after 8 a.m., deputies said. They said the store's clerks told him to leave, and he threatened them and walked away. The Kelso officer, John Johnston, arrived shortly thereafter to take a report.
As Johnston and one of the clerks were reviewing surveillance footage in an office, Ali returned to the store and began hitting a clerk and a customer with the stick, authorities said.
The Cowlitz County Sheriff's Office released a photo of the walking stick Omer Ismail Ali allegedly used to attack a gas station clerk, customer and police officer on Aug. 17, 2016. The officer fatally shot Ali.
Cowlitz County Sheriff Mark Nelson said in a news conference Wednesday that Johnston tried to intervene but was struck in the head. Johnston was also injured in the arm and leg, police said. Johnston then shot Ali.
Johnston is a 22-year member of the Kelso Police Department, deputies said. Johnston, the clerk and the customer were taken to a hospital, and each of them were treated and released.
The encounter was Ali's second at the Flying K that morning, deputies said. They said he showed up at the store around 1:10 a.m., toting a flat board, and was told to leave by police and employees. Police took the board.
Police also contacted him twice between the Flying K altercations, deputies said. They said officers had contacted Ali or received reports about him multiple times since Saturday.
Ali was arrested Saturday in Cougar, Washington, for allegedly driving with a suspended license, deputies said. They said the car, a rental, had been stolen in Washington's Whatcom County.
Deputies said he had a pair of non-extraditable, misdemeanor warrants out of Spokane and Blaine, Washington.
Ali was released Monday from the Cowlitz County Jail, deputies said.
The sheriff's office is still investigating Wednesday's case.
-- Jim Ryan
jryan@oregonian.com
503-221-8005; @Jimryan015
Oregonian/OregonLive staff and wire reports contributed to this report
A previous version of this report incorrectly identified the officer involved in the shooting, due to a reporter's error.U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan and the Republican Party like to paint themselves as the party of fiscal responsibility. But the plan he unfurled on Monday cuts back some core health care initiatives that health care experts of all political walks agree are essential to keeping costs down and Americans healthy. In particular, the Affordable Care Act’s Prevention and Public Health Fund finds no quarter in the GOP plans, which trims the public health fund’s $1 billion budget to a big round number. And what are the pork-riddled entitlements that Ryan is bravely taking the ax to? Try vaccines for children, lead poisoning prevention programs, and grants to states to help them respond to public health crises.
You don’t need to be a bleeding heart liberal, or even someone who cares much about the public good, to embrace these programs — you just need put aside politics and look at the numbers. The returns that these programs deliver would make a hedge fund manager salivate. According to the American Public Health Association, every dollar spent on vaccines saves $16.50 in future health care costs. A study by the non-partisan Robert Wood Johnson Foundation demonstrated that reducing nationwide obesity rates by 5 percent could save almost $30 billion in five years. Another study by the Economic Policy Institute has shown that each $1 spent on lead poisoning prevention returns at least $17.
We’ll surely feel the effects of these cuts here in Chicago. Beginning in 2018, the proposed plan would cut $18.6 million in grants to Illinois each year. This is money specifically earmarked to support disease prevention, including money for vaccines for needy children and adults. We fail to understand how it’s fiscally responsible to not choose to save money — and lives — in the long-run.
We’re not asking Speaker Ryan to have a heart as he tries to pass something he can call “repeal and replace.” Just a calculator.
— Jay Dumanian and Jim Leng, Chicago
Related articles:
GOP's Obamacare replacement could do serious harm
GOP's Obamacare replacement could do serious harm
Obamacare saved my lifeEvicted Tenants Fear For Future of Keith Haring Mural View Full Caption
MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS — In the early 1980s, legendary street artist Keith Haring painted a whimsical mural that snakes through the lobby and the stairwells of a former convent that was then the home of a Catholic youth organization known as Grace House.
Three decades later, the rare work — a series of dancing figures shimmying up two flights of steps — still stands, even though the youth organization has long since closed shop and a nearby parish, the Church of the Ascension, has taken over the five-story building.
The church has used the property at West 108th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam for the last three years as a rental building offering mostly studio apartments with shared bathrooms and kitchens.
But four months ago, the church informed the building's 16 tenants that they needed to vacate their apartments by Monday, Aug. 1. The church explained in a letter that it was suffering financial difficulties and wanted to explore its options.
The notice left many tenants scrambling to figure out their future — and the mural's.
“It’s a unique structure; it would be a shame to see it turned into soulless condos,” tenant Denis McFarling, 62, said of the mural and building.
DNAinfo/Ben Fractenberg
He and other tenants told DNAinfo New York last week that the church has been mum about its plans for the building, but the speculation is that the church will lease or sell it to developers. Multiple tenants have said they have recently seen at least two developers come by to check out the property.
"They know the Harings are here but they don't really care about them," McFarling said of the developers. "They don't really know how unique they are."
The tenants said that considering the layout of the building — there are 14 SRO units and a one-bedroom apartment — they fear any developer will either demolish it or do a gut renovation.
Tenant Robert Savina said he doubts the mural will survive.
"No one seems to know what will happen to it. There seems to have been no provisions made," said Savina, a film production designer who has lived in one of the studios since May 2014, paying $900 a month.
Savina described the tenants at the building — which is still called Grace House — as a tight knit multi-generational community consisting of working artists and students. He said the mural is dear to all of them.
"I fell in love with the community here. And the mural, it’s part of our identities," he said.
DNAinfo/Ben Fractenberg
The church's notice to vacate hit many of the tenants hard. The building's rents were some of the most affordable in Morningside Heights, if not the city, and finding a similar deal has proven hard for many.
McFarling, a former illustrator, decided the best solution for him was to head back to Oregon to live with family. Another tenant decided to move in with his girlfriend downtown. One tenant even thought about going to a shelter.
Meanwhile, Savina and another tenant, Yana Sabeva, 30, have chosen to defy the order to leave and take the church to court.
"As far as I’m concerned, I want to stand up for my rights and get justice," said Sabeva, an artist and filmmaker who moved in three years ago and is the tenant who has lived in the building the longest, paying $850 a month.
With the help of the Goddard Riverside Law Project, she and Savina filed a lawsuit against the church last week in Manhattan Supreme Court, accusing it of illegally evicting them.
The lawsuit says that since the building was built in 1928, it is subject to the state's rent stabilization laws, which provides tenants with certain rights and only allows landlords to evict them for certain reasons.
Sabeva, who is originally from Bulgaria, said she was really torn over filing a lawsuit against the church and didn't want to attack its reputation. But in the end, she said she realized the lawsuit was necessary.
"I was literally praying that the right thing would happen. We’re confident right now it is," she said.
The Church of the Ascension did not respond to requests for comment.
Sabeva and other tenants have also been trying to come up with ways to save the Haring mural. She said she has thought about trying to get the city to landmark the building.
Savina has also reached out to his friends in the art community for advice.
And in June 2015 — when there was previous speculation of the property being sold to developers — another tenant contacted the Keith Haring Foundation for help.
The foundation, a nonprofit whose mission is to expand and protect the artist's legacy, confirmed to DNAinfo that a tenant had reached out but said that it never heard from the tenant or anyone else since then.
Haring painted the mural one evening around 1983 or 1984 while about 50 kids watched him, according to a New York Times article in 2007. At the time, Grace House was a Catholic Youth Organization, and two of its teen members knew Haring.
The artist visited the house a few times and even deejayed parties there. Eventually, Haring and the two teen members persuaded the Grace House's program director to let him paint there. The mural starts in the lobby with one of Haring's signature images — a radiant baby.
Church of the Ascension took over the building in 2009. It has used the space for choir practice, Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, a food pantry and classrooms.
Savina said he first saw the building when he was working on a film shoot there. When he learned apartments were available, he rented one immediately.
He moved to New York City in 1985 in the middle of the AIDS crisis and saw many of his friends die from the disease. Haring also died at 31 of AIDS-related complications in 1990.
"The mural, for me, is a connection to my own personal past," Savina said.
With the Aug. 1 deadline to move, all of tenants have left except for Savina, Sabeva and a couple others who were given extra time from the church.
Savina said he wonders if it's worth staying now that the vibrant community has been disbanded.
"I guess living in New York you get used to change," he said. "But I think the longer you’re here, you want to cling on to things that are the same."Matt Mitrione claims he was just as surprised as anyone when Fedor Emelianenko walked out from backstage at Bellator 165 to be announced as his opponent for the Bellator 172 main event.
Mitrione (11-5 MMA, 2-0 BMMA) was in San Jose, Calif., for Bellator 165 and knew he was going to get an opponent announced during the card. But the longtime UFC vet, who has won both his Bellator fights by knockout since moving over earlier this year, thought the opponent would be Quinton Jackson.
“It was such a surprise,” Mitrione told MMAjunkie Radio on Monday. “Honestly, I thought it was going to be ‘Rampage.’ And he started to walk out in that sweater of all things, I thought, ‘Oh, good God, this is great.’
“Totally legit – I was under the impression that Fedor was having issues in M-1, and there wasn’t going to be a co-branding with Bellator. So I was under the impression that Fedor wasn’t the scoop, and I also heard that Fedor was fighting Shane Carwin.”
Mitrione said Emelianenko (36-4 MMA, 0-0 BMMA) wasn’t a realistic thought for him.
“He wasn’t even on my radar,” he said. “There was a small hope. But then I thought, ‘Maybe it’ll be Shane Carwin. Maybe it’ll be (Sergei) Kharitonov, but Kharitonov just lost, so what other big name could there be unless they have a new signing I don’t know about?’ It’s got to be ‘Rampage.’ So that was kind of my thought. Apparently I was wrong – thankfully. I mean, I’m happy about it.”
“Rampage” Jackson is a legendary former champion, and a Mitrione fight against him would be an interesting one given they spent time together on Season 10 of “The Ultimate Fighter.” Mitrione was coached by Rashad Evans, opposite Jackson.
But Emelianenko is part of MMA’s Mt. Rushmore and is a different level of legend as far as most fans – and fighters – are concerned.
And because of that, Mitrione said there was no way he was going to jaw-jack with the veteran Russian on the Bellator 165 Spike broadcast this past Saturday.
“Who am I to bump gums with Fedor? At the right time, when we’re really hyping the fight or whatever else, yeah, sure,” Mitrione said. “But at that time, I was just happy to see that Fedor was coming back. I was happy that I was going to have the opportunity to punch him in his face. I was happy. Why would I want to ruin that with talking (expletive)? I’m not that guy. I bump gums with the best of them in the world, and I can hold my own, verbally, with anybody. But it just wasn’t that time or the place. I’m not going to have a contrived, (Conor) McGregor-esque pre-determined comments. I’m going to be myself, and I’m going to have it come out and be who I am.”
The rest of the world will find out how that plays out on Feb. 18 at Bellator 172 at SAP Center in San Jose. The main card will air on Spike following prelims on MMAjunkie.
For more on Bellator 172, check out the MMA Rumors section of the site.
MMAjunkie Radio broadcasts Monday-Friday at 1 p.m. ET (10 a.m. PT) live from Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino’s Race & Sports Book. The show, available on SiriusXM Ch. 93, is hosted by “Gorgeous” George Garcia and producer Brian “Goze” Garcia. For more information or to download past episodes, go to www.mmajunkie.com/radio.March 29, 2016--How did an American city's water end up being poisoned with lead?
This month's hearing in Congress about the crisis in Flint, Michigan shed more heat than light on the decisions that poisoned the water more than 100,000 residents rely on to drink and bathe, including nearly 30,000 children and teens. Democrats focused their ire on Governor Rick Snyder, while Republicans predictably tried to deflect blame onto the Environmental Protection Agency as part of their long-standing campaign to eliminate the agency responsible for regulating polluters.
But two Members of Congress honed in on the real culprit in the debacle: Governor Snyder's "emergency manager" law that stripped Flint of any local democratic control and put its fate in the hands of unaccountable executives hand-picked by Snyder.
"Did that emergency management system fail under your leadership in this matter?" asked Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ), demanding a yes or no response from Snyder.
"That would be a fair conclusion," Snyder eventually conceded.
"This is a failure of a philosophy of governance you advocated," said Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA). "A city in America... is on its knees because of your emergency manager's decision to save $4 million. And now it's going to cost a lot more to clean up."
Is this really happening in the world's leading republic?
Funding the War on Local Democracy
Governor Snyder's controversial emergency manager law is a cornerstone of the Right Wing's war on labor and local democracy in Michigan, which has been orchestrated by a network of "think tanks" and committees backed by the billionaire DeVos family, the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, the Kochs, and other politicos.
Thanks to record spending by outside groups in 2010 and $6 million of Snyder's own fortune, the Republican Party in Michigan joined 11 other states in capturing the governor's mansion from the Democrats and flipped the Michigan House, giving the party a lock on political power for the first time since 2002.
The Republican Governors Association Michigan 2010 PAC dominated the playing field to become the "largest political action committee in the history of Michigan politics," according to the Michigan Campaign Finance Network.
Through an elaborate shell game, 98 percent of the $8.4 million raised and spent by the RGA MI 2010 PAC came from outside Michigan, while Michigan donors gave the national Republican Governors Association (RGA) $8.6 million, including $5.4 million from the state Chamber of Commerce.
The RGA MI 2010 PAC then contributed $5.3 million to the state Republican Party, and sent off $3 million to back Rick Perry's bid for a third term as governor of Texas, while the national RGA spent $3.6 million on sham issue ads attacking Snyder's Democratic opponent. Still with me?
All in all, the RGA raised and redistributed $114 million to PACs in at least 15 states, helping to elect a slate of right-wing governors, including Wisconsin's Scott Walker, who moved quickly to attack public sector unions.
Right-wing billionaires and their corporations played a big role in raising all that money. Records on Open Secrets show that the DeVos family, Amway, and its parent company, Alticor, pumped $1.9 million into the RGA's 2010 political operation.
David Koch personally gave $1 million, while his brother William chipped in $100,000 and Koch Industries another $50,000. The Kochs have since become RGA's #1 source of cash, bankrolling the RGA to the tune of $5.3 million during the 2014 election cycle.
Paul Singer also ponied up $1.4 million. Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson gave a million that year, and News America, a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. that owns the pro-Republican outlet Fox News, sprung another $1.3 million.
DeVos Dynasty Targets Michigan
Although Snyder—a business executive and venture capitalist—campaigned as a moderate Republican who promised to run the state like a business and create jobs, the deep pockets driving the Republican surge had more ambitious ideas.
Their goals: break the unions, scrap public sector labor contracts, and privatize government services.
Dick DeVos, son of billionaire businessman and Amway co-founder Richard DeVos, took a first crack at this agenda when he spent $35 million of the family fortune to run for governor in 2006. He lost badly, but he didn't let up.
In 2009, DeVos helped his close ally, Ron Weiser, get elected as chair of the Michigan Republican Party, where he was able to coordinate the party's 2010 landslide victory. By 2014, political observers were calling the DeVos family Michigan's "most potent interest group," and their spending on in-state candidates and political committees had increased to $4.9 million.
After Snyder's election, DeVos-backed groups like the Mackinac Center for Public Policy were poised to help move his legislative agenda forward.
Launched in 1987, the Mackinac Center is one of the nation's largest state-based, right-wing pressure groups promoting "free market," pro-business policies. It is an active member of the State Policy Network (SPN) and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), two important cogs in the Koch machine.
Mackinac has long been one of the key groups leading the Michigan charge for the big ticket items on DeVos' right-wing wish list, including breaking the back of organized labor.
Ronald Reagan may have once said, "[w]here free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost," but that's just crazy-liberal talk as far as the Mackinac Center is concerned.
As a Mackinac staffer told a state legislator in 2011: "Our goal is [to] outlaw government collective bargaining in Michigan."
Mackinac's activities have been fueled by DeVos as well as money from the Koch network of billionaires. Between 2010 and 2012, the Mackinac Center received $1.5 million from the DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund, preferred investment vehicles of the Koch donor network, and four DeVos foundations kicked in another $560,000 between 1998 and 2011.
However, those totals public do not reveal how much billionaire cash Mackinac has received through checks from personal trust accounts or from corporations, which are not publicly reported.
Mackinac at the Root of Sweeping Emergency Manager Powers
Once sworn in, Snyder wasted no time in making one of the most audacious power grabs in the country.
On March 16, 2011, while thousands protested outside, he signed Public Act 4 into law, giving him the ability to take near-total control over financially struggling municipalities through appointed "emergency managers."
Few could have been more pleased than the DeVos family and their confederates at the Mackinac Center.
The provision for emergency financial managers dates back to a 1988 Michigan law, but those managers wielded limited power.
Mackinac's Louis Schimmel called for loosening limits and expanding managers' powers as early as 2005, and the group reprinted his article in January 2011. They argued that: "The state's policy prescription for fiscally floundering cities should be to appoint[] far more powerful emergency financial managers than they have in the past."
Mackinac pressed for sweeping authority for emergency managers to assume the powers of elected city councils and mayors, break union contracts, and revise municipal charters, while getting legal immunity from any liability for the results of their actions.
Snyder's emergency manager law included all four of those changes, and the Mackinac bunch patted themselves on the back while singing the law's praises.
Concerned citizens and critics, however, denounced it as "financial martial law."
Other cities around the country have had emergency managers, including New York City in the 1970s, but their powers were limited to financial matters.
The Snyder-Mackinac approach to the law was dramatically, exponentially different. It gave unelected and unaccountable managers chosen by the governor near total control over all city decisions—including things like where a city gets its water.
Snyder's First Emergency "Tyrant"? A Mackinac Guy
Snyder chose the architect of the expanded emergency powers—Mackinac's Louis Schimmel—to be the first person he appointed as an emergency manager, installing him as the potentate for Pontiac, Schimmel's home town.
Within months, Schimmel had fired key city officials and privatized the entire public works department. The Pontiac City Council still held their weekly meetings, packed with angry citizens, but they had no authority to make any decisions.
When asked by a local radio station if the emergency manager law made him a dictator, Schimmel replied: "I guess I'm the tyrant in Pontiac then, if that's the way it is."
Schimmel didn't get any argument from state court judge Rae Lee Chabot, who reversed the manager's action to cut Pontiac's pension board in half, a decision that ignored the legal requirements of Michigan's Open Meetings Act.
"[I]t looks like a dictatorship," Chabot said.
State-Controlled Pontiac Outsources Water to Indicted Corporation
Shortly before Schimmel took control of Pontiac using the law he helped create, his predecessor as emergency manager of Pontiac, Michael Stampfler, flexed his muscles under Snyder's new law and outsourced the city's water treatment to United Water Services.
Watchdog Chris Savage broke the story on Eclectablog.
"This is big news," he wrote, because the giant for-profit water company had just been indicted by a federal grand jury in 2010 on 26 felony counts of conspiracy and Clean Water Act violations for its mishandling of water services in Gary, Indiana. (The company's workers have since been acquitted of criminal charges in the Gary case, but United Water paid $645,000 in civil fines under a consent agreement in 201 |
supermarkets but instead the vast majority cycled, leaving their bikes in the vast cycle parks at the front of the shops, while the few cars were hidden at the back. The town was noticeably quiet, and the few car drivers there were accepted that bikes had precedence with absolutely no anger or bad temper on either side. Indeed, what was most noticeable, was the complete lack of hostility between different road-users. That is clearly because almost everyone does everything; in other words, cyclists drive, drivers cycle — and everyone is a pedestrian, too.
Think of the hundreds of British towns which stretch barely a mile or two from one end to the other where most journeys, like those in Burgh-Hamstede, could easily be undertaken by bike. It needs political will, courage and a cycling champion, but it could be done and the savings would materialise very quickly through the reduction of use of the health service.
In London, thanks to – and it chokes me to say it – Boris Johnson and Andrew Gilligan, who created the beginnings of a network of dedicated bike routes, cycling has become well-established. There are concerns that Sadiq Khan has not built on this quickly enough, out of fear of alienating drivers and pedestrians. Slowing down London’s programme to boost cycling would be a real mistake. Yet, there are signs, with the publication of plans for some junction remodelling, that momentum is being lost.
London can become a beacon not just nationally but internationally. Then its success should be picked up by Labour as a key part of its next manifesto.
Just to repeat – it is not geography, tradition or cost that prevents cycling becoming a key transport mode. It is politics.Tension prevailed at Mahadalit tola of Bhelaipur village in Muzaffarpur district of north Bihar, following the lynching of a motorcyclist who accidentally hit a goat, which had strayed from an encroached residential area on to the state highway, Saturday.
Navin Kumar, 45, a farmer of Patti Bandhu Rao village under Lalganj police station of Vaishali, was thrashed mercilessly before his throat was slit by a mob for injuring the goat. His friend and pillion rider Sikandra Sahni, who was also injured in the incident, is battling for his life at a private nursing home in Muzaffarpur.
People from nearby villages retaliated by attacking the Mahadalit tola and ransacking the houses there, late Saturday evening. Some 100 families, residing at the tola, had already deserted the tola, leaving their houses unattended.
The police have so far arrested 10 persons — two in connection with Navin Kumar’s murder and eight others for arson and loot at the Mahadalit tola.
This is not the first time that residents of the tola had shown such intolerance even for petty incidents. Some villagers said it was a common trick to trap motorists and extorting money from them.
“Anti-social elements deliberately push cattle on the road when they see a speeding vehicle approaching. Once a vehicle hits the cattle, they create a ruckus and try to extort as much money as possible from such motorists,” said a villager, requesting anonymity.
Meanwhile, Vinod Singh, father of the deceased man, was crestfallen. In Navin’s killing, he had lost the second of his three sons. Eleven years back, he had lost his first son in a road mishap.
Police deployed at a Muzaffarpur village after a motorcyclist was lynched for hitting a goat on Saturday. ( HT photo )
“Some villagers told me that Navin was begging for his life and even gave them (the criminals) Rs 5,000, which he had at that point of time, with an assurance to give them more if they released him. Still, they did not pay any heed to his request,” he said in a choked voice.
At least 24 such road hold-ups had been reported along the state highways in the past two years.
“We have tried to draw the attention of the police and civil authorities to the recurring menace, but to no avail,” said Tulsi Rai, a former member of the district board.
Sub divisional police officer (SDPO) of Saraiya, Kumar Gaurav Mangala, said that raids were on to nab the hooligans.
“The residents of Mahadalit tola have left their dwellings to take shelter at safer places. We have deployed a team of 30 jawans and an officer to avoid any further incident. We will provide security to those who want to return home,” said Mangala.
First Published: Apr 16, 2017 17:03 ISTMedia playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Apple's CEO Tim Cook: ''We have a responsibility to help you protect your data''
The FBI says it may have found a way to unlock the San Bernardino attacker's iPhone without Apple's assistance.
A court hearing with Apple scheduled for Tuesday has been postponed at the request of the US Justice Department (DOJ), Apple has confirmed.
The DOJ had ordered Apple to help unlock the phone used by San Bernardino gunman Rizwan Farook.
But Apple has continued to fight the order, saying it would set a "dangerous precedent".
Rizwan Farook and his wife killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California, last December before police fatally shot them.
UN human rights chief backs Apple
Apple boss hits back at FBI conduct
McAfee offers to unlock iPhone for FBI
Analysis: Dave Lee, BBC North America technology reporter
Ever since this issue arose, security experts have been saying "surely the FBI can do this themselves?" Well, maybe now they can.
An "outside party" - you'd assume a security company, but we don't know for sure - has approached the FBI and said it could unlock the phone.
If they can do it, the court case is irrelevant. The FBI gets what they need. But if it doesn't work, we'll find ourselves back here to resume the trial.
Apple's legal team told reporters it wasn't treating it as a legal victory. The issue still looms large over the company. If the FBI has found a way, who's to say it'll always work? Apple will, as any software maker would, frantically try to fix the flaw. After all - if the FBI can do it, so can any other hacker privy to the same information.
If this method works, then what? With each new iteration of iOS, Apple could find itself back in court.
The technology industry, led by Apple, has called for the matter to be debated in Congress. This case may be on the brink of going away, but the debate is just starting.
Read more from Dave
Prosecutors said "an outside party" had demonstrated a possible way of unlocking the iPhone without the need to seek Apple's help.
"Testing is required to determine whether it is a viable method that will not compromise data on Farook's iPhone," a court filing said.
"If the method is viable, it should eliminate the need for the assistance from Apple."
DOJ spokeswoman Melanie Newman said in a statement that the government was "cautiously optimistic" that the possible method to unlock the phone would work.
The government said it would update the court on 5 April.
Image copyright AP Image caption Rizwan Farook, right, and his wife Tashfeen Malik, killed 14 people at an office party on 2 December
Attorneys for Apple told reporters that the firm had no idea what method the FBI was exploring to try to unlock the phone.
They said they hoped that the government would share with Apple any vulnerabilities of the iPhone that might come to light.
The FBI says Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik were inspired by so-called Islamic State and that the encrypted iPhone may contain crucial evidence.
It wants to access the data but the device can only be unlocked by entering the correct passcode.
Guessing the code incorrectly too many times could permanently delete all data on the phone, so the FBI had asked Apple to develop a new version of its operating system that circumvents some of its security features.
Last month the DOJ obtained a court order directing Apple to create that software,
But Apple has fought back, stating that creating a compromised version of the operating system would have security implications for millions of iPhone users and would set a precedent.
The company has received support from other tech giants including, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook, as it resisted a court order to unlock the iPhone.One of the articles in It's About Time! (IC#37) Originally published in Winter 1994 on page 34 Copyright (c)1994, 1996 by Context Institute
The 40-hour-plus workweek has been part of the US job system for so many years that many people think of it as a natural law. Historian Benjamin Hunnicutt has spent years researching one company – Kellogg’s – that broke that law by cutting work hours. He talked to hundreds of workers, many of whom recall the freedom and creativity unleashed by the extra time. Hunnicutt, who is the author of Work Without End, is in the process of writing his findings on Kellogg’s into a book, which will be published by Temple University Press.
On December 1, 1930, at the start of the Great Depression, W.K. Kellogg replaced the traditional three daily, eight-hour shifts in the Battle Creek, Michigan, cereal plant with four six-hour shifts. From now on, W.K. declared, his Cornflakes and Shredded Wheat would be produced by a company with a conscience, willing to do its share to fight the depression. By adding one entire shift, he reasoned, 30 percent more jobs would be added at the plant – jobs desperately needed by the unemployed in the city.
Kellogg’s six-hour day was an instant success, attracting national media coverage and the attention of Herbert Hoover’s administration. The initiative won strong support from prominent businessmen and labor leaders all over the country, and from community leaders and workers in Battle Creek. Observers throughout the world speculated that Kellogg’s experiment offered a practical way out of the depression, and in light of the fact that hours of labor had been steadily declining for over a century, was almost certainly a foretaste of things to come.
W.K. and his lieutenants believed that the six-hour day would revolutionize industry because the balance of the workers’ lives would shift from concerns about money and jobs to concerns about freedom. The true miracle of welfare capitalism would thereby be revealed: expanding leisure. Under the direction of enlightened industrialists such as W.K., the exchange of goods, services, and labor in the free market would not have to result in mindless consumerism or eternal exploitation of people and resources. Rather, workers would be liberated by increasingly higher wages and shorter hours for the final freedom promised by the Declaration of Independence – the Pursuit of Happiness.
Through the depression years, the six-hour day functioned as W.K. Kellogg and Lewis J. Brown, the company president, hoped. Jobs were created as the company payroll grew. Plant employees seemed delighted to have more time of their own, especially so since their weekly paychecks were only a little smaller. Workers were paid for seven hours during the first year of the six-hour day, but beginning in the second year, total wages were raised back to the nominal level of the eight-hour day.
Productivity was up, both because of the introduction of new technology and because of Kellogg’s innovative approach to hours and work incentives. In essence, the management of Kellogg’s was sharing the benefits of that increased productivity with the workers in the form of free time.
FAMILY AND COMMUNITY LIFE
We have excellent information about what workers said about shorter hours. In 1932, the Women’s Bureau of the US Department of Labor sent a research team to Battle Creek to interview Kellogg’s women workers. The team found nearly 85 percent preferred the six-hour shift, primarily because it provided "more time for family activities and home duties and leisure" and because it helped some of the unemployed find work.
The great majority of the Kellogg women used "freedom" or closely related words when the agents asked them to compare the eight-hour and six-hour shifts.
The second most commonly used pattern of words had to do with control and possession; the women spoke about "my work," "my own time," "time to myself," or "enables." Several women told the agents that the balance of their life seemed to be shifting from constraint/servitude toward freedom/control.
Interviews and surveys I conducted more recently confirm the findings of the Women’s Bureau study.
For Susan Smith*, [*These names are pseudonyms to protect the privacy of those interviewed.] one of the Kellogg employees I talked to, work was never the central part of life. The extra time she had as a result of the six-hour shift allowed her to get her housework out of the way and get on to what she saw as the real part of the day: reading, walking, writing. She was self-educated, and it was in the few hours between routine housework and the job that she could keep the life of her mind and spirit alive, and find time to be involved in her community.
Many of the women found routine, repetitive housework to be a burden, but they enjoyed canning, sewing, gardening, and other household activities that had a sense of 19th century craftsmanship to them.
Josephine Isley* spoke enthusiastically about canning at home during her early days at Kellogg’s, remembering it as a family project that "we all enjoyed." To her, canning wasn’t work in the same way that the job at Kellogg’s was work. Certainly canning required effort – great effort in some cases to get her sons involved. But it was a productive activity that provided a number of important non-financial benefits; the most important was that her family was together doing something worthwhile. After they were recruited, Isley recalled that her "sons opened up to talk freely" and that during such activities "we were the most together as a family." Because of such activities "we were better parents."
She contrasted such complex activities with the "silly" kinds of leisure pastimes (TV and video games) which, together with modern jobs, take all the time from family activities.
George Howard* wrote that "the six-hour shift let dad be with four boys at ages when that was important."
The shorter shift made a difference on the job as well. Roberta Babcock* wrote "I retired before they did away with the six-hour day … but from my observation in talking to friends who were still working, there was a vast difference in attitudes regarding their work. They more or less lost interest and didn’t look forward to going in to work like we all did on six hours. Then, there was a much more relaxed attitude, not the tension that exists on eight hours. They all liked the additional money but felt it wasn’t worth the constant hassle."
Like generations of workers before them in Europe and the United States, the Kellogg’s women also saw the shorter hours as a moral act, symbolizing their willingness to share their good fortune with others. They criticized those who didn’t support the six-hour policy as "money-hungry work hogs."
Although there is no comparable survey from the ’30s for the men, there is strong evidence that their general support was similar. In addition to plant-wide votes taken in the 1930s and ’40s in which men voted three to one for a six-hour shift, interviews with surviving male workers support this claim. To a man, workers who still remember the 1930s recall that there was nearly total support at the plant, and that the few who opposed shorter hours were branded as misfits and "work hogs."
Community life was strengthened and opened as well. Although there is no hard data on changes in the use of libraries and recreational facilities, interviews with some 500 residents of Battle Creek who lived during this period and a review of the 1932 women’s survey indicate that there was a strengthening of the traditional institutions that thrive when people have free time: amateur sports, bars, clubs, churches, community service.
The six-hour shift also represented a new opportunity to do things beyond the traditional. There was a sense of expectation and experimentation. One woman learned how to fly, for example. Schools were well-attended by adults interested in personal enrichment, the arts, or getting a better job. People would go to the city. There was a lot of discussion about this opportunity to create something new.
A POST-WAR SHIFT
After 1938, Kellogg management soured on the short shift, and the company began to withdraw support. This was in part because of union demands that all workers be put on the six-hour shift; departments that had needed extra scheduling flexibility had until then remained on an eight-hour shift.
Also, the fixed costs associated with each worker on the payroll had increased. Kellogg management had tried to prorate retirement pay, insurance benefits, and other benefits, but the union had pressed for increases.
Another factor was that Kellogg himself stepped down, turning over management of the plant to Watson Vanderploeg, a banker from Chicago who didn’t share Kellogg’s welfare capitalist philosophy.
Complying with Franklin Roosevelt’s executive order mandating a longer work week as a wartime measure, the Kellogg plant went to three eight-hour shifts in the early days of World War II. But prompted by the union, management reluctantly promised to return to the six-hour day as soon as the war ended.
After the war, management tried to convince workers to continue working eight hours. Despite generous money incentives and company pressure, workers voted three to one in 1945 and again in 1946 to return to the short shift.
Management insisted that "those who want it" be allowed to work longer hours. Workers were divided by this tactic. Senior men in skilled crafts were more interested in working longer for more money and less interested in sharing their work. This group formed a coalition with management and together they began to challenge the six-hour supporters. They did this largely by trying to persuade others in the plant to join them in voting for eight-hour days. They began to talk about "necessity" as an absolute and unchanging reality, the importance of "full-time work," and the unimportance of "leisure."
ROMANTICIZING WORK
Embracing the new "Human Relations" techniques of business management, Kellogg’s management tried to convince employees that work was the center of life, important for its own sake. Echoing management’s rhetoric, senior male workers joined management in supporting work as an ideal, affirming work as life’s center and organizing principle. A few workers and union leaders even joined the more loquacious managers in romanticizing "The Job" and raising work to heroic and mythic proportions.
During the depression and the 1940s, Kellogg’s workers had spoken of necessity declining as wages increased, of the possibility of a person getting "enough" or "too much," and of being able to "share the work." They had also spoken of their "needs" in relation to non-monetary values, saying things such as, "I need the extra money, but I need the time at home more."
But after the 1950s, the majority of the eight-hour workers abandoned the language of freedom and control that both men and women had used for over 50 years, insisting that money was the only real job benefit. They insisted that they never had "enough" to work less than full-time. Shorter hours for less money was "stupid," "silly," "crazy," "wasted," etc. and only for the "weak girls," "lazy, sissy men," or "housewives" who really didn’t need to work or didn’t realize the seriousness of The Job.
This issue divided workers along gender and class lines. More and more, leisure was feminized. Those with power and status in the community stood to lose out if another part of life – leisure, community, family – made competitive claims to meaning and significance in the lives of the workers, along with claims on their time and allegiance.
If the most important part of people’s lives is outside the context of work, who is in control? Traditionally women have had more power in the home and in the community. So the battle over time became a power struggle between those who wanted work to continue in its central role and those who were claiming the importance of other parts of the culture. To a significant degree, this division came down between sexes and classes.
THE SIX-HOUR MAVERICKS
Through the late 1950s and 1960s, more of the six-hour departments voted to go to eight-hour shifts. But the workers in the remaining departments closed ranks, becoming a mutually supportive and combative group. After 1960, the majority of six-hour workers were women.
The six-hour mavericks believed they were fighting labor’s historic battle against unemployment. The local union had given up that effort on a local level in favor of supporting politicians who claimed they would conquer unemployment by creating more jobs at the national level. But the mavericks still spoke about unemployment as a local problem; the unemployed were laid-off friends, neighbors, and relatives.
The primary reason most of the mavericks gave for their being at work in the first place was necessity. Nonetheless, this group continued to insist that it was possible to make "enough" on the short shift to live reasonably. They also spoke of balancing the need for money and the need for free time by limiting their work hours.
This group also hoped that shorter hours would revitalize the home and community. If the family spent more time at home as the industrial work day diminished, more energy for home-making would be available, housework could be shared, and the positive parts of home-making accentuated. The home and neighborhood, rather than factories, shops, and stores, might then grow in importance.
By the late 1950s, the remaining six-hour mavericks were not only fighting a losing battle with Kellogg management and senior craftsmen, they were facing the intrusion of mass culture.
During the ’40s and ’50s, consumerism increased as a cultural force nationwide. Workers in Battle Creek offered more resistance than others, unwilling at first to give up their time for "living" to the lure of new things to buy.
But after the ’50s, mass amusements, radio, and TV began their domination of leisure time. Passive culture consumption began to replace the traditional active practice and creation of culture. Why go see the women play baseball when you can watch the Detroit Lions on TV? Why do your own canning when you can buy canned goods at the supermarket? Why do anything in leisure time when you can pay someone else to do it?
As leisure lost its cultural role, emptied of activity and community and family meaning, consumerism strengthened. After the the centrality of work was reaffirmed and abundant leisure branded as only for "silly girls," consumerism no longer had a rival in Battle Creek.
THE END OF THE SIX-HOUR SHIFT
In this environment, the remaining six-hour workers had little chance. Under siege through the ’60s and ’70s, the group nevertheless held their position until the issue came to a head in the summer of 1984. The company claimed that strong competitive pressure within the cereal industry was forcing it to make its work force more "efficient." Singling out the six-hour departments for cutbacks, Kellogg’s Board of Directors threatened to relocate most of the jobs at the plant to other cities unless all six-hour departments voted to go to an eight-hour shift immediately.
Pressured by the union and threatened by the company, a majority of the six-hour workers voted on December 11, 1984, to accept the longer hours.
A CULTURE OF WORK & CONSUMERISM
Most economists and historians assume that the reason working hours have not gotten shorter for 50 years and that we are now increasingly overworked is because we can’t afford to work less.
The Kellogg story demonstrates that the "necessity" to work full-time does not come from on high, but is the product of changes in community beliefs, values, and culture.
Consumerism was a strong competitor for the extra time. Moreover, as leisure became little more than TV, its attractiveness waned.
Class and gender interests, traditions, and allegiances also helped determine the course of events. It was no accident that women were the strongest and most persistent of the six-hour advocates, doggedly criticizing the work-centered life and promoting alternative social structures, activities, and values.
After World War II, for reasons of community status and power, Kellogg’s managers and senior male workers promoted work, trivialized leisure, and made shorter hours into an issue strongly associated with feminine values. Their position set them apart from six-hour women, who were looking outside the job to the family, school, and community for meaning and satisfaction, control, and status.
Over 50 years, the debate in Battle Creek evolved from strong support of "less work and more life" in 1930s and ’40s to a reaffirmation of work as the center of life and a rejection of increasing free time.
This cultural change, rather than economic necessity, is the fundamental reason why the six-hour day ended at Kellogg’s.
The New Economic Gospel Of Consumption
Where did our culture pick up the notion that there is no such thing as enough? That we have to work long hours our whole lives just to get by? That we have to have the latest gadget, clothes, cars, and so on?
Ben Hunnicutt, in his book, Work Without End, describes the way these notions were consciously promoted starting in the 1920s. Consumerism was the business world’s answer to "demand saturation." The idea that people would have enough, and therefore both buy less and work less, was not appealing to the business leaders of the day.
The following is excerpted with permission from Work Without End, published by Temple University Press.
In the 1920s, work was becoming critically scarce because, as so many observers agreed, human needs for work’s products were being satisfied. At the same time, traditional motives for working were diminishing due to the fact that basic needs were being met.
It’s "perfectly clear that the middle class American already buys more than he needs," but "unless we have a greater outlet for our goods... as manufacturing efficiency increases, there will be larger groups with too much leisure," observed business spokesperson Walter Henderson Grimes.
Since many Americans had achieved a standard of living above "need," economic growth seemed doomed.
By the mid-1920s, the fears of businessmen that people had too little work were gradually replaced by a new and vigorous optimism, which industrial relations counselor E.S. Cowdrick called the "new economic gospel of consumption."
The good news was that increased consumption could save economic growth and redeem work. If existing markets were being saturated, then the reasonable response would be to find new markets and increase consumption.
Growth in the "new era" of abundance, however, seemed to be complicated by the fact that workers did not desire new goods and services – automobiles, chemicals, appliances, and amusements – as spontaneously as they did the old ones – food, clothing, and shelter.
It would be the hard work of investors, marketing experts, advertisers, and business leaders, as well as the spending examples set by the rich, that would promote consumption.
With this, the business community broke its long concentration on production, introduced the age of mass consumption, founded a new view of progress in an abundant society, and gave life to the advertising industry.
– Benjamin HunnicuttIf Britain crashes out of the European single market for goods and services in the wake of the Brexit vote the country could be permanently poorer by 4 per cent of GDP, according to estimates from the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
In today’s money that loss equates to roughly £75bn, or £2,900 for each of the country’s 26 million households.
The nature of Britain’s future trade relations with the rest of the EU remain deeply uncertain.
Before the referendum some leading Leave campaign figures suggested Britain could retain membership of the single market while being outside the EU in the manner of Norway.
But other senior European politicians and officials have made it clear they will not accept this arrangement unless Britain continues to make a sizeable contribution to the EU budget and also continues to allow the free movement of European workers into Britain (as Norway does).
The signals from Theresa May’s government in recent weeks suggest the “Norway” option is politically impossible and that ministers are preparing to leave the single market and attempt to generate some kind of free trade agreement with the rest of the bloc.
If a free trade agreement is not agreed the UK could default to trading goods with the rest of the EU on minimal World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules.
But the IFS estimates that retaining single market membership could be potentially worth 4 per cent of GDP permanently to the UK economy relative to WTO terms by 2030 - equal to two full years of trend growth.
They based this estimate on long-term estimates from other forecasting organisations such as the London School of Economic's Centre for Economic Performance and the National Institute for Economic and Social Research (NIESR) of the long-term negative impact of Brexit on UK growth.
The research organisation also stresses that the cost of losing membership of the single market would far outweigh the economic benefits of the UK no longer paying in a net £9bn a year into the European Union budget.
© Provided by The Independent
“The macroeconomic impacts of membership and access are much larger than the importance of direct budgetary issues, even relative to the UK’s full EU contribution” it said.
A report from the IFS published before the referendum said lower growth and extra borrowing resulting from the shock of a Leave vote could knock a £20bn to £40bn hole in the Government’s finances by 2020, potentially extending government austerity policies into the next decade.Sun Belt Conference announces student-athlete attendees at football media day
NEW ORLEANS – The Sun Belt Conference announced the student-athlete attendees from each of the conference’s 12 football programs in preparation for Sun Belt Conference Football Media Day on Monday, July 24.
Sun Belt Conference media day Central will launch next week with the full schedule of the event with links to live coverage on the Sun Belt Digital Network and ESPN3.
All 12 head coaches, including newest member Coastal Carolina’s head coach Joe Moglia, will join 24 student-athletes to represent their programs at media day. Two student-athletes will represent each school with two, New Mexico State senior Larry Rose III and Troy senior Brandon Silvers, making their second appearances. All others will be first-time attendees at media day.
ESPN3 will broadcast live from the Mercedes-Benz Superdome from 1-3 p.m. CT at media day and will sit down with all head coaches in addition to Sun Belt Conference commissioner Karl Benson.
Media day press conferences will be carried live on SunBeltSports.org.
------------------------------------------
Appalachian State
A.J. Howard (DB, Sr.)
Taylor Lamb (QB, Sr.)
Arkansas State
Justice Hansen (QB, Jr.)
Blaise Taylor (DB, Sr.)
Coastal Carolina
Osharmar Abercrombie (RB, Sr.)
Shane Johnson (LB, Sr.)
Georgia Southern
Chris DeLaRosa (LB, Sr.)
Wesley Fields (RB, Jr.)
Georgia State
Conner Manning (QB, Sr.)
Chandon Sullivan (DB, Sr.)
Idaho
Aikeem Coleman (DE, Sr.)
Matt Linehan (QB, Sr.)
Louisiana
Grant Horst (OL, Sr.)
Tracy Walker (DB, Sr.)
ULM
Frank Sutton (OL, Sr.)
Caleb Tucker (DE, Sr.)
New Mexico State
Larry Rose III (RB, Sr.)
Jaden Wright (DB, Sr.)
South Alabama
Dallas Davis (QB, Jr.)
Jeremy Reaves (DB, Sr.)
Texas State
Bryan London (LB, So.)
Tryston Mizerak (OL, Jr.)
Troy
Jordan Chunn (RB, Sr.)
Brandon Silvers (QB, Sr.)So, while the other two answers are accurate, the answer is slightly more complicated than that; and there are some other cool little side-facts to tell.
The word “orange” comes originally from one of the Dravidian languages, either Tamil நாரம் nāram, Telugu నారింజ nāriṃja, or Malayalam നാരങ്ങ nāraŋŋa. This was borrowed into Sanskrit as नारङ्ग nāraṅgaḥ, or "orange tree". From there the word entered Persian نارنگ nārang and then Arabic نارنج nāranj. From there, certain varieties of Arabic rebracketed the initial ‘n’, or reinterpreted that ‘n’ as if it had always been part of an initial article or preposition, giving some kind of dialectical āranj.
It was most likely from these Arabic dialects that the word jumped through the Genoese and Venetian trading networks into Italian as melarancio, or mela arancio where ‘mela’ is Italian for fruit. From there, Old French picked up the word as pume orenge, where ‘pume’ is fruit. Orenge then moved into Anglo-Norman, and eventually into Middle English as our familiar orange.
———
So with the actual question answered, let’s move on to the real one that nobody thought to ask: why are carrots orange?
If you didn’t know, the Netherlands are one of the nations of Europe that still has a royal family, and their dynasty is the House of Orange-Nassau. Their version of the name orange has a completely different etymology… and the name doesn’t originally come from the Netherlands. In the South of France, there was a Celtic settlement named Aurasio, after a local water god. This city was conquered by the Romans in 105 BC, and eventually built up into a miniature Rome, the capital of a wide area of northern Provence.
The fates of the city rose and fell over the years, being sacked by the Visigoths in 412 AD and eventually conquered by the Umayyad Emirs of Cordoba, and then reconquered in the late 8th century by William of Gellone, a cousin of Charlemagne and a member of the Carolingian dynasty, who, around the year 800, was awarded the title of Count of Aurenja, the new form of the original name Aurasio (though in English, we refer to this title as “the Count of Orange”, due to later historical conflation through Dutch).
In 1153, the County of Orange was raised in prestige to the status of a minor principality, the Principality of Orange, as part of a campaign by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa to shore up his support in Burgundy. The Holy Roman Empire was an expansive political entity stretching across Germany, the Low Countries, Northern Italy, Austria, Switzerland, and even parts of France; and the dynastic political structure of Europe was exceptionally complicated, with royals from wildly-divergent families often being related by blood. Thus, in 1544, the last descendant of the original Counts of Orange, René of Châlon, left the principality to his cousin, William the Silent, Count of Nassau. Nassau was a Rhenish duchy; the Principality of Orange in Southern France was added to the holdings of a Dutch-German prince, giving rise to the Germanic-inspired name Oranje instead of the Provençal Aurenja.
William the Silent is perhaps better known as William of Orange, and was the major player in the founding of the Netherlands during the Dutch revolt against their Habsburg overlords. To be offensively US-centric, he is essentially the Dutch version of George Washington. His dynasty, the House of Orange-Nassau, has been the royal family of the Netherlands ever since.
But far from just a political skirmish, the Dutch revolt was also to large degree about religious freedom. The Dutch people were largely Protestant, while their Habsburg hereditary monarch, Philipp II of Spain, was a Catholic who persecuted the Dutch for their faith. Thus, in a stir of patriotism, Oranje the name and oranje the Dutch name for the English color-name orange named for a coincidentally-orange fruit… these names became conflated, with orange the color and Orange the dynasty each alike serving as unifying symbols of Dutch Protestant revolution against Spanish Catholic oppression.
Oranges the fruits are rather hard to grow in the Netherlands. The Dutch had all sorts of techniques for growing hardier fruits like grapes or figs, but oranges? No. But when a bright orange variety of carrot was first bred/discovered/grown in the 17th century Netherlands, the symbolism was all too poignant, and that variety became the most popular. It was these orange carrots that were then carried through England, to be eventually planted in the Americas; and while carrots of all sorts of colors (purple, red, yellow, white) were all still planted too, it was the orange carrots that eventually grew to dominate the market during the crop-standardizing advent of industrial agriculture.
And that is literally the only reason why carrots are orange today: because the Tamil name of a citrus fruit and the Celtic name of a water god passed themselves through thousands of iterations in millions of minds, as fruits and cities and colors and dynasties to eventually be seen as similar in the minds of a Spanish-Catholic-ruled Germanic-Protestant people who, in a burst of nationalistic fervor, decided to create a symbol of revolution out of a humble and totally unremarkable root vegetable.NRMA surprised NSW Government cracked down on Uber drivers before industry review completed
Posted
The state's peak motoring body says it is surprised the New South Wales Roads and Maritime Services (RMS) has cracked down on Uber drivers before a review into the taxi industry was complete.
The RMS this week put Uber on notice issuing 40 suspension tickets against offending drivers.
RMS Director of Safety and Compliance Peter Wells said the services were illegal and the Government was taking action against those who allowed their vehicles to be used for ride-sharing.
But NRMA Insurance's Mariana Cidade said she felt the sharing economy was here to stay and thought the Government would wait until its independent taskforce examining the future of the taxi and hire car industry made its recommendations before moving on drivers.
"So currently there is a review of point-to-point ride sharing in NSW and we were surprised that Roads and Maritime took this action before the taskforce provided its recommendation to the Government," she said.
NRMA Insurance's parent company, the Insurance Australia Group, has also put in a submission to the taskforce which is due to report back to the Government next month.
Ms Cidade said insurance companies need to adapt to the changing nature of transport services.
"Ride-sharing is relatively new in Australia and customer needs and behaviours are changing and so is insurance," she said.
"Our number one priority is to protect customers when they need us and that includes customers who occasionally want to use their own cars as UberX vehicles.
"We are supportive of clarity and consistency in the regulatory treatment of emerging alternative |
elli for details). Most of the world’s scientific academies have made explicit affirmations of the consensus on climate, along with numerous scientific associations. The IPCC reports are a major effort to define the extent of general agreement and to identify the areas of remaining uncertainty.
Yet, contrarians persistently deny that a consensus exists among climate scientists. In particular, they maintain that climate scientists are deeply divided even over the high-level conclusions to be found, for example, in the Summary for Policymakers sections of the IPCC reports. The consensus-denial tactics involve minor criticisms of sample size and methodology of the published consensus studies, hyping the work of the few dissenters and citing surveys of non-specialist scientists and engineers. None of this criticism makes a dent on the massive and obvious evidence for consensus.
For example, see a recent article debunked by the blog Watching the Deniers, where somebody had cherry-picked skeptical quotes from a few scientists who responded to the Doran and Zimmerman study (Eos, January 20, 2009). This only reveals that some people confuse consensus with unanimity.
A recent Wall Street Journal op-ed by Roger Cohen, William Happer and Richard Lindzen was headlined 'Climate Consensus' Data Need a More Careful Look. They dismiss the consensus with the straw-man argument that consensus is simply the repetition of a single fib, while making the false claim that:
It is increasingly clear that doubling CO2 is unlikely to increase global temperature more than about one degree Celsius.
As if there was an emerging body of literature or multiple lines of evidence pointing in that direction: their claim seems to be based on a single publication, Lindzen and Choi 2011. As Dana Nuccitelli wrote here in his article on that paper:
Since the body of research using multiple different approaches and lines of evidence is remarkably consistent in finding an equilibrium climate sensitivity of between 2 and 4.5°C for doubled CO2 (whereas a 'low' sensitivity would be well below 1.5°C), climate contrarians reject the body of evidence by (falsely) claiming it is based on unreliable models, and attempt to replace it with this single study by Lindzen and Choi under the assertion that it is superior because is observationally-based.
At least Cohen, Happer and Lindzen do not deny the existence of a scientific consensus, even if they disagree with its content. That's more than can be said for some commentators, as we shall see.
Larry Bell in Forbes
A recent article by Larry Bell in Forbes went over the now-familiar ground of denying the consensus on climate change. He criticized the Doran and Zimmerman study for having too small a sample size and for asking vague questions (although, as I will discuss below, he is forgiving of similar questions and sample sizes of a study done by the Association of Professional Engineers, Geologists and Geophysicists of Alberta (APEGGA)). He cited the Oregon Petition, debunked here, while ignoring the work of Oreskes (2004) and Anderegg et al (2010). He cited the Polish Academy of Sciences PAN Committee of Geological Sciences, while ignoring the position of the General Assembly of the Polish Academy of Sciences, which endorses the IPCC conclusions, along with many other national science academies.
Most of Bell’s arguments have been debunked before and there’s little point in discussing them here again in detail. However, I have some personal familiarity with APEGGA, having been a member of this organization for many years, so I will look at that case of a supposedly dissenting scientific organisation in more detail.
APEGGA and climate science
APEGGA (now APEGA) is a professional body that regulates the practice of engineering and geoscience (previously geology and geophysics) in the Canadian province of Alberta. Approximately 90% of the professional members are engineers and 10% geoscientists. By provincial law, anybody who works as an engineer or geoscientist in Alberta must be a member of the association, including academics. As might be expected in a province that employs thousands to exploit the largest deposit of bitumen on the planet, there is widespread “skepticism” of anthropogenic climate change among the membership. These views frequently manifest themselves in the organization’s newsletter, sometimes associated with accusations of fraud directed at climate scientists, along with pseudo-science on climate change and, sometimes, young-Earth geochronology. I protested about this in a letter published in the June 2010 edition of the association's news magazine (page eight).
Larry Bell wrote:
A March 2008 canvas of 51,000 Canadian scientists with the Association of Professional Engineers, Geologists and Geophysics of Alberta (APEGGA) found that although 99% of 1,077 replies believe climate is changing, 68% disagreed with the statement that “…the debate on the scientific causes of recent climate change is settled.”
The survey report is here. Note that just a self-selected 2% of the membership responded to the survey, only 15% (about 160) of whom were professional geoscientists. Many of these engineers and geoscientists would likely be oil industry employees with little professional knowledge or expertise in climate science. The survey reported:
There is even less agreement as to the cause: 27.4% believe it is caused by primarily natural factors (natural variation, volcanoes, sunspots, lithosphere motions, etc.), 25.7% believe it is caused by primarily human factors (burning fossil fuels, changing land use, enhanced water evaporation due to irrigation), and 45.2% believe that climate change is caused by both human and natural factors.
Bell’s conclusion that:
Only 26% of them attributed global warming to “human activity like burning fossil fuels.”
is not correct; in fact, 71% accepted at least some degree of a human role by selecting either “primarily human” (25.7%) or “both human and natural” as causing global warming. The problem here is that even mainstream climate scientist would have been able to vote for “both human and natural”. Nobody denies that solar variations and large volcanic eruptions have played a measurable role in modern climate change. The question is poorly worded, a problem Bell skips over in this case, perhaps because he approves of the result.
The main problem, however, is in citing the opinions of a small, self-selected group, predominantly of engineers, on a subject in which they have little professional expertise. We should heed this survey to the extent that Alberta’s engineers might be expected to pay attention in the unlikely event that atmospheric scientists try to tell them how to build pipelines.
The hallmark of a professional engineer or scientist is in knowing his or her limits of competence. When APEGGA’s then executive director, Neil Windsor, quoted in the Forbes article, declared as a result of the 2008 survey, that: “There is no clear consensus of scientists that we know of”; we should perhaps read it as a confession of ignorance rather than the comment of an informed expert.
Why is the climate science consensus important?
The public understanding of science is not, alas, very good. When it comes to understanding basic science, even Harvard graduates, for example, may have difficulty explaining why the Earth has seasons. In a recent study by Daniel Kahan, "scientific literacy" was determined by asking rather simple questions, in this case, only 32% knew that the Earth goes around the Sun one time per year. See also the study Americans' Knowledge of Climate Change (pdf 8MB).
Climate science can be very difficult to understand, with many people, even experts, occasionally struggling to explain a consensus concept such as an anthropogenically cooling stratosphere. Nobody can grasp it all; we all have to accept parts of the subject largely on trust. Even though consensus doesn’t logically entail certainty, it’s a good enough indicator for most of us to accept the scientific consensus as the most reliable knowledge available.
On the other hand, if somebody rejects the consensus view, they are claiming that they can see flaws and weaknesses where the majority of experts sees none. Convincing others (and perhaps themselves, first) that there’s actually no scientific consensus may help deflect charges that their opinions are merely fringe views.
The reality, of course, is that there is indeed a very well-documented consensus on climate change. The public is misinformed of this fact through the deliberate dissemination of manufactured doubt by fake skeptics, which is amplified by false balance reporting in the media (Boykoff and Boykoff, 2004). For most non-scientists, their decision to accept or reject the scientific consensus on climate change is inseparable from their awareness of the existence of the consensus itself. For this, the general public is largely at the mercy of the media.
A survey of 1010 American adults conducted in 2011 by Yale and George Mason Universities, revealed (Question 31) that only 15% of those polled believed that 81% or more of "climate scientists think that global warming is caused mostly by human activities". Although it may be asking too much of today's financially stressed print and broadcast media to report on the complex details of climate science, surely reporters could at least write accurate stories on the state of the scientific consensus.
Nobody has to take the media's word for it, though. Anyone can spend a day at a big scientific conference, like the AGU Fall Meeting, listen to some talks, question scientists in the hallway and eavesdrop at discussions in the poster sessions. The visitor will see scientists engaged in heated discussions about almost everything. What they won't observe are scientists wasting time debating any of the most used Skeptical Science climate myths.
Taking timely action to avert the worst consequences of climate change requires good public policy. Policy change requires widespread public support. That support will not be sufficient until the broad scientific consensus on climate change is recognized as a fact.US prosecutors confirmed Friday that charges against Volkswagen executive Oliver Schmidt would be reduced after he pleaded guilty to his part in covering up the German carmaker's "dieselgate" emissions-cheating scandal in the US.
Schmidt, who led the German automaker's US regulatory compliance office until 2015, appeared in a Detroit court to enter his plea. He had pleaded not guilty before his change of mind.
US prosecutors said they would drop a wire fraud charge, which carried a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. But they retained a fraud conspiracy charge and a charge of violating the US Clean Air Act, which together carry a maximum sentence of seven years.
Also under the plea agreement, Schmidt may have to pay a fine of between $40,000 (34,000 euros) and $500,000. The final verdict is due December 6, 2017.
In 2015, VW admitted it had equipped about 11 million cars worldwide with defeat devices to evade emissions tests, including about 600,000 vehicles in the United States. Diesel cars marketed as clean were in fact emitting 40 times the permissible limits of nitrogen oxide during normal driving.
Altogether eight managers from the German car group are facing charges by US authorities for the company's breach of emissions regulations. Many of the other managers charged are believed to be in Germany, making extradition to the US unlikely.
Schmidt was the second VW employee to plead guilty, after former company engineer James Liang admitted last year to helping devise the defeat devices. An FBI affidavit cited him as a cooperating witness.
In March, VW agreed to pay $4.3 billion in penalties after pleading guilty to conspiring to violate the US Clean Air Act. That was on top of $17.5 billion in civil settlements. The carmaker still faces an array of legal challenges in Germany and worldwide, and has so far set aside more than 22 billion euros to cover dieselgate costs.
Audi chief under increasing pressure
Media reports by German public broadcasters NDR and WDR and by the Süddeutsche Zeitung daily said Friday that Audi CEO Rupert Stadler was in the firing line after incriminating evidence allegedly given by witnesses.
The reports suggested the Audi boss had hindered investigations by US environmental authorities into Volkswagen's emissions-cheating practices. It appeared that after the VW scandal broke in late 2015, Stadler had told other managers to remove vital information from prepared presentations on how Audi diesel engines and their emissions control technology worked.
The presentations, meant to be shown to US investigators and compiled with a view to answering questions about Audi's 3.0-liter diesel engines, were said to have been shortened in such a way that would have made it impossible to discover any form of emissions data manipulation.
So far, Stadler has always insisted he'd only learned about VW's emissions-cheating practices when US agencies made them public.
uhe/rd (AFP, dpa, Reuters)By Adi Chowdhury
The “Summer of Justice” event in Wichita, Kansas, has provided a home for the promulgation of an array of prejudiced, vitriolic claims, including assertions that women’s rights activism is a work of the devil. Following in the footsteps of his previous claims that push the limits of “deluded”, Bishop Otis Kenner of Louisiana declared that Satan is staging a “homosexual invasion” to stop God from taking dominion over the earth and that the “devil” in the White House is in on it.
Satan has “devised a system” using gay people to stop God’s “colonization of the earth realm” through procreation. These agents of the devil actively steal good, moral Christian children and suffuse their minds with thoughts of gayness and degeneracy. This will ultimately lead to widespread moral decay and the corruption of our good Earth, unless we band together and put a stop to corrupted homosexuals and other evil-mongers.
Or, at least, that’s the story according to Bishop Kenner.
Kenner, who works for the anti-abortion group Operation Save America, lent his voice to the promulgation of prejudice, inundating the conference with his blatant homophobia.
He also directed his attacks at the fact that the White House had been illuminated with the colors of the LGBT pride flag last June and pounced upon this event, emphasizing that the government was working hand-in-hand with Satan.
On an amusing note, Kenner pointed out that the decision (to legalize gay marriage) was handed down on June 26 of last year, he pointed out that the date included “two sixes, which means 666, the Mark of the Beast.” Maybe he needs less God and more math tutors in his life.
Here are some excerpts from his speech:
“Because the homosexuals know that they cannot procreate, so they take our innocent sons and daughters through adoption … to try to stop the colonization of God in the earth realm,” he said. He then spoke as Satan: “‘If I can get into their minds, if I can get into their spirit, then I can break the process of God, stop the procreation process of God and the colonization of the earth realm and make more just like them.’ It’s about them colonizing the earth with their own kind.”
“In 2008, I preached a sermon called ‘Homosexual Invasion,’” he said. “God has showed me this in 2008 how the homosexuals were going to invade our country because they want to stop the colonization of God in the earth realm.”
“They legitimize same-sex marriages and they light the White House up with the gay pride colors to signify Satan is sitting at the seat of power.Will you vote for the devil because he showed up black?” Kenner said he had asked his congregation, clarifying that he wasn’t calling President Obama the devil, just that “what he did was the devil.”
Immerse yourself in his lunacy here.Atomically-strengthened glass screen protector with exceptional clarity
Completely shock-proof, bubble-proof and incredibly scratch-resistant, the iVisor Glass screen protector is practically a bullet-proof vest for your Galaxy Note 4's precious touchscreen. Unlike other screen protectors that require a tedious installation process, iVisor's proprietary design allows for a flawless, bubble-free installation in seconds.
Up to 40% thinner than generic glass screen protectors
With its mere 0.3 mm thickness and rounded edges, iVisor Glass perfectly blends in and virtually disappears with the top of your device. Once installed, you won't notice any difference in screen clarity and touch sensitivity. What you'll find instead, is peace of mind knowing that your phone's screen is protected at all times by the best there is.
100% bubble-proof, shock-proof and scratch-resistant
iVisor Glass is made from a special type of glass that is atomically-strengthened and exhibits exceptional hardness exceeding that of tempered steel. This makes its surface nearly impossible to scratch, even with a knife.
Oleophobic surface-coating provides fingerprint resistance
With an oleophobic surface-coating, fingerprint marks will be greatly reduced so your beautifully clear screen can be viewed without visual distractions.
Perfectly rounded edges and cut-outs for a comfortable grip and feel
The perfectly rounded edges ensure you enjoy a pleasant and comfortable grip of your Galaxy Note 4 and the cut-outs provide access to the 'Home' button while ensuring the front speaker, camera and sensors are not blocked in any way.
Microfibre cloth included
Also included is a microfibre cloth, to clean away any dust particles on the Galaxy Note 4's screen before application.
Key DetailsToday, Blind Man’s Puff turns 1 year old. We would like to thank all of the cigar manufacturers, brand reps, distributors, podcasters and bloggers that have shown us tremendous support during this sites infancy. We really enjoy working with all of you and look forward to continuing our current partnerships and creating new ones in the future. As all of you have done, we are always here to help you in any way we can.
Emmett and I would also like to thank all of the reviewers that have participated here. To publish reviews in the format that we do, it really takes a team to make it happen. We know that we can be pushy at times checking on when we can expect your review to make it in and we appreciate you always coming through. We will continue to strive to send you great cigars to smoke even though you wont know what they were until they get revealed on the site. Again, a huge thank you.
Last, but certainly not least, we’d like to thank all of you, the readers. Without you, this would just be a private smoking club. We hope that you feel as though you’ve been invited into our club and can experience these cigars with us. Our goal is to help you find a cigar that you wouldn’t have reached for before because of a feeling, something you heard or whatever reason may have kept you from trying it. We also hope that you’ve found at least one reviewer on this site whose palate is similar to yours and can help you determine if something they reviewed is something you should try.
We love your communication as well, whether it be via email, the social media sites or commenting on posts here. Please keep telling us what you like and don’t like about the site. Tell us what you want to see us review.
With that said, we’re also going to thank you with a cigar giveaway of 10 of our favorite cigars over the last year. Our reviewer Jason D. has graciously donated a 10 pack of cigars to be given away for this event. Most of these are cigars that we have reviewed, and definitely ones we have enjoyed, click on the links to view the reviews. The cigars in the 10 pack are:
Enter Here
We’re giving you multiple ways to enter, so take advantage of all of them and give yourself the best shot at winning. All of the entry methods are covered by the rafflecopter box below. All you have to do is tell us your favorite review from the last year. Was it surprising? Or did it make you want to buy something? Contest ends 11:59 MST 2/28/14.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Contest: Blind Man’s Puff 1 Year Anniversary – 10 pack giveawayBy Rohan Grey and Raúl Carrillo
Orthodox economists are often inclined to think of law as an external force that ‘intervenes’ to regulate otherwise naturally occurring economic phenomena. In contrast, Modern Monetary Theory and its antecedent intellectual traditions have long recognized that law in fact constitutes and shapes modern economies and the monetary regimes that underpin them. For example, Knapp argued explicitly that money was a “creature of law.” Similarly, Keynes, in A Treatise on Money, stated:
“The State…comes in first of all as the authority of law which enforces the payment of the thing which corresponds to the name or description in the contracts. But it comes in doubly when, in addition, it claims the right to determine and declare what thing corresponds to the name, and to vary its declaration from time to time-when, that is to say, it claims the right to re-edit the dictionary. This right is claimed by all modern states and has been so claimed for some four thousand years at least.”
Today, many of the core propositions of MMT can be understood as essentially legal arguments. Here are a few examples:
MMT’s determination that that a Job Guarantee is necessary because the state creates unemployment by imposing a non-reciprocal liability (i.e. a tax) that can only be satisfied by obtaining its tokens (i.e. tax credits), and thus owes individuals the ability to work for those tokens, is an argument about legal systems design. That is to say, the Job Guarantee is a legal remedy to the problem of legally-created unemployment. This framing echoes the legal arguments made by the British peasantry in response to the 18th century enclosure movement. When the state privatized farming and hunting lands previously considered part of the commons, peasants demanded compensation. Although the enclosure story focuses on the coercive creation of private property rights and the Job Guarantee story focuses on taxation, the underlying legal reasoning is the same: when the state prevents its subjects from subsisting independently from the state-controlled, monetarily driven, social provisioning process, it cannot exclude them from equitable participation in that process.
MMT’s observation that the state has a “monopoly” over money can be understood in relation to the longstanding legal prohibition against counterfeiting–not only of currency, but also of private monetary instruments issued under state sanction. For example, laws against securities and wire fraud, as well as regulations prohibiting non-banking institutions from issuing demand deposits, are all examples of the state’s power to delineate the scope of legitimate monetary transactions. From this perspective, the notion that money is a public monopoly supports, rather than contradicts, Minsky’s famous dictum that “anyone can create money, the challenge is to get it accepted.” After all, the question of acceptance is, ultimately, one of legal legitimacy. Indeed, we see this quite clearly in current regulatory debates over financial technologies. For example, while the U.S. Treasury has classified bitcoin as a “currency,” the Commodity Futures Trading Commission continues to treat it as a “commodity,” and the Internal Revenue Service taxes it as “property.” Together, these legal classifications determine bitcoin’s ‘moneyness’ by establishing the boundaries of its legitimate commercial use.
MMT’s recognition that certain operational constraints on macroeconomic policymaking are merely “self-imposed,” rather than intrinsic to the monetary system, reflects a sophisticated legal understanding of the varying malleability of constitutional versus statutory provisions, as well as administrative rules, regulatory guidances, and mere informal conventions. For example, while the minutiae of the Federal Reserve Act may be highly restrictive to the day-to-day activities of a bureaucrat operating in the bowels of the St. Louis Federal Reserve, they don’t present any ‘deep’ constitutional barrier to a member of Congress contemplating reform of the Federal Reserve System itself. With these distinctions in mind, MMT’s tendency to analyze Treasury-Central Bank operations from both a “consolidated” as well as a “deconsolidated” approach is not a technical weakness but a visionary strength. MMT economists are not ignoring institutional granularity, they are appropriately acknowledging the plasticity of law and the power we have to change it.
Finally, MMT’s embrace of Minsky’s balance sheet view of the monetary economy and its commitment to stock-flow consistent models implies recognition that finance is governed by man-made accounting laws, rather than natural laws. These accounting laws are ultimately subject to the same legislative, administrative, and judicial input as any other laws. They are also subject to constant manipulation: a notion intrinsic to the concept of control fraud.. Whereas it is mathematically impossible to make 2+2=5 in the real world, such an outcome is easily achievable in the nominal realm of legal accounting and thus throughout the financial system and the monetary economy overall.
At the same time, the dialogue between MMT and the law is a two-way street. Indeed, modern money theorists have historically found mainstream lawyers far more eager to grasp and grapple with the radical political implications of their insights than mainstream economists. For example, Innes, who, according to Randy Wray, wrote “two of the best pieces written in the 20th Century on the nature of money,” chose to publish his ideas in the Banking Law Journal. Similarly, Beardsley Ruml, President of the New York Federal Reserve and author of the excellent proto-MMT Taxes for Revenue are Obsolete, first presented his argument to the American Bar Association.
In 2012, in recognition of this natural pairing between MMT and certain kinds of legal thinking, several of us formed the Modern Money Network (MMN), a non-profit, educational organization dedicated to promoting public understanding of money and finance. From our initial beginnings as a student group at Columbia Law School in New York City, we have grown into an international organization with affiliates and supporters in Europe, Australia, and elsewhere.
In recent years, many progressive and radical lawyers and legal academics have embraced MMT’s core ideas and arguments. For some, this is a result of direct engagement with MMN and/or the broader MMT community. Others have arrived here on their own, using independent thinking to reach similar technical and normative conclusions. For example, as University of Maryland Law Professor Frank Pasquale observed in 2014:
“[A] renewed emphasis on a key legal insight (the government cannot default on debt it issues in its own currency) can lead to an adjustment to economic theory (MMT), which in turn informs a new legal proposal to get past the current, futile […] debate. It’s a movement from legal insight to economic insight back to legal insight, or L – E – L. … The legal foundations of MMT make it both scientifically, and normatively, a better theory of our economic system than the dominant paradigms of monetary policy.”
Similarly, University at Buffalo Law Professor Martha McCluskey noted in 2016:
“Modern money theory explains that political and legal systems for creating, regulating, and distributing money are fundamental to economic prosperity and stability, necessarily shaping (not “distorting”) and facilitating private exchanges of goods and services. … the economic costs and benefits of public money creation depend on the contingent, complex value-laden questions of how that money is spent and invested and how effectively taxes and other forms of regulation help steer economic and political activity toward the productivity, stability, and legitimacy that will help maintain currency value.”
Developments like these have been both validating and deeply encouraging. At the same time, MMN continues to relentlessly promote MMT in the legal world, through organizing widely attended educational events, and bringing economists and lawyers together with the explicit purpose of building a truly transdisciplinary theoretical and policy framework for achieving social and economic justice. Some MMN highlights during this period include:
A seminar on bridging legal and economic perspectives on money, ft. David Bholat from the Advanced Analytics Division of the Bank of England and MMTer Pavlina Tcherneva;
A seminar on the federal budget at Harvard Law School, ft. Amar Reganti, former Deputy Director of the Office of Debt Management at U.S. Treasury, and MMTer Stephanie Kelton;
A seminar on money markets, ft. New York Federal Reserve Bank Legal Counsel Joseph Sommer, former U.S. Treasury Department Senior Advisor Zoltan Pozsar, and MMTer Marshall Auerback;
A seminar on central banking as part of a series on the “law-money nexus,” ft. former U.K. Financial Services Authority Chairman Adair Turner, former Central Bank of Argentina Economic Research Director Matias Vernengo, former Assistant U.S. Treasury Secretary Richard Clarida, and MMT fellow traveler James K. Galbraith;
A symposium on the future of Greece and the Eurozone, ft. the now-Prime Minister of Greece, Alexis Tsipras, Greek Alternate Minister for Combatting Unemployment, Rania Antonopoulos, Rutgers Law Professor and author of Rep. John Conyers H.R. 1000 full employment bill, Philip Harvey, and MMTer Mathew Forstater;
Panels on public banking, the legal architecture of economic institutions, and the role of economic models in public policymaking, at the student-organized Rethinking Economics New York conference at Columbia and New York University Law Schools and the Economics Department of the New School;
Panels on public money and financing the criminal legal system at the annual Rebellious Lawyering Conference at Yale Law School, the nation’s largest student-run public interest law conference;
A 1-credit, student-driven course on law, money, and finance at Columbia Law School;
Three chapters in an upcoming law school casebook, authored by the Association for the Promotion of Political Economy and Law (APPEAL), exploring the legal architecture of public and private money, the legal foundations of the job guarantee, and the law of derivatives regulation;
And these are just the tip of the iceberg. For anyone, regardless of experience or background, who is interested in learning more about MMN’s forays in the legal world, please join us and the rest of the MMT community at the historic 1st International MMT Congress at the University of Missouri-Kansas City in September. To borrow a phrase, we believe that anyone can create law, the only challenge is to get it accepted. We look forward to rising to that challenge with you all, together.
See you there!Forgot to add "Blade Vortex still gets 600% more poison damage at 20 stacks" Posted by Cataract
on on Quote this Post
" TheuberClips I hope a nerf to BV double dip is coming too
The patch note will be: Blade Vortex's "More Damage per Blade" modifier has been changed to apply only to spell damage instead of all damage types. This will remove a double-dipping effect that should not have been occurring.
This was double dipping in a way other things were not. It was a mistake in the original implementation.
Edited: this post previously said: Likely. The patch note will be: Blade Vortex's "More Damage per Blade" modifier has been changed to apply only to spell damage instead of all damage types. This will remove a double-dipping effect that should not have been occurring.This was double dipping in a way other things were not. It was a mistake in the original implementation.Edited: this post previously said: Likely.
Last edited by Qarl on Dec 21, 2016, 3:40:33 AM Posted by Qarl
on Grinding Gear Games on Quote this Post
damn, i am not even close to meta... http://tldrexile.com
I need more purple titles Posted by Ocylix
on on Quote this Post
" Qarl " TheuberClips I hope a nerf to BV double dip is coming too
Likely. Likely.
inb4 fixing broken build leads to perfectly fine builds being completely destroyed in the process inb4 fixing broken build leads to perfectly fine builds being completely destroyed in the process Posted by GGIsLoveGGIsLife
on Banned on Quote this Post
And will you give us some stats regarding challenges like you always did?
Never enough stats. Thanks for these. Gems stats aren't that useful, as well as the uniques in this current state. Could you take into account only the skills that are on a 5/6l? It would help to see what real primary skills are the most used (many utility skills are in the current top). For the uniques, some categorization would be required even if that's just a top 3 for the weapon, body armour, etc.And will you give us some stats regarding challenges like you always did?Never enough stats. Thanks for these. Last edited by Harest on Dec 21, 2016, 12:27:15 AM Posted by Harest
on on Quote this Post
Qarl_GGG,
can you buff Blade Flurry?! Its very bad on no assasin shadow build.... :( ▒█▀▀█ █▀▀█ █▀▀ █▀▀ █▀▀ ▒█▀▄▀█ G O O D MTX Seal of Quality
▒█▄▄█ █▄▄▀ █▀▀ ▀▀█ ▀▀█ ▒█▒█▒█ O Verified by M-posting, Inc.
▒█░░░ ▀░▀▀ ▀▀▀ ▀▀▀ ▀▀▀ ▒█░░▒█ Y Posted by Hellus666
on on Quote this Post
That moment when you realize that 20% and 30% increases to 0 still give you 0. I make dumb builds, therefore I am. Posted by FCK42
on on Quote this PostI don't know about you, my friends, but like the late great Big Kev I was EXCITED by news that Home and Away is going all dykey with a lesbian storyline involving... well... I'm not sure who actually because I don't really watch the show, ever. But I understand that commercial television casting policies virtually guarantee the lesbians will be smokin' hot TV-style lesbians, not lumpy, angry West End-style lesbians who are of course perfectly entitled to be all lumpy and angry and alienated from a white-male-dominated hetero fascist power structure except, you know, it doesn't really move the needle on the old Perv-o-Meter for the rest of us.
However, no sooner had Channel Seven - the show is on Seven isn't? Hmm, I guess I'd better go check that before the lesbians start steaming up the widescreen - anyway, no sooner had Seven announced that Summer Bay (That's right isn't it? They're gonna be hot-n-spanky beach lesbians?) was being renamed Sapphic Bay, than hordes of gimlet-eyed naysayers in heavy, unfashionable coats and headscarves started waving their brollies and hymnals in high dudgeon whining, "Won't someone please think about the children!"
Anti-fun spokesdrone Angela Conway from the Orwellian Pro-Family Perspectives group was in the front ranks of those channelling the Reverend Mrs Lovejoy when she complained, "The plot lines that young kids and teenagers should be presented with should be about really authentic relationships that are not just sexualised."
Here's a newsflash, Ange.
Really authentic relationships are sexualised, no matter who's involved, and unless the teens of whom you speak have been locked up in some freakish, fundo-Christian compound where everybody wears barbed wire undies, the lady folk get wrapped up head to toe in bedsheets each night, and the highlight of the week is Extra Cold Showers and Bamboo Cane Flogging Night then... hmm, where was I going with this... oh yeah, then those teens you want to protect from their naughty urges and tingly feelings already know all about sexy time.
So listen up all you nasty little punishment freaks, don't you dare get in the way of the rest of us enjoying a bit of girl-on-girl action. And before you even think of sending the usual flood of creepy threatening letters to Seven's advertisers, just let me assure those same advertisers that for every twitching little weasel who says they'll stop buying your stuff if you have anything to do with this fine, fine show, there's plenty more of us with dollars to spend who'll be watching every second of every commercial and totally spending our Ruddbot Stimulus cheques on your product and/or services.International Energy Agency: 5 Years to Change or Be Changed
November 11th, 2011 by Zachary Shahan
Climate scientists have warned us (for decades). Some politicians have warned us. Military reports have warned us. And citizens of the world have certainly warned now. Now, the International Energy Agency (IEA) is warning us: if we don’t make a massive switch to clean energy in the next few years (5 years according to the IEA), climate change is going to wreck us.
Now, an important thing to remember is that avoiding the catastrophes of climate change is not like meeting a legislative or business deadline. It’s not like stopping the car before driving into the wall. It’s more like this: we’ve driven the car into the biggest hurricane the world has ever seen, and now we need to get out of it, rather than keeping driving towards the center of destruction. Climate-related disasters are already costing us billions upon billions of dollars. but, back to the IEA….
“[R]ising fossil energy use will lead to irreversible and potentially catastrophic climate change” if current trends continue, the IEA concluded in its annual World Energy Outlook report.
“The door to 2.0 C is closing.” OK, there is a sort of wall climate scientists have come up with to help humanity get to work planning and averting serious disaster. That wall is 2.0 C degrees of warming. We’re at 1.0 C degrees of warming now, compared to the last century, because of rising CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions.
The IEA finds that without tremendous change, we will hit 2.0 C in 2017.
“As each year passes without clear signals to drive investment in clean energy, the ‘lock-in’ of high-carbon infrastructure is making it harder and more expensive to meet our energy security and climate goals,” said IEA chief economist Fatih Birol.
The bad news: if we take into account current government commitments to change energy policy in order to avoid climate change, a 3.5 C increase in the global average temperatures in the next 25 years. That is, basically, equal to massive catastrophes around the world, natural disasters and basic life service collapses like humans have never seen. And that means that not only do countries who have committed to strong climate action need to realize their goals, but many more countries (ahem, the U.S.) need to get on board or increase their commitments.
And, if we just carried on with “business as usual,” the projection is actually 6 C degrees of warming. To put it bluntly, good luck to your children surviving that! As the AFP summarizes: “Scientists who have modelled the impacts on biodiversity, agriculture and human settlement say a 6 C world would be close to unlivable due to violent extremes of drought, flooding, heatwaves and storms.”
The 2011 World Energy Outlook “shows that the world is |
equated aspects of 1960s social programs with the rise of the welfare state, "... I know all about that. In the late Twenties, when I was a sophomore at USC, I was a socialist myself—but not when I left. The average college kid idealistically wishes everybody could have ice cream and cake for every meal. But as he gets older and gives more thought to his and his fellow man's responsibilities, he finds that it can't work out that way—that some people just won't carry their load... I believe in welfare—a welfare work program. I don't think a fella should be able to sit on his backside and receive welfare. I'd like to know why well-educated idiots keep apologizing for lazy and complaining people who think the world owes them a living. I'd like to know why they make excuses for cowards who spit in the faces of the police and then run behind the judicial sob sisters. I can't understand these people who carry placards to save the life of some criminal, yet have no thought for the innocent victim."[206]
A small segment of the "Wall" at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial listing the names of the nearly 60,000 American war dead
Former liberal Democrat Ronald Reagan, who later became a conservative Governor of California and 40th President of the US, remarked about one group of protesters carrying signs, "The last bunch of pickets were carrying signs that said 'Make love, not war.' The only trouble was they didn't look capable of doing either."[207][208]
The "generation gap" between the affluent young and their often poverty-scarred parents was a critical component of 1960s culture. In an interview with journalist Gloria Steinem during the 1968 US presidential campaign, soon-to-be First Lady Pat Nixon exposed the generational chasm in worldview between Steinem, 20 years her junior, and herself after Steinem probed Mrs. Nixon as to her youth, role models, and lifestyle. A hardscrabble child of the Great Depression, Pat Nixon told Steinem, "I never had time to think about things like that, who I wanted to be, or who I admired, or to have ideas. I never had time to dream about being anyone else. I had to work. I haven't just sat back and thought of myself or my ideas or what I wanted to do... I've kept working. I don't have time to worry about who I admire or who I identify with. I never had it easy. I'm not at all like you... all those people who had it easy."[209]
In economic terms, it has been contended that the counterculture really only amounted to creating new marketing segments for the "hip" crowd.[210]
Even before the counterculture movement reached its peak of influence, the concept of the adoption of socially-responsible policies by establishment corporations was discussed by economist and Nobel laureate Milton Friedman (1962): "Few trends could so thoroughly undermine the very foundation of our free society as the acceptance by corporate officials of a social responsibility other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible. This is a fundamentally subversive doctrine. If businessmen do have a social responsibility other than making maximum profits for stockholders, how are they to know what it is? Can self-selected private individuals decide what the social interest is?"[211]
In the UK, commentator Peter Hitchens identified the counterculture as one of the contributing factors to what he saw as the malaise in British politics in 2009.[212]
External video on YouTube
In 2003, author and former Free Speech activist Greil Marcus was quoted, "What happened four decades ago is history. It's not just a blip in the history of trends. Whoever shows up at a march against war in Iraq, it always takes place with a memory of the efficacy and joy and gratification of similar protests that took place in years before... It doesn't matter that there is no counterculture, because counterculture of the past gives people a sense that their own difference matters."[213]
When asked about the prospects of the counterculture movement moving forward in the digital age, former Grateful Dead lyricist and self-styled "cyberlibertarian" John Perry Barlow said, "I started out as a teenage beatnik and then became a hippie and then became a cyberpunk. And now I'm still a member of the counterculture, but I don't know what to call that. And I'd been inclined to think that that was a good thing, because once the counterculture in America gets a name then the media can coopt it, and the advertising industry can turn it into a marketing foil. But you know, right now I'm not sure that it is a good thing, because we don't have any flag to rally around. Without a name there may be no coherent movement."[214]
During the era, conservative students objected to the counterculture and found ways to celebrate their conservative ideals by reading books like J. Edgar Hoover's A Study of Communism, joining student organizations like the College Republicans, and organizing Greek events which reinforced gender norms.[215]
Free Speech advocate and social anthropologist Jentri Anders observed that a number of freedoms were endorsed within a countercultural community in which she lived and studied: "freedom to explore one's potential, freedom to create one's Self, freedom of personal expression, freedom from scheduling, freedom from rigidly defined roles and hierarchical statuses..." Additionally, Anders believed some in the counterculture wished to modify children's education so that it didn't discourage, but rather encouraged, "aesthetic sense, love of nature, passion for music, desire for reflection, or strongly marked independence."[216][217]
External video on YouTube
In 2007, Merry Prankster Carolyn "Mountain Girl" Garcia commented, "I see remnants of that movement everywhere. It's sort of like the nuts in Ben and Jerry's ice cream -- it's so thoroughly mixed in, we sort of expect it. The nice thing is that eccentricity is no longer so foreign. We've embraced diversity in a lot of ways in this country. I do think it's done us a tremendous service."[218]
Key figures [ edit ]
Jerry Rubin, University at Buffalo, March 10, 1970
The following people are well known for their involvement in 1960s era counterculture. Some are key incidental or contextual figures, such as Beat Generation figures who also participated directly in the later counterculture era. The primary area(s) of each figure's notability are indicated, per these figures' Wikipedia pages. This section is not intended be exhaustive, but rather a representative cross section of individuals active within the larger movement. Although many of the people listed are known for civil rights activism, some figures whose primary notability was within the realm of the Civil Rights Movement are listed elsewhere. This section is not intended to create associations between any of the listed figures beyond what is documented elsewhere. (see also: List of civil rights leaders; Key figures of the New Left; Timeline of 1960s counterculture).
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Works cited [ edit ]An April 27 Wall Street Journal book review by Simon Winchester descends into a petty squabble about whether the volcanic eruptions on Mount Tambora (1815) and Krakatoa (1883), both located in Indonesia, was more significant. After a few positive paragraphs reviewing Gillen D'Arcy Wood's Tambora: The Eruption That Changed the World, Winchester takes exception to Wood's comparison of the Tambora eruption with that of Krakatoa. Winchester writes:
"I have one argument. Mr. Wood's intention in writing the story of Tambora, in time for its bicentenary, is to stake the eruption's claim for global primacy—to knock Krakatoa off its long-held pedestal. The celebrity of [Krakatoa's] more modest eruption in 1883 seems undeserved,' he writes. 'Only the historical accident of the telegraph's invention allowed news of it to travel instantly across the world.'"
Which is the More Significant?
Winchester introduces his defense of Krakatoa, admitting that he has a "dog in the fight," as author ofKrakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883. He claims that Krakatoa "was the biggest volcanic explosion in what one may call fully recorded human history." He then spends a third of the article seeking to prove that the Krakatoa eruption was the more significant than that of Tambora.
Winchester describes the Krakatoa eruption and how the rapid communications that had recently become available amplified its significance in the decades that followed. He points out that there were more than 40,000 fatalities and that Krakatoa generated the most extensive tsunami ever generated by a volcano. Finally, he claims that Krakatoa "contributed to the creation of the Republic of Indonesia."
I have long asked the same question that Woods poses and concluded that history had slighted Tambora. So, I spent some time the other evening reacquainting myself with the subject, using Internet sources (such as Wikipedia), which do not rise to academic standards, but certainly paint a picture supporting Woods' position.
As for the 40,000 fatalities, there appears to be no question but that fatalities from Tambora were nearly twice as great. It is not really surprising that Krakatoa is a more extensive tsunami than Tambora, since Krakatoa was a fairly modest mountain (less than 3,000 feet or 1,000 meters) sitting in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra. Much of the volcano collapsed into the sea, which will obviously produce a larger tsunami than when the mountain is at least 10 miles (16 kilometers) from the sea and principally collapsed upon itself, rather than the sea.
The claim that the Krakatoa eruption was instrumental in creating the Republic of Indonesia is bizarre. Krakatoa surely did not provide any incentive to the Dutch to rule longer, or for the Indonesians to extend colonial rule. Indonesia was among the first to shake off colonialism following World War II (1945). Nor is it likely that an unexploded Krakatoa would have advanced independence to before the War.
Fully Recorded History as of 1981: St. Helen's Exceeds Krakatoa
Winchester overreaches in noting that Krakatoa was the "biggest volcanic explosion "in fully recorded human history." Fully recorded human history is in the eye of the beholder. Yet, the Krakatoa eruption was not recorded by motion pictures or video, which were not yet invented and did not thus occur in "fully recorded history" as we know it.
For example, in 1981, a few months after Washington's Mount St. Helen's blew its side out, it would have been fair to characterize its 1980 eruption as being more significant than Krakatoa, by virtue of having been captured on video (and thus in "fully recorded history” at them time). Certainly, scientists have learned much from Mount St. Helens. However, its greater significance due to its capture on video was a function of technology, not volcanism.
Tambora's Significance
By any measure, Tambora was a substantially larger volcanic eruption that Krakatoa. Its Volcanic Explosive Index (VEI) was 7, the only confirmed rating of that intensity since the Lake Taupo eruption in New Zealand 1,600 years before. By comparison, Krakatoa earned a VEI of only 6. Further, Tambora spewed a far greater volume, at 38 cubic miles (160 cubic kilometers). By comparison, Krakatoa's volume was less than one-third that of Tambora, at 11 cubic miles (45 cubic kilometers). Both ejected far greater volumes than the 1980 eruption of Mount Saint Helens (less than one quarter cubic mile or one cubic kilometer), which had a VEI of 5.
Moreover, Tambora set off the "year without summer" in 1816, when a June snow storm dumped six to twelve inches (15 to 30 centimeters) on northern New England and snow drifts of two feet (60 centimeters) in the ville de Quebec.
Indonesia's Disasters
Interestingly, neither the Tambora nor the Krakatoa eruption ranks as the largest in Indonesian history (or perhaps more properly, pre-history). The Lake Toba eruption on Sumatra occurred 75,000 years ago and is reputed to have been the most intensive in the world in the last 2 million years. Lake Toba ejected approximately 675 cubic miles (2,800 cubic kilometers) of material. This is 17 times the Tambora volume and more than 60 times the Krakatoa volume. But none of the three killed as many people (230,000) as the Boxing Day tsunami (December 26, 2004), which was set off by a 9.0 earthquake off Sumatra. Population had exploded between 1883 and 2004, which drove the Boxing Day tsunami fatalities far above those of the Krakatoa tsunami.
Tambora v. Krakatoa: Volcanism v. Telecommunications
Winchester confuses technology with history. Woods is exactly right. But for the historical accident of the telegraph, Krakatoa might have been as largely forgotten, not unlike another VEI-6 event --- the 1912 Novarupta volcanic eruption in Alaska. Had the telecommunications of 1815 been equal to those of 1883, no one would remember Krakatoa. Telecommunications explains its prominence, not volcanism.
-----------------
Wendell Cox is principal of Demographia, an international public policy and demographics firm. He is co-author of the "Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey" and author of "Demographia World Urban Areas" and "War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life." He was appointed to three terms on the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, where he served with the leading city and county leadership as the only non-elected member. He was appointed to the Amtrak Reform Council to fill the unexpired term of Governor Christine Todd Whitman and has served as a visiting professor at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, a national university in Paris.
Photo: Tambora: Depiction of 1815 Eruption (from http://cdn-2.vivalascuola.it/o/orig/scienze-classificazione-vulcanica_b2a5e9a592a9ff2585850e6b6006f595.jpgBay Area rents, home prices up sharply Real estate
Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Bay Area rents, home prices up sharply 1 / 1 Back to Gallery
If you're seeking a new pad in the Bay Area, you can expect to pay more than a year ago whether you're buying or renting, according to a report released Wednesday.
Asking prices for homes for sale around the Bay Area rose substantially in December compared with the same time last year, according to San Francisco real estate website Trulia, ranging from a 16.3 percent spike in tech-fueled Santa Clara County to a 7.6 percent increase in Napa County. The nine-county Bay Area saw an average increase of 13 percent. By comparison, asking prices nationwide rose 5.1 percent in December compared with December 2011, Trulia said.
"Both job growth and tighter inventory gave (sale) prices a lift," said Jed Kolko, Trulia's chief economist. "Price increases accelerated throughout 2012, getting bigger as the year went on."
Analyzing asking prices of homes currently for sale provides a leading indicator of what sales numbers are likely to look like in a few months' time, Trulia said.
Data on sales throughout much of 2012 have shown the housing market recovering from the extended downturn that started in 2007.
Nationwide, Trulia said, "2012 marked a huge turnaround year for most local housing markets" with prices increasing in 82 of the 100 largest metro areas in December. In December 2011, only 12 markets had price increases.
Las Vegas, Seattle and Phoenix were Trulia's "top turnaround" markets, followed by Oakland metro (Alameda and Contra Costa counties) and San Jose metro (Santa Clara and San Benito counties).
California cities such as Sacramento and Fresno that were devastated by the housing crisis also saw strong gains in 2012, Trulia said.
"Nine of the top 10 turnaround markets in 2012 were in the West," Kolko said. "The only one east of the Rockies was Atlanta."
Asking rents also rose, with Alameda County seeing the biggest spike (13.2 percent) and already pricey San Francisco the least (2.9 percent), Trulia said. The average increase for eight Bay Area counties (Napa did not have enough data) was 7.8 percent. Nationwide, rents grew 5.2 percent.
"We're seeing rent increases across the region," Kolko said. "In San Francisco they were smaller because rents are already so much higher there than elsewhere and it has had strong rent increases before this. The slower increase doesn't make the city affordable."
While rising home prices illustrate a housing market beginning to recover - and to stimulate economic recovery - they of course are not good news for those house hunting.
"They come with the perennial challenge of affordability in the Bay Area," Kolko said.Iraq’s House of Cards
There is something truly paradoxical about Iraq’s April 30 parliamentary elections. Although there is near unanimity among observers that the past four years have been disastrous for the country, many are still willing to defend Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s tenure — even going so far as to suggest that there is no one else who is capable of governing the country.
However, the sad reality is that — given all the developments of his eight years in office — very few Iraqis are less suitable to be prime minister today than Maliki. Indeed, Maliki’s third term would likely be even more disastrous than his second, leading to a deterioration in security and causing the country to relapse into a new authoritarian era.
Maliki’s defenders usually argue that the prime minister was largely responsible for the improvement in security that took place in 2008, that he is a shrewd political operator who has outmaneuvered all his opponents, and also that he has made himself indispensable to the state’s survival. That analysis seemed ludicrously generous as early as 2010, when it was first made, but it now borders somewhere between the comical and the suicidal.
It is true that Maliki has outmaneuvered his opponents — but he did so at the expense of Iraq’s institutions. The prime minister merely seized control over the security forces and threatened all his opponents into submission. He has monopolized all decision-making at the Defense and Interior ministries and has taken to providing direct instructions to individual units — often with a view to intimidating enemies or suppressing perceived threats, thereby completely undermining the concept of a professional chain of command. Whenever his opponents demanded that he change his ways, share power, or respect the rule of law, he would simply refuse — safe in the knowledge that his enemies had no leverage to speak of.
Maliki has always been very good at using the security sector to bolster his political power, but has been an utter failure in restoring actual security to Iraq. Although he was quick to take credit for the improvement in security that took place in 2007 and 2008, U.S. military officials who were responsible for overseeing the “surge” have since written detailed memoirs in which Maliki is hardly ever mentioned — and when he does come up, Maliki is almost never portrayed in a positive light. Even his decision to confront Shiite militias in the city of Basra and the Baghdad suburb of Sadr City — often cited as evidence of his nonsectarian credentials and his daring on the battlefield — was a disaster in its early stages, precisely because Maliki was solely in charge. It was only after U.S. forces intervened that the battle was won.
Maliki and his inner circle have also exacerbated security risks through a series of elementary mistakes, including subjecting thousands of innocent young men to unjustified detention and allowing corruption to get so out of hand that it has now seriously impacted the capacity of the security sector. Military units and police throughout the country now either stand aside or actively participate as local mafias force businesses to pay protection money. Security forces in the capital are still forced to use fake bomb detectors simply so that the government (which was responsible for buying the devices) can save face. The result is that the number of security-related deaths has roughly tripled over the past year, as car bombs continue to rip through army units and civilian areas with ruthless efficiency. Meanwhile, armed confrontations between gunmen and government forces have become more frequent.
Security has deteriorated so terribly that Iraq is now once again at risk of splitting apart. Many areas of the country are now out of the government’s control: Large swaths of the western province of Anbar are in open rebellion; security forces have essentially given up trying to control parts of the northern province of Nineveh, which has become a major financial hub for terrorist organizations; and the eastern province of Diyala has witnessed another round of brutal bloodletting as militias and government forces shell civilian areas. The state’s army and police have revealed themselves to be little more than a paper tiger. They are very willing to arrest and torture the innocent and defenseless, but are essentially powerless to control the actions of powerful militias that are now running riot throughout the country. With security forces incapable of facing the threat, Shiite militias have actually begun providing instructions to the military — sometimes even replacing them in battle altogether. These developments have exposed Maliki’s strongman image as the house of cards it always was.
The prime minister’s supporters regularly refer admiringly to his capacity for survival, but it is precisely Maliki’s stubborn insistence that he should remain in control of government that has hindered the provision of services. Hospitals are in such a poor state that Iraqi doctors would never imagine turning to one of their colleagues for treatment; they travel to any number of capitals in the region for even minor ailments. Electricity production has improved only slightly, to the extent that summers and winters are still invariably punctuated by daily power cuts, some of which can last for days. Rather than trying to resolve these problems, Maliki has allowed a grotesque form of nepotism to gnaw away at the state’s bureaucracy, marginalizing the few competent officials who survived Baath Party rule and Iraq’s wars.
These failures also have served to prevent alternatives to the status quo from emerging. Maliki’s greatest success may have been creating the impression that he is indispensable — that the state will collapse if the man in charge is removed. The truth is that what makes Maliki and his clique indispensable is their willingness to burn the whole house down to protect their positions.
In fact, many competent politicians are far better placed than Maliki and his inner circle to guide the country to a better place. Iraq does not lack competent administrators or politicians — it merely lacks the democratic traditions that would allow them to play a greater role in revitalizing its moribund government. Several names come immediately to mind: Mohammed Allawi, a former communications minister who resigned in protest when Maliki kept appointing incompetent party loyalists to his ministry; Ali Allawi, a former defense and finance minister who left government in 2006 in disgust at the corruption; Adel Abdul Mahdi, a respected politician who could have sufficient backing to form a government; and Ali Dwai, a governor of a southern province who is renowned for his effectiveness in very difficult circumstances.
While Maliki may want observers to fear that his departure would cause a security deterioration, the truth is that life in Iraq is already becoming more desperate by the day — in large part because of the toxic role that Maliki has been playing. Sectarian relations have worsened considerably, and the general population is terrified of a renewed conflict. A change at the country’s helm is needed precisely in order to restore the possibility of an improvement in the country’s direction; with Maliki, that possibility does not exist. For Iraqis to place their trust in the possibility that he might change his style of governance after eight years in power would be borderline suicidal.
There is in fact a serious possibility that Maliki will not obtain sufficient popular support to retain his position. His electoral popularity peaked at around 24 percent of the vote in 2010, when many Iraqis still believed in his nonsectarian and strongman credentials. However, Iraq’s complex and dysfunctional parliamentary system has allowed him to negotiate his survival. This election season, Maliki’s fortunes will necessarily decline from the previous poll — the only questions are by how much and how his electoral rivals will react. After the votes are counted, Iraq’s future will depend on its leaders’ ability to form a post-election alliance without the country’s most corrosive elements at its helm.As of today, Kotlin 1.1 has finally reached the release candidate stage. This means that most of our development work is done, we’re happy with the results, and we’ll soon publish them as a final Kotlin 1.1 release. We’ve done a lot of testing for this release internally, but the real world is always more varied than any test environment, so we need your help. Please try this build, and let us know about your experience!
The only new feature in the release candidate is the takeUnless function – a counterpart of takeIf (added earlier in 1.1) but with an inverted condition. As for bugfixes, there’s much more, and the changelog gives you a complete list. Among other things, we’ve fixed several performance problems in the IDE – both long-standing sore points and recent regressions.
Migration Notes
As we noted earlier, all binaries produced by pre-release versions are outlawed by the compiler: you’re now required to recompile everything that was compiled by 1.1‑M0x and Beta’s. All the code from 1.0.x is, of course, perfectly fine without recompilation.
Up until now, you could run the Kotlin compiler under any version of Java starting with Java 6, but this is about to change – starting with one of the first 1.1.x updates, the compiler will only run under Java 8 or 9. To prepare you for the migration, the compiler now emits a warning if you run it under Java 6 or 7. Note that this only affects the build environment; the compiled code is still compatible with Java 6 by default, and we have no plans to remove the support for that.
The.javaClass extension property is now deprecated. As a replacement, please use ::class.java. The IDE offers a quickfix to update usages, both individually and across the entire project.
To reduce the size of the JavaScript standard library, we’ve deprecated a lot of helper functions in the kotlin.dom and kotlin.dom.build packages, and we’re going to remove them in a future update.
How to try it
In Maven/Gradle: Add http://dl.bintray.com/kotlin/kotlin-eap-1.1 as a repository for the build script and your projects; use 1.1.0-rc-91 as the version number for the compiler and the standard library.
In IntelliJ IDEA: Go to Tools → Kotlin → Configure Kotlin Plugin Updates, then select “Early Access Preview 1.1” in the Update channel drop-down list, then press Check for updates.
In Eclipse: install the plugin with the following update site
https://dl.bintray.com/jetbrains/kotlin/eclipse-plugin/0.8.0
The command-line compiler can be downloaded from the Github release page.
On try.kotlinlang.org.
Let’s Kotlin!Illustration by BuzzFeed News
In a New York cab on a rainy afternoon in Union Square last June, an hour before I was to appear on British national television, I opened the travel makeup palette I had just bought from Sephora while the car was stopped in traffic. In the clean, untouched mirror, I looked at my unremarkable face, and tried to decide whether to make myself beautiful.
I was on my way to the BBC America studios on the West Side, for a live segment on BBC Newsnight about Caitlyn Jenner’s Vanity Fair cover. I hadn’t worn makeup since the previous year, after I resolved to give it up in 2015. But the idea of going on TV in front of millions of people without any makeup on filled me with both excitement and terror. It was especially ironic, that fear of being seen bare-faced, given that what I was about to discuss was a magazine cover that instantly became the iconic image of transgender glamour as soon as it was revealed. Jenner’s Vanity Fair cover would eventually ignite debates over how trans women are expected to fit cisnormative beauty ideals, but on the day the cover came out, the Internet’s response was overwhelmingly positive; many people fawned over Jenner’s beauty and compared her to Jessica Lange. The February before, when she came out as trans in an interview with Diane Sawyer, Jenner appeared without makeup on, and kept referring to her female self in the third-person like she wasn’t in the room. It was as though the person in front of Sawyer couldn’t fully be a woman without women’s makeup and clothes. I deeply identified with Jenner then; I felt the same way when I started transition. I needed to look as glamourous and conventionally beautiful as possible just to believe in the possibility of my womanhood, because that’s what the world had taught me.
The high that makeup gave me was temporary, and I depended on it more and more to feel whole.
All women go through a lot to be perceived as acceptable in society, but what trans women go through is particularly terrible. It’s one thing to fear being called ugly if you’re not wearing makeup, but another to be afraid of being called the vilest of slurs, beaten up, or worse. Even when Jenner has made a huge amount of effort to present herself according to conventional beauty norms for cisgender women, she continues to endure transphobic comments denying her womanhood, whether by Internet trolls or by prominent feminists like Germaine Greer and Elinor Burkett. Early in transition, when the world perceived me as male but I wanted to be seen as a woman, makeup was a fundamental step in getting other people to see me the way I wanted to be seen. I bought several makeup books and converted an old computer desk into a dedicated vanity. I used eyeshadow to pull focus away from my strong brow and contouring to soften my angular chin. Lipstick highlighted my pouty lips, the most feminine part of my face. With effort, I found that makeup gave me the means to have some control over how other people perceived my gender. And for an early-transitioning trans woman whose daily life was beset with moments when other people policed a womanhood I felt deeply within, I became addicted to the control that makeup gave me. Like a drug, the high that makeup supplied was temporary, and I depended on it more and more to feel whole. I would walk down the street to the admiring gazes of men, but every once in a while, someone would notice something – the hardness of my face or my Adam’s Apple, maybe – and the admiration so easily turned into disgust. And my reaction was to cover up even more, find even more ways to shroud myself in makeup so no one would see the ugliness they saw and that I saw in myself. I became less self-conscious as the years went by, and I relied on makeup less as hormones softened my face. But whenever I needed to make a good impression or feel better about myself, I still picked up my makeup case and spent those hours painting my face, to become momentarily intoxicated with the image I saw in the mirror, even though I knew that the makeup only masked my unhappiness. That’s why I found myself with a strong urge to separate my sense of self from the makeup I’ve been so dependent on for such a long time. So when a friend asked me to contribute to an article about New Year’s Resolutions in 2015, I publicly resolved to give up being conventionally feminine, and the first thing I put away was my makeup. After years of living in fear of my bare face, I wanted to assert that there’s nothing wrong with who I actually am. I wanted to exist without constantly thinking I was only acceptable if people saw me as beautiful and normal. I wanted to spend time without makeup so that I could better understand my relationship to it — what it gave me and what it took away.
Those first few weeks I stopped wearing makeup were remarkable not in what people said, but what they didn’t say. People no longer called me fabulous or gorgeous, or mentioned my full lips or high cheekbones, those parts of my face I used to overemphasize because people who knew makeup advised me they were striking.
In subtle ways, the power I felt from being perceived as attractive began to dissipate. People smiled at me less on the street, and men no longer opened doors for me. The small privileges of attractiveness I’d gotten used to over my years of womanhood, from baristas making extra sure I got my coffee quickly to clothing store owners occasionally giving me discounts, no longer applied. Because I’d been living as a woman for such a long time, a lot of the things that happened to me after I stopped wearing makeup were more typical of cisgender women’s experiences, even though I often still felt self-conscious about being trans. It was as though my image of myself in my head had not caught up with what people actually saw. One of the immediate benefits of living my life without makeup was the realization that I no longer had to rely on it to be gendered female, and was not subjected to the kind of harassment I experienced early in transition. But the loss I felt for not being perceived as beautiful was still significant, especially when I noticed any number of trans celebrities be continually praised for their looks. I also saw a direct correlation between contentment and conventional cisgender beauty among the trans women on my social media feed.
Had I grown up being perceived as a girl, it would have been drilled into me that my looks are vital to my self-worth.
By not wearing makeup, it felt like I was giving up an advantage for no good reason, and I was tempted to slather it back on. I began to wonder how much of the measure of success I had achieved up to that point – like having stable jobs and advanced degrees – can be attributed not to my intelligence or hard work, but to people’s perceptions of me as passable and attractive. But I tried to quiet these voices in my head, resolving to give myself time to acclimate and understand what makeup was really about for me. It was during this period that I remembered what it was like before I felt all this pressure to look good. I spent an entire childhood to early adulthood hardly ever wondering whether I was attractive enough, because being attractive had little to do with my worth as a human being who was perceived as male. Being smart and talented were the most important qualities I needed to possess, and if I was cute, that was just a bonus. Had I grown up being perceived as a girl, it would have been drilled into me from the beginning that my looks are vital to my self-worth. As I continued to go out without makeup, I began to recall some of the things I liked about living as male pre-transition (contrary to popular belief, not all trans women are constantly miserable in their assigned gender). I loved how I could get out of bed, put on sweats and go out, not caring what other people thought of my appearance. I also began to notice a bunch of things I didn’t need to worry about when I didn’t have makeup on. I could rub my eyes whenever I want while I’m working, or munch on snacks then wipe my lips with a napkin without worrying about ruining my lipstick. I didn’t need to feel that weird weight of mascara when I blinked, or that odd texture of foundation on my skin. But most of all, I didn’t have to constantly think about what my face looked like. So it wasn’t a surprise that the first half of 2015 was one of my most productive periods. The mere fact that I wasn’t faced with the reminder on a regular basis to think about how I looked freed me to think and write about pressing transgender issues that were so important to me. This included writing extensively on Caitlyn Jenner, from the time that she publicly disclosed her trans status to the time she unveiled her name and female presentation on the cover of Vanity Fair. My writing, and not my looks, was what landed me an invitation to be on British national television.All of the industry's biggest tech players are going gaga chasing the cloud-computing market these days:
What is it that has all of the biggest tech players drooling? This chart that IBM sent to its investors explains it all. To summarize, IBM says...
85% of new software today is being built for the cloud.
One-quarter of the world's apps will be available on the cloud by 2016.
Almost three-quarters of developers say that they are using the cloud in apps they are developing now.
IBM In other words, the shift from buying computers to renting them has begun big time, and there are billions of dollars up for grabs.
By 2017, enterprises are expected to be spending $235 billion on the cloud, predicts market research firm IHS.Hats Off to Aldous Huxley, Michael York & Audible
Huxley for writing the book, York for reading it and Audible for making books like this available in their Daily Deals. I would never have bought it had it not been on sale—and I would have missed an amazing work of literature as well as a fine audio performance.
Like many people, Brave New World was always one of those books I meant to read. Whenever a new tech marvel hit the scene or a new question of medical ethics made headlines, a news writer somewhere was sure to make an allusion to the title of Aldous Huxley’s masterpiece. But that’s as far as my understanding of the book went: a nebulous sense that it presented a less-than-savory picture of some indefinite, but very possible, future.
But as Mustapha Mond, the World Controller for Western Europe might say, that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
In the interest of full disclosure, you need to know I was born and bred in Detroit. Hence, a good deal of my enjoyment of the book stems from the author’s complete agreement with my own estimate of Henry Ford. Yes, he made America mobile. Yes, that mobility was affordable. But delve into some of the man’s writings, sayings and methods and you understand what Huxley is driving at.
One day Ford was walking through his factory when he noticed a pile of short wooden boards. Upon inquiring about them, he learned they were broken up packing cases that had contained auto parts; they were about to be thrown away. In a flash of ingenuity, he ordered the wood to be used as floorboards for his Model T’s.
It’s a story that appeals to all our recycling instincts (that’s the way we’ve been conditioned, right?) But dig a little deeper. Behind Ford’s idea |
in is the 448 bytes from byte 64 to byte 512.
>>> data = file ( "volume.rc", "rb" ). read ( 512 ) >>> header = data [ 64 : 512 ] >>> len ( header ) 448
So, just to remind us, we now have a 448 bytes long encrypted header and three 128 bytes long keys. We are going to use one of the keys to decrypt the header. How do we know we are successful? Fortunately for us, the decrypted header begins with the magic bytes ‘TRUE’. So if we use one of our keys, decrypt the header with it and find that the first four bytes are ‘TRUE’, we have probably provided the correct password to the key strengthening algorithm. To make sure we have the correct password and the magic bytes were not just a coincidence, there are some additional data in the header we can use to verify the correctness of the header. This is not important now.
So what to do? Simple, you say: Just try the three keys in each cryptographic algorithm and see if the magic bytes are what we’re looking for when decrypting the header. Not so fast. TrueCrypt doesn’t use the cryptographic algorithm directly on the data. This is why: All the cryptographic algorithms we are using are so called block ciphers. They encrypt and decrypt blocks that are a certain number of bytes large. Let’s say the block size is 16 bytes. This means the cipher can only encrypt and decrypt data of length 16. If we have a large block of data we split it into 16 bytes long blocks and encrypt/decrypt them separately.
Here is the problem. What if two blocks contains the exact same data, for example file headers? Then the encrypted blocks will look exactly the same for an attacker looking at the cipher text (that is, the TrueCrypt volume file). This is highly undesirable, especially for such large files as file systems where there’s plenty of room for redundant information. If each block in the volume was decrypted separately with the same key an attacker would easily be able to guess the contents of the volume, based on the regularities alone.
Enter cryptographic modes. A cryptographic mode is a “scheme” how data should be encrypted and decrypted to remove weaknesses, such as the weakness we have described. A very simple cryptographic mode works like this: Fill the first block, block 0, with random bytes. The remaining blocks should contain the actual data. However before encrypting block one, XOR the data with the random bytes from block 0. Before encrypting block two, XOR the data with the encrypted data from block one, and so on. As each block is “chained” to the previous block, the cipher text will not look the same for two blocks with the same plain text. As with the salt in the previous steps, the random bytes don’t have to be encrypted. Using the common cryptographic notation, this mode can be described as:
C i = E K1 (C i-1 xor P i )
Where C i is the cipher text, E is the encryption algorithm, K1 is the key, C i-1 is the previous cipher text block and P i is the plain text.
The mode described above is a simple form of the so-called CBC-mode, where CBC stands for Cipher Block Chaining. For the untrained eye CBC-mode seems plausible and useful but in fact it has many non-obvious weaknesses. For this reason, a new mode was designed. This is known as the LRW-mode from the authors Liskov, Rivest (the guy who designed MD5), Wagner, and it’s the mode TrueCrypt use.
The LRW-mode is one of the few cryptographic primitives very useful to understand how it works to better understand TrueCrypt. With the same notation as above, we can completely describe the LRW mode:
C i = E K1 (P i xor (K2 mul i)) xor (K2 mul i)
If you understood the notation describing CBC above it should not be too difficult to understand the description of LRW. There are three problems. First of all, K2 is a second key, we can call this the LRW key. This LRW key is actually part of the 128 bytes long key we generated in the previous step, exactly like the cipher key K1. We know both K1 and K2. Second, the above mode mentions i. What is i? It’s just the block index, that is the index of the block P i.
Now, unfortunately, comes the abstract algebra. In the description above, mul means multiplication in the Galois field GF(2128). This is the mathematician’s way of describing a kind of advanced bit hacking operation. Addition and subtraction in GF(2n) is the same thing as our old friend xor. In fact, the formal definition of LRW doesn’t “xor”, it “performs addition in GF(2n)”. (Note that n can be something other than 128, but it is 128 for the ciphers in this article.)
I will not describe exactly how this kind of multiplication is performed, I will just refer to the following Wikipedia article: Wikipedia: Finite File Arithmetic and give these encouraging words: if you can multiply large numbers with a pen and paper like you learned in elementary school, you can perform a multiplication in GF(2128).
We can now write some code! First of all we have to write a short module for arithmetic in the Galois fields GF(2n), because we need to do this where n=128 for the LRW mode and the ciphers TrueCrypt uses. There are many clever ways to quickly multiply numbers in this field but I will for simplicity go for a schoolbook implementation, it’s less than 100 lines. For example:
def gf2n_mul ( a, b, mod ): """Multiplication in GF(2^n).""" pass def gf2pow128mul ( a, b ): """Multiplication in GF(2^128).""" return gf2n_mul ( a, b, mod128 ) >>> gf2pow128mul ( 0 xb9623d587488039f1486b2d8d9283453, 0 xa06aea0265e84b8a ) 0 xfead2ebe0998a3da7968b8c2f6dfcbd2
Code: gf2n.py.
Using the module we just wrote, we can now write some code for the LRW mode. The main function will look like this (see lrw.py for the actual implementation, it's just in code what we explained above):
def LRW ( cipherfunc, lrwkey, i, block ): pass
Where cipherfunc is a cryptographic function initialized with a key (K1) that performs either encryption or decryption, lrwkey is the LRW key K2, i is the block index and block is the block of plain text or cipher text, depending on whether we want to encrypt or decrypt some data.
The informed reader will notice a multiplication in our Galois field will at most output 16 bytes. This means the length of the block must be 16, or a multiple of 16. A helper function LRWMany will be provided which simply splits the block into 16 byte blocks and calls the LRW function for each block.
def LRWMany ( cipherfunc, lrwkey, i, blocks ): length = len ( blocks ) assert length % 16 == 0 data = '' for b in xrange ( length / 16 ): data += LRW ( cipherfunc, lrwkey, i + b, blocks [ 0 : 16 ]) blocks = blocks [ 16 :] return data
Code: lrw.py. Requires gf2n.
We can now finally decrypt the TrueCrypt volume header. Remember the 128 bytes long key? The first 16 bytes of the key is the LRW key. The bytes from 32 to 128 are keys for the cryptographic algorithms themselves. More precisely byte 32-64 is cipher key 1, byte 64-96 is cipher key 2 and byte 96-128 is cipher key 3. For TrueCrypt volumes using multiple cascaded ciphers two, or all three, cipher keys are used. For volumes using a single cipher only the first key is used. In Python:
lrwkey = key [ 0 : 16 ] key1 = key [ 32 : 64 ] key2 = key [ 64 : 96 ] key3 = key [ 96 : 128 ]
Let us for a short moment ignore cascaded ciphers and say we have a TrueCrypt volume using the Twofish algorithm. To decrypt the header we simply do the following:
>>> cipher = Twofish () >>> cipher. set_key ( key1 ) >>> decryptedheader = LRWMany ( cipher. decrypt, lrwkey, 1, header )
Where header is the 448 byte header and 1 is the block index. The header has block index 1. Here’s an example how the header may look like before and after decrypting it.
+\xf0\xbb\x0e\xeb\x82K\x0bQ\xfa\rs\x11\xb8c=\x1f!\xc6`2\xa5\xb8\xefZ\xd7\xf6\x82~\x1b \xe0\x18Cl\x1eM\xffW\x85H\xc6k\xba\xb4\xb9\x86{G\x05(\xa4\x8b\x0c\x9b\x06\x13\xa5\x8d \xe9\x06E\xa7\x01pz\x97\x87\x02\x8a\xb6;\xf9O\x8e\xfa\x14\x3ea\xd1\x911\xa2w\xfe?C\x1e& \xd5\xfe\xdc\xceu\xd9\x04\xfb\xf2\xa3\xde\xa0-\xee\xdc\xb8\xe7\x91\x80[N\xc6)#l\x08q \x89\xe0=\xa1\xd7\x0e\x90nO\xc9s\xde\x92\xbbv\x14\t\xeb_\x92\x85_\x18\xb9\xba\x1b] \xb7\xf8\x17\x03\xc5\x86\xac\xcd]\xd7\xc5\xcb\x9f!\xc4\xec\x05\x85\xc9\x91\xb5Pm\xdb \xdc\xc7\x14_\xe3I\x86k\xdcA\x3ef\xb9\x10"\xcd\x14I\xd1\xe3|\xd0\x95\xd0\xcb\x12\x83a, \xa3K\xac\x0b+\x1b\x02-?g\xf8\xad\x93\x01\x96p^\xd6\xa3\x8dY\xa4\xc6\xa5+u\x80\x19 \xcexX\x8d\xd0\xa6\xb0\x0b\x97\x19\xa2h\xe8/D\xef,\xc4\x1dy\x7f\xdc\xf6
\xe4\xafw\x80 \x97\x18\xb5jPT\x81m\xbc\x9a\x94\x1b\x3e\xa9\xf6\xe0\xa9\xc1M\xff\xed)D\x8f\x16\x8e\x9al \x0c\xdbhl\xf7\xbb\xfc\x04%\x96\xd2\xa1n\xf3\xe9K\x96\xfe\xe1\x20\xec\'\xc4\xce\x89 \xbcG\x1d\xc9\x8e\xcd\xb3?\x15{_\xff^f9\xc5-\xdd\x9c6\xf5b\xa4\xb5\xf08v\x93\xed\xee \xc1K\xd6\x95R7\xe6\x1c\xcad\xee\xe9\xa7\x10\xf7\xe0\x90\xaa\x81\x04\xb2c\xa2d\xd8T \xe5\xa3\xe3f\xbcG;\xb7\xf8\x3e\xe2\xad\xcc5\r\xf0Z\xec\x98\xc9\xd9\xb6\xf3\x12\xa1fY \xa0S\xd9E\xe5\xbc\x86p(&\x0c-\xf3\x8a\x80\x81\xb5\x95j\x9c\rfQ\xb2\xdcu\xfa=\x18\x01 \x96[\x1a\xab[\xb1{8\xaf{\x1e\xb2\\\xaf\x11(!\x00h\xb1\xe7\x85\xd4
\xc5\x3c\x90\xb0QQ\xd5 'TRUE\x00\x02\x04\x10\x19\xe8\x89\x0c\x01\xc8=\xbes\xcd\xd9\x10\x01\xc8=\xbes\xcd\xd9 \x10\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00 \x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00 \x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00 \x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00 \x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00 \x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00 \x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00 \x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\xcb\r\xf0_CRw \x84\xa2\x81!:\x1d\xbd\x90\x16\x95\x99WS\x1do\xc5\xf4\xdd#\xe7\x10\xfc\x18\x86\xddl \xbf/\xd6\x02M\x13\x11\xc7\x86H\xbe"\x05\x19\xe4\x1e\xf2fO4\xa2_\x15Lg\x80\x99~\xd1 \xd1K\x14H\xb7\xd7\xa0B\xf8\xc4\xb9`\xfcc\x14j\xa9\xd7\xe2\xcc\x9a\x81C\xa3\xc3\xfb~ \xfc\xc0\x83z\xb3\x8c\x10\x05z\x98\xaf\xcd,+\x91N\x1c#\xf6\xe3\x83\x88\x1b\x1e\x89r \xba\r;3\xc4\x0b.\'\x15\x3cn9\xb3\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00 \x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00 \x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00 \x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00 \x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00 \x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00 \x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00'
As we can see, the decrypted header has the magic bytes ‘TRUE’ in the beginning, as promised. Before we go over the content of the header, we should be able to handle cascaded ciphers. This is actually trivial to implement because we don’t have to change the LRW functions, just supply a decrypt or encrypt function as we did before. Consider the following code, with (almost) the same interface as the cipher algorithms:
class CipherChain : def __init__ ( self, ciphers ): self. ciphers = [ ciph () for ciph in ciphers ] def set_key ( self, keys ): i = 0 for cipher in self. ciphers : cipher. set_key ( keys [ i ]) i += 1 def encrypt ( self, data ): for cipher in self. ciphers : data = cipher. encrypt ( data ) return data def decrypt ( self, data ): for cipher in reversed ( self. ciphers ): data = cipher. decrypt ( data ) return data def get_name ( self ): return '-'. join ( reversed ([ cipher. get_name () for cipher in self. ciphers ]))
Ponder the code for a while. Especially consider the encrypt and decrypt function and the use of the Python function “reversed()”. Now consider a TrueCrypt volume using a three cipher cascade instead of simply Twofish. The cascade Rijndael, Twofish, Serpent is known as “Serpent-Twofish-AES” in the TrueCrypt user interface.
>>> cipher = CipherChain ([ Rijndael, Twofish, Serpent ]) >>> cipher. set_key ([ key1, key2, key3 ]) >>> decryptedheader = LRWMany ( cipher. decrypt, lrwkey, 1, header )
Please note that CipherChain([Rijndael, Twofish, Serpent]) is not the same cascade as CipherChain([Serpent, Twofish, Rijndael]).
In this section of the article we have covered lots of ground and we have taken some detours into the realms of abstract algebra and cryptographic modes. We can now do something that is probably more familiar to the reader: parse binary data. We can now temporarily forget everything above and concentrate fully on the decrypted header (such as the one above).
There are basically two parts of the decrypted header. First we have information. This is the data in the very beginning of the header. Then we have the curious bytes in the middle of the header, with all the zero bytes surrounding it. These bytes are very important because they are the keys for the rest of the volume. These keys are needed to decrypt the actual file system. We will call this key the master key.
Let’s get back to the information in the beginning of the decrypted header. The first 4 bytes are as previously mentioned the magic bytes TRUE (assuming, of course, we have decrypted the header correctly. If we used the wrong cipher or the wrong hash or the wrong password, the first four bytes will probably be garbage). Following the magic bytes are some big endian integers. The complete layout is as follows:
4 bytes: The string ‘TRUE’
2 bytes: A 16 bit big endian integer. The version number of the volume.
2 bytes: A 16 bit big endian integer: The minimum version of TrueCrypt required to read the volume.
4 bytes: A 32 bit big endian integer: A checksum.
In our decrypted header above, we can parse the first bytes by hand here and now. The version number is 2, the minimum TrueCrypt version is 0x0410 and the checksum is 0x19e8890c. This checksum is used to make sure we really have a correctly decrypted header. Although it’s highly improbable, decrypting a volume with the wrong password may result in the first four bytes being ‘TRUE’. The checksum is added to verify the decrypted header is really valid. If the checksum matches the CRC32 of byte 192-448 of the header, we have a valid header (with extremely high probability).
Following the checksum are three 64 bit big endian integers. The first two are timestamps and the third is the size of the volume if this is a hidden volume (ignore this for now). The first timestamp is the date and time the volume was created. The second timestamp is the date and time the header was modified.
Knowing all this, we can now write some code to decrypt the header using only the password we chose when the volume was created. First lets write some pseudo-code:
for each hash key = keystrengthening(hash, password) for each cipher decryptedheader = decrypt(key, header) if magic bytes matches and crc32 matches checksum: success!
As a recap, in the first step in this article we took the TrueCrypt volume password and generated keys needed to decrypt the header. These keys, in turn, we used in the second step to decrypt the volume header. In the middle of the decrypted volume header lays the master key needed to decrypt the rest of the volume.
Here’s the complete code for this and the previous step. This code will work like this:
fileobj = file ( "aestwoser.tc", "rb" ) tc = TrueCryptVolume ( fileobj, "passwordpasswordpassword", Log ) TCPrintInformation ( tc ) fileobj. close ()
TrueCryptVolume is a class representing a TrueCrypt volume and tc is the object representing the volume aestwoser.tc specifically, which has the password as shown. The constructor of TrueCryptVolume will generate the strengthened keys from password, as described in the first step in this article. It will then decrypt the header by trying each cipher and cascade. In essence, it works exactly like the pseudo code just written. A TrueCryptVolume object has some useful member variables, especially “master_lrwkey” which is the master LRW key extracted from the decrypted header, and “cipher”, which is the cipher algorithm relinitilized with the master keys also extracted from the decrypted header.
from rijndael import Rijndael from serpent import Serpent from twofish import Twofish from lrw import * from keystrengthening import * # # Utilities. # import struct import time import binascii def Log ( message ): print >> sys. stderr, "Progress:", message def CRC32 ( data ): crc = binascii. crc32 ( data ) # Convert from signed to unsigned word32. return crc % 0 x100000000 def BE16 ( x ): return struct. unpack ( ">H", x )[ 0 ] def BE32 ( x ): return struct. unpack ( ">L", x )[ 0 ] def BE64 ( x ): a, b = struct. unpack ( ">LL", x ) return ( a << 32 ) | b def Win32FileTime2UnixTime ( filetime ): return filetime / 10000000 - 11644473600 class CipherChain : assert not "Code as above in the article" Cascades = [ [ Rijndael ], [ Serpent ], [ Twofish ], [ Twofish, Rijndael ], [ Serpent, Twofish, Rijndael ], [ Rijndael, Serpent ], [ Rijndael, Twofish, Serpent ], [ Serpent, Twofish ] ] HMACs = [ ( HMAC_SHA1, "SHA-1" ), ( HMAC_RIPEMD160, "RIPEMD-160" ), ( HMAC_WHIRLPOOL, "Whirlpool" ) ] class TrueCryptVolume : """Object representing a TrueCrypt volume.""" def __init__ ( self, fileobj, password, progresscallback = lambda x : None ): self. fileobj = fileobj self. decrypted_header = None self. cipher = None self. master_lrwkew = None self. hidden_size = 0 salt = fileobj. read ( 64 ) header = fileobj. read ( 448 ) assert len ( salt ) == 64 assert len ( header ) == 448 for hmac, hmac_name in HMACs : # Generate the keys needed to decrypt the volume header. iterations = 2000 if hmac == HMAC_WHIRLPOOL : iterations = 1000 info = '' if hmac_name in "RIPEMD-160 Whirlpool" : info ='(this will take a while)' progresscallback ( "Trying " + hmac_name + info ) header_keypool = PBKDF2 ( hmac, password, salt, iterations, 128 ) header_lrwkey = header_keypool [ 0 : 16 ] header_key1 = header_keypool [ 32 : 64 ] header_key2 = header_keypool [ 64 : 96 ] header_key3 = header_keypool [ 96 : 128 ] for cascade in Cascades : # Try each cipher and cascades and see if we can successfully # decrypt the header with it. cipher = CipherChain ( cascade ) progresscallback ( "..." + cipher. get_name ()) cipher. set_key ([ header_key1, header_key2, header_key3 ]) decrypted_header = LRWMany ( cipher. decrypt, header_lrwkey, 1, header ) if TCIsValidVolumeHeader ( decrypted_header ): # Success. self. decrypted_header = decrypted_header master_keypool = decrypted_header [ 192 :] master_lrwkey = master_keypool [ 0 : 16 ] master_key1 = master_keypool [ 32 : 64 ] master_key2 = master_keypool [ 64 : 96 ] master_key3 = master_keypool [ 96 : 128 ] self. master_lrwkey = master_lrwkey self. cipher = cipher self. cipher. set_key ([ master_key1, master_key2, master_key3 ]) self. hidden_size = BE64 ( decrypted_header [ 28 : 28 + 8 ]) self. format_ver = BE16 ( decrypted_header [ 4 : 6 ]) # We don't really need the information below but we save # it so it can be displayed by print_information() self. info_hash = hmac_name self. info_headerlrwkey = hexdigest ( header_lrwkey ) self. info_headerkey = hexdigest ( header_keypool [ 32 : 128 ]) self. info_masterkey = hexdigest ( master_keypool [ 32 : 128 ]) progresscallback ( "Success!" ) return # Failed attempt. raise KeyError, "incorrect password (or not a truecrypt volume)" def TCIsValidVolumeHeader ( header ): magic = header [ 0 : 4 ] checksum = BE32 ( header [ 8 : 12 ]) return magic == 'TRUE' and CRC32 ( header [ 192 : 448 ]) == checksum def TCPrintInformation ( tc ): if not tc. decrypted_header : return header = tc. decrypted_header program_ver = BE16 ( header [ 6 : 8 ]) volume_create = Win32FileTime2UnixTime ( BE64 ( header [ 12 : 12 + 8 ])) header_create = Win32FileTime2UnixTime ( BE64 ( header [ 20 : 20 + 8 ])) print "=" * 60 print "Raw Header" print "=" * 60 print repr ( tc. decrypted_header ) print "=" * 60 print "Parsed Header" print "=" * 60 print "Hash :", tc. info_hash print "Cipher :", tc. cipher. get_name () if tc. hidden_size : print "Volume Type : Hidden" print "Hidden size :", tc. hidden_size else : print "Volume Type : Normal" print "Header Key :", tc. info_headerkey print "Header LRW Key:", tc. info_headerlrwkey print "Master Key :", tc. info_masterkey print "Master LRW Key:", hexdigest ( tc. master_lrwkey ) print "Format ver :", hex ( tc. format_ver ) print "Min prog. ver :", hex ( program_ver ) print "Volume create :", time. asctime ( time. localtime ( volume_create )) print "Header create :", time. asctime ( time. localtime ( header_create )) print "=" * 60
TCPrintInformation will display some information about the volume, such as the hash algorithm used, the cipher(s) used and the information in the header. It may look like this:
============================================================ Raw Header ============================================================ 'TRUE\x00\x02\x04\x10\x19\xe8\x89[snip] ============================================================ Parsed Header ============================================================ Hash : SHA-1 Cipher : Rijndael-Twofish-Serpent Volume Type : Normal Header Key : dced57ba7bc3e11ab047e747d2c4a3a6e205f3d36dafd766fe3bc 77e61597df12781597b7d8c4092bba7c0bfd78e3e58ca90eb6c63 e68090bae282dbed0ca90fc85f408277ed3b7e26ba2f0d782dfdf a04985d4c49caf5d80d59b3f3d3d51567 Header LRW Key: e0977ad2c02991d1e9eda77e9df88583 Master Key : 6cbf2fd6024d1311c78648be220519e41ef2664f34a25f154c678 0997ed1d14b1448b7d7a042f8c4b960fc63146aa9d7e2cc9a8143 a3c3fb7efcc0837ab38c10057a98afcd2c2b914e1c23f6e383881 b1e8972ba0d3b33c40b2e27153c6e39b3 Master LRW Key: cb0df05f43527784a281213a1dbd9016 Format ver : 0x2 Min prog. ver : 0x410 Volume create : Thu Dec 13 20:29:17 2007 Header create : Thu Dec 13 20:29:17 2007 ============================================================
Reading the data
A short recap of what we have done. In step one we took our TrueCrypt volume and a password. We used this password to derive several new keys using a key strengthening algorithm. These keys were in turn used to decrypt the TrueCrypt volume header. In the volume header we found the keys for the rest of the volume. These are the keys we are going to use to decrypt the actual file system.
Fortunately for us, since we have already implemented the LRW functions, this step will be very easy! We just reinitialize the cipher we used to decrypt the header with the keys from the header and use the new master LRW key to decrypt the rest of the volume. We only have to add one new function to the code above and other than some math to compute the LRW block indices the code should not be too difficult to understand. Given an index starting from 1, the function TCReadSector will read 512 bytes long blocks of data. 512 bytes is the sector size defined in the TrueCrypt specification (note that the sector size doesn’t have anything to do with the underlying file system, it is just the TrueCrypt terminology for the smallest block of data we work with when decrypting the file system).
def TCReadSector ( tc, index ): """Read a sector from the volume.""" assert index > 0 tc. fileobj. seek ( 0, 2 ) file_len = tc. fileobj. tell () # The LRW functions work on blocks of length 16. Since a TrueCrypt # sector is 512 bytes each call to LRWMany will decrypt 32 blocks, # and each call to this function must therefore advance the block # index 32. The block index also starts at 1, not 0. index 1 # corresponds to lrw_index 1, index 2 corresponds to lrw_index 33 etc. lrw_index = ( index - 1 ) * 32 + 1 # For a regular (non-hidden) volume the file system starts at byte # 512 (after salt+header). seekto = TC_SECTOR_SIZE * index # last_sector_offset is the beginning of the last sector relative # the end of the file. For a regular non-hidden volume this is simply # 512 bytes from the end of the file. last_sector_offset = TC_SECTOR_SIZE if seekto > file_len - last_sector_offset : return '' tc. fileobj. seek ( seekto ) data = tc. fileobj. read ( TC_SECTOR_SIZE ) return LRWMany ( tc. cipher. decrypt, tc. master_lrwkey, lrw_index, data )
While we’re at it it’s useful to know how many sectors we can read. The function TCSectorCount works pretty much the same as the code above.
def TCSectorCount ( tc ): """How many sectors can we read with TCReadSector?""" tc. fileobj. seek ( 0, 2 ) volume_size = tc. fileobj. tell () # Minus the salt+header. volume_size -= 512 return volume_size / TC_SECTOR_SIZE
The first block may look like this, for a FAT volume:
\xeb\x3c\x90MSDOS5.0\x00\x02\x01\x08\x00\x02\x00\x02\xffO\xf8P\x00\x01\x00\x01\x00? \x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00)\xe2m`GNO NAME FAT16 \x00\x00\x00\x00\x00 \x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00 \x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00 \x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00 \x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00 \x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00 \x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00 \x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00 \x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00 \x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00 \x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00 \x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00 \x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00 \x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00 \x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00 \x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00 \x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00 \x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00 \x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00 \x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00 \x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00 \x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00 \x00\x00U\xaa
We have now successfully decrypted a TrueCrypt volume and printed the first 512 bytes of the underlying file system! We can now write a small command line program that will write the complete file system to disk, like this:
$ truecrypt.py volume.tc password filesystem.fat
Here's the code.
def cmdline (): scriptname = sys |
so that you've got both shapes selected. Then, either press Ctrl and * or go to the menus and select Path --> Intersection to leave behind the area where those circles overlap.
Change the colour of this shape to flat white, then click the Radial Gradient button like before so that it's a white-to-transparent fill. Finally, reduce this shape's opacity to about 60%.
The key to creating shiny solid objects is make sure that your gradients have a hard edge. If you make it too diffuse it will still work, but won't have that hard, metallic look to it that we're seeking here.
OK, so we're starting to get the idea that our main light source is coming from the top left of the image and reflecting off the shiny surface of the bomb. But there ought to be a small amount of light bouncing onto the other side, too, so let's add some extra shiny spots on this side, but with a much lower opacity than before - around 10% will be plenty here.
Step 3 - Make the bomb's neck
Now the bomb itself is complete, it's time to concentrate on details at the top of the drawing. We'll start with the neck, then move onto the fuse last.
We'll need some precise alignment to make this work, so switch on your Inkscape grid now with the # key. Find a space on your Inkscape canvas and draw an ellipse which is 45 pixels wide by 20 pixels high; the shape should'snap' to the grid lines. This new shape will probably repeat the last fill settings were used, so it's very likely you'll have a white ellipse at 10% opacity. Hop back to the Fill and Stroke panel and change this to be R = 12, G = 12, B = 12 like we used before, and slide that opacity back up to 100%.
Make a copy of this ellipse that sits over the top of the first, using our copy (Ctrl and C) and paste in place (Ctrl, Alt and V) trick from earlier. Then move this copy straight down by 25 pixels. Hold down the Ctrl key with the mouse to lock the movement direction to one axis as you do this.
Change to the Rectangle Tool (keyboard button R) and draw a rectangle which is exactly as wide as the ellipses, and aligned to the widest points of each one. This will be the piece that joins the together shortly.
With this rectangle still selected, hold down Shift and click the bottom ellipse it overlaps. Use the keyboard command of Ctrl and +, or choose Path --> Union from the menus to join these two shapes together into one. Set it to be behind the top ellipse by pressing Page Down on the keyboard or use the Object menu and choose Object --> Lower. You can also switch off the grid at this point, if you want.
Keep this shape selected and change its fill to be a linear gradient in the Fill and Stroke dialog box. Click on the Edit button again to go to the Gradient Editor pop-up.
For the best outcome we want to create a multi-stop gradient here: one that has four gradient stops along its width. By default, Inkscape assigns two gradient stops - the start and end, so click the Add Stop button twice to add two more.
Set the stops on this gradient to the below RGB colours (or use approximations on the colour wheel if that's easier for you) to get our gradient's blend to be how we want it. We'll also change the Offset for the two middle stops to tell Inkscape where to change the colour across the gradient.
This little task-within-a-task should leave you with something resembling this:
To be consistent across our drawing we should also add a subtle gradient to the top part of the neck too, so select that ellipse and apply a linear gradient which has a first stop of R = 61, G = 61, B = 61, and an end point of R = 12, G = 12, B = 12.
Great. Now drag a selection area around both parts of this bomb part so they're both highlighted, and press Ctrl and G, or select Object --> Group to bind them into one object on the canvas.
Rotate this grouped object by about 30 degrees or so, then move it over to your main bomb shape, positioning it over the top of the bomb somewhere close to the edge. Bring this object to the front with the Home key if it's not situated on top of other items for some reason.
Step 4 - Draw the fuse using Pattern Along Path
Great, we're getting there; time to create the fuse. The first step is to draw the path that the string will run along, so activate the Pen Tool (keyboard B) now and click on three points to draw a curving line out from the collar piece we've just made. Drag the line outwards as you click on the second and third points to make it bendy.
Now for the tricky part - making the fuse look like a fuse. Switch your grid back on, and swap to the Rectangle Tool again. Draw one that is 5 pixels tall and 10 wide; zooming in a good way will help here. Holding the Ctrl key, click and drag the corner-rounding controls all the way down so that you have a capsule-shaped result.
Start by converting this shape to a path instead of a rectangle; press Ctrl, Shift and C to do that or use Object --> Object to Path in the menus. Then switch to the Node Tool (F2) and drag a selection area around the four middle nodes on this shape. Click the Make Nodes Smooth button from the Node toolbar above your drawing - you should see a small change as the extra node handles appear after you've done it; don't worry if you miss it though.
Switch the grid off, and drag another rubber band selection around all of the nodes on the bottom half of this shape, then click on one and drag the selected nodes over to the right to achieve a round-edged, blobby shape. I've moved mine by 4 pixels; you can check the distance
Looks a bit like a peanut, doesn't it? This is the shape we'll use to create the string effect of our fuse by repeating it along the wavy path we made before. Change to the Select Tool so that the whole of this peanut shape is selected (not just the nodes). Copy it with Ctrl and C but don't paste it anywhere yet. Instead, go and click on the fuse path and use the catchy keyboard shortcut of Ctrl, Shift and 7 - the menu alternative is Path --> Path Effect Editor - to bring up the Path Effect Editor panel.
From the dropdown box at the top, choose Pattern Along Path, and click Add. Guess what the pattern you're going to use is... yep, the blobby shape from before. Click the Paste button in the Current Effect area, along with the Link to Path button next to it. By doing this, any changes we make to the blob shape will be reflected in the Pattern Along Path straight away, which is handy.
At the moment we'll have something that looks like this:
Now, as things stand it doesn't look like we're helping the situation at all, but we'll tackle this step by step and you'll see how it comes together. Start by changing the Pattern Copies dropdown box to a setting of Repeated.
Then alter the Spacing setting to -4 which, as it's a negative number, will move each copy of the closer together (obviously, using a positive number has the opposite effect).
With this Spacing setting in place, we've now closed the pattern up so that each blob overlaps the previous one, creating the illusion of a wound string; perfect for a bomb fuse. Now to add some suitable colour to this feature of our drawing.
Firstly, convert this blobby shape-along-a-curve to a path with Ctrl, Shift and C (or Object --> Object to Path as before). Then break it apart so that each shape is an object in its own right, with Ctrl, Shift and K. Path --> Break Apart in the menus does the same job.
Now that we've got this set up, we can concentrate on creating a good fill for the fuse elements. Keep them all selected and head back to the Fill and Stroke dialog box. Remove the outline (Stroke) from the shapes, and apply a linear gradient which runs from R = 184, G = 130, B = 7 to R = 235, G = 203, B = 113. You'll see how each shape picks up this gradient and inherits the fill just as we want.
It can be useful to Group all the fuse parts together in case you want to stretch or move it as a whole. I did, so that I could make a small correction to the positioning and centre the fuse on the top of the neck part. At this point we can delete that peanut shape we used as our source pattern earlier, and zoom back out to take a look at what we've got up to now.
Step 5 - Light the fuse and step back
Excellent, we're nearly there. Let's ignite this drawing a bit more by adding some sparks to the fuse to make it look like it's lit and ready to blow. Pick up the Star Tool with the * key and draw one right over the end of our fuse by clicking and dragging outwards from the centre. In the Star tool's settings toolbar, set the number of corners to 6, the Spoke Ratio to 0.250, and the rest of the settings to 0. Give it a fill of R = 255, G = 242, B = 2.
Make another star, keeping the same settings as before, but make it slightly smaller and inside the first. Rotate it slightly too. You can control both the size and rotation with Star Tool as you're drawing it, which is handy. This one should have a fill of R = 223, G = 62, B = 14.
Time for one last finishing touch. Switch back to the Ellipse Tool and draw a narrow ellipse right at the base of the bomb. Fill it with black and press the End key to send it behind the main bomb object. Also on the Fill and Stroke panel, use the sliders to give it a blur of 15 and an opacity of around 50%.
And there we have it - a great-looking shiny bomb drawing created in Inkscape and ready to be exported to PNG any time you're ready.
If you like, you could add a background to the piece as well, just to set things off. A simple square to frame everything with, drawn on top with a three-stop gradient in very light greys, then sent to the back of the illustration using the End key so it's behind our drawing.
Refer back to step 3 of the tutorial - Making the bomb neck - if you need a reminder of how to tackle gradients with more than two stops on them.
We've learned an awful lot in this tutorial, from working with simple shapes to manipulating opacities and gradients, to using Inkscape Live Path Effects when creating repeating shapes along a path, so if you've been working along all the steps, well done!
How did you find this tutorial? Has it been dynamite, or a bit of a damp squib? Leave a comment below and let me know your thoughts.
Mark is the Editor and owner of Designmark Graphics Ltd. Publishing tutorial articles and guides for Inkscape and the GIMP, this blog aims to boost the profile of these Open Source graphics applications and showcase what they are capable of.
Comments
Be aware that all comments are moderated before being published on site. Please be considerate to others in any comments you post and please don't spam.Harvey Pekar, 70, the writer whose autobiographical comic book series "American Splendor" chronicled his life as a filing clerk, record collector, freelance jazz critic and one of life's all-around misfits, was found dead July 12 at his home near Cleveland.
No cause of death was reported, but a police captain in suburban Cleveland Heights told the Associated Press that an autopsy was planned. The AP reported that Mr. Pekar had prostate cancer, asthma, high blood pressure and depression.
The largely autobiographical comic series portrayed Mr. Pekar -- inevitably dressed in a flannel shirt and corduroy pants -- as a rumpled, depressed filing clerk in a Veterans Administration hospital. He filled the stories with wry observations about his frustrations with work and human relationships and what Mr. Pekar called "the 99 percent of life that nobody ever writes about."
"The humor of everyday life is way funnier than what the comedians do on TV," Mr. Pekar once said. "It's the stuff that happens right in front of your face when there's no routine and everything is unexpected. That's what I want to write about."
Mr. Pekar's comic vignettes were often of the mundane: pushing a girlfriend's car out of the snow, helping friends move a mildewed couch into an apartment, arguing with an editor and selling used records to his co-workers. Other strips featured Mr. Pekar engaging in dark, interior monologues against a winter sky.
The series developed a devoted following that extended beyond the usual comic book audience. It was made into a film in 2003 starring Paul Giamatti as Mr. Pekar and was adapted for the stage in 1987 as "From Off the Streets of Cleveland Comes... American Splendor -- The Life and Times of Harvey Pekar."
A great believer in the comics medium, Mr. Pekar also used the form for music essays that graced CD jazz reissues and a New York Times op-art piece about the decline of the Cleveland economy.
From 1986 to 1988, Mr. Pekar was a frequent guest on "Late Night With David Letterman," including one appearance in which Mr. Pekar antagonized Letterman for not endorsing a strike against General Electric, the parent company of NBC. Letterman's show was on NBC at the time, and Mr. Pekar was reportedly angered by what he considered GE's business conflicts as an arms manufacturer and media conglomerate.
The tirade prompted Letterman, somewhat jokingly, to apologize to the people of Cleveland.
Mr. Pekar was absent from the show for several years but was invited back in 1993.
"We had a fight, a falling out, a misunderstanding -- all that's behind us," Letterman said on the air. "I'm genuinely happy to see you back."
"Really?" said Mr. Pekar, with apparent skepticism.
Meeting R. Crumb
Harvey Lawrence Pekar was born Oct. 8, 1939, in Cleveland. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Poland. His father, a Talmudic scholar, supported the family as a neighborhood grocer, and the family lived above his store.
Mr. Pekar attended what became Case Western Reserve University, served in the Navy in the late 1950s and worked a series of menial jobs before taking what would become a 30-year job as a filing clerk at a VA hospital in Cleveland.
In the early 1960s, he befriended cartoonist Robert Crumb, who was working in Cleveland for the American Greetings card company. Crumb and Mr. Pekar had a mutual love of jazz, although Crumb preferred 1920s hot jazz and Mr. Pekar's taste ran to swing and modern jazz. After Crumb's success as an underground cartoonist -- named R. Crumb -- Mr. Pekar approached him with stick-figure story boards. Crumb offered to illustrate Mr. Pekar's work and also put him in touch with other illustrators.
Mr. Pekar self-published the first "American Splendor" comic in 1976 and did the book at a rate of one a year. In addition to Crumb, the many illustrators he collaborated with included Gary Dumm, Richard Corben, Spain Rodriguez, Gilbert Hernandez, Bill Griffith, Drew Friedman and Joe Sacco.
"At that time I was single and I was spending thousands of dollars on rare records, so I thought I'd put out a comic," Mr. Pekar told the Sydney Morning Herald. "And so I lost money on that instead."
He later added in one of his comics, "So what if I lose a couple thousand a year? At least, I'll be doing something creative."
One of Mr. Pekar's fans was Joyce Brabner, a Delaware writer, teacher and civic activist. She started a correspondence with Mr. Pekar and became his third wife in 1983. On their first date, Brabner suffered through a home-cooked meal that caused her to vomit profusely.
"That's when I saw my future husband," she told the Akron Beacon Journal, "with his pants rolled up, mopping the floor and offering me all sorts of herbal teas he bought simply because we discussed that over the phone, and that's all I needed to know about the kind of husband he would be."
Mr. Pekar proposed to Brabner on their third date. Besides his wife, a complete list of survivors could not be determined.
After a diagnosis of lymphoma curtailed his writing in 1990, Mr. Pekar collaborated with Brabner on "Our Cancer Year" (1994), a novel-length comic that recounted their experiences while he was in chemotherapy.
The film "American Splendor," directed by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, blended drama, documentary and animation as interviews as Mr. Pekar and Brabner appeared in the film alongside their dramatic impersonators, Giamatti and Hope Davis.
A memorable moment in the movie occurs when Brabner, played by Davis, meets Mr. Pekar for the first time at the airport after a lengthy correspondence. She tries to imagine what he looks like and conjures up four images of him by four different illustrators.
When the film was released, Mr. Pekar speculated in a comic strip that he might "become a beloved man of the people."
However, he added, "of course I don't think I have it made by any means. I'm too insecure, obsessive and paranoid for all that."ST. PAUL, Minnesota (CNN) -- Key evangelical leaders rallied to Sarah Palin's support Monday amid news that her 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, was having a child.
Sarah Palin confirmed Monday that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant.
"Before, they were excited about her, with the Down syndrome baby," conservative, anti-tax activist Grover Norquist said. "But now with this, they are over the moon. It reinforces the fact that this family lives its pro-life values."
Palin and John McCain oppose abortion and have supported promoting abstinence in schools, which would seem to make Bristol Palin's pregnancy an inconveniently timed development.
But she is keeping the child, a fact that could make the Alaska governor -- whose candidacy has been enthusiastically embraced by evangelicals who regard her as one of their own -- even more popular among that key GOP voting bloc. Watch more on Palin's announcement »
"Fortunately, Bristol is following her mother and father's example of choosing life in the midst of a difficult situation," Family Research Council president Tony Perkins said. "We are committed to praying for Bristol and her husband-to-be and the entire Palin family as they walk through a very private matter in the eyes of the public."
Evangelical leader Richard Land also backed Palin completely.
"This is the pro-life choice. The fact that people will criticize her for this shows the astounding extent to which the secular critics of the pro-life movement just don't get it," Land said in a statement.
"Those who criticize the Palin family don't understand that we don't see babies as a punishment but as a blessing. Barack Obama said that if one of his daughters made a mistake and got pregnant out of wedlock, he wouldn't want her to be punished with a child. Pro-lifers don't see a child as punishment."
The immediate support of these major figures, who offered universal praise for the Palins' actions after learning their daughter was pregnant, provides the filter through which conservative Christian voters will process the development. iReport.com: Were you married at a young age?
Most important for Palin, an elder statesman of the movement, Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, released a statement lauding the Palins for acting in keeping with the group's policies and practices:
"We have always encouraged the parents to love and support their children and always advised the girls to see their pregnancies through, even though there will of course be challenges along the way. That is what the Palins are doing, and they should be commended once again for not just talking about their pro-life and pro-family values, but living them out even in the midst of trying circumstances.
"Being a Christian does not mean you're perfect. Nor does it mean your children are perfect. But it does mean there is forgiveness and restoration when we confess our imperfections to the Lord. I've been the beneficiary of that forgiveness and restoration in my own life countless times, as I'm sure the Palins have," Dobson said.
Some evangelicals gathered in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, for the Republican convention speculated that the news would pose more of a problem for Democrats than for the GOP ticket.
Speculation by some on blogs that Palin's son Trig was actually Bristol's child had led to outrage among conservatives.
Any comment by Democrats that is viewed as remotely critical could make both Sarah and Bristol Palin appear to be sympathetic victims of a political vendetta.
By Monday afternoon, evangelical leaders were circling the wagons.
"The media are already trying to spin this as evidence Gov. Palin is a 'hypocrite,' but all it really means is that she and her family are human," Dobson said. "They are in my prayers and those of millions of Americans."
All About Sarah Palin • Republican PartyChris Gaither, an 11-year-old boy from Talladega, Ala., told a local news station that he shot a suspected home invader who threatened his life. (Courtesy of NBC affiliate WVTM-TV)
Chris Gaither was home alone “petting the dogs” on Wednesday morning when he heard a noise upstairs.
The 11-year-old boy from Talladega, Ala., told NBC affiliate WVTM-TV that he was scared, so he grabbed a knife and steadied himself.
Chris said that a man appeared on the stairwell, but when confronted, he ran back up upstairs. When the man reappeared moments later, the boy told WVTM-TV, the individual was holding a gun.
“When he was coming down the stairs, that’s when he told me he was going to kill me, f-you and all that,” Chris said.
Instead of running, Chris told the station, he upgraded his weaponry, picking up a 9mm handgun that was in the home.
Chris said he threatened to kill the man and ordered him to get out of the house.
“I guess when I pulled the gun out on him he didn’t think it was a real gun cause he didn’t worry about it,” Chris told the station. “He just kept on walking.”
This 11-year-old shot a burglary suspect at his house Wednesday. Listen to what happened after he hit his target… pic.twitter.com/rwdnbiBgfT — Kyle Burger (@kyle_burger) April 28, 2016
Not only was Chris holding a real gun, the boy knew how to use it. His stepfather had been giving him shooting lessons, he told WVTM-TV.
U.S. regions differ in their concentrations of gun ownership. Here's what you need to know. (Osman Malik,Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)
Once the man made it outside, Chris fired a warning shot. The man, who was carrying a stolen laundry hamper, began running. Chris emptied the magazine, firing off 12 shots by the time the intruder neared a fence in the family’s front yard, the 11-year-old told the station.
The final shot hit the man in the leg as he was hopping the fence, the boy said.
“I shot through the hamper he was carrying,” Chris said. “It was a full metal jacket bullet. It went straight through the back of his leg. He started crying like a little baby.”
The man was taken to a local hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening.
Talladega Police are investigating the incident but have not identified the suspect, according to WVTM-TV.
In 2006, the Hunstville Times reports, Alabama enacted Stand Your Ground, a law that permits the use the use of deadly force against an aggressor if that person is:
About to use unlawful deadly physical force.
A burglar about to use physical force.
Engaged in kidnapping, assault, robbery, or rape.
Unlawfully and forcefully entering a home or car, or attempting to remove a person against their will. (There are exceptions for people who used to live there and are under no injunctions or domestic protection orders.)
Breaking into a nuclear power plant.
A 2013 addition to the law, the paper reports, allows for the use of deadly force against someone who is “using or about to use physical force against an owner, employee, or other person authorized to be on business property when the business is closed to the public while committing or attempting to commit a crime involving death, serious physical injury, robbery, kidnapping, rape, sodomy, or a crime of a sexual nature involving a child under the age of 12.”
Chris and his mother — who was not named by the station during an on-camera interview — told WVTM-TV that they were familiar with the suspected intruder, though they don’t know him well.
Chris referred to the man as “a meth-head” in his 30s who had robbed them before and is known for targeting other homes in the area.
“I hope you learned your lesson from coming to this house trying to steal stuff,” Chris said.
“Be brave, you’ll be okay,” he added. “Trust God.”
MORE READING:
Six children orphaned after both parents die 24 hours apart
Florida officer fired and arrested after video shows him beating handcuffed womanResearchers at MIT and Alnylam Pharmaceuticals report this week that they have successfully used RNA interference to turn off multiple genes in the livers of mice, an advance that could lead to new treatments for diseases of the liver and other organs.
Since the 1998 discovery of RNA interference -- the naturally occurring phenomenon in which the flow of genetic information from a cell's nucleus to the protein-building machinery of the cell is disrupted -- scientists have been pursuing the tantalizing ability to shut off any gene in the body. Specifically, they have been trying to silence malfunctioning genes that cause diseases such as cancer.
The new delivery method, described in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is orders of magnitude more effective than previous methods, says Daniel Anderson, senior author of the paper and a biomedical engineer at the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT.
"This greatly improved efficacy allows us to dramatically decrease the dose levels, and also opens the door to formulations that can simultaneously inhibit multiple genes or pathways," says Anderson.
The key to success with RNA interference is finding a safe and effective way to deliver the short strands of RNA that can bind with and destroy messenger RNA, which carries instructions from the nucleus.
Anderson and his colleagues believe the best way to do that is to wrap short interfering RNA (siRNA) in a layer of fat-like molecules called lipidoids, which can cross cells' fatty outer membrane. Using one such lipidoid, the researchers were able to successfully deliver five snippets of RNA at once, and Anderson believes the lipidoids have the potential to deliver as many as 20.
The team at MIT, along with Alnylam researchers, have developed methods to rapidly produce, assemble and screen a variety of different lipidoids, allowing them to pick out the most effective ones.
In a previous study, the researchers created more than 1,000 lipidoids. For their latest study, they picked out one of the most effective and used a novel chemical reaction to create a new library of 126 similar molecules. The team focused on one that appeared the most promising, dubbed C12-200.
Using C12-200, the researchers achieved effective gene silencing with a dose of less than 0.01 milligrams of siRNA per kilogram of solution, and 0.01 milligrams per kilogram in non-human primates. If the same dosing were translated to humans, a potential therapy would only require an injection of less than 1 milliliter to specifically inhibit a gene, compared with previous formulations that would have required hundreds of milliliters, says Anderson.
Other authors from MIT include Kevin T. Love, Kerry P. Mahon, Christopher G. Levins, Kathryn A. Whitehead and Institute Professor Robert Langer.
The MIT/Alnylam team hopes to start clinical trials within the next couple of years, after figuring out optimal doses and scaling up the manufacturing capability so they can produce large amounts of the siRNA-lipidoid complex.The Verizon strike is over and it is a landslide victory for the workers and their unions, the Communication Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.
The four-year contracts would give workers a nearly 11 percent increase in pay over all, up from the 6.5 percent increase that Verizon had proposed before the strike, as well as modest ratification bonuses and profit-sharing. Verizon had long argued that it needed to cut costs and increase its flexibility to manage its work force and preserve the competitiveness of its wireline business, which includes landlines, video and Internet service that run through wires. Perhaps the most consequential issue at stake in the standoff was Verizon’s ability to outsource work. The previous contracts included a provision requiring that a certain percentage of customer calls originating in a state be answered by workers in that state — ranging from just over 50 percent for some types of calls in some states to more than 80 percent in others. Verizon sought to significantly lower those numbers. Under the tentative new contracts, a similar percentage of calls must be answered by a unionized worker somewhere in Verizon’s wireline footprint, which runs from Virginia to Massachusetts, rather than the particular state from which the call originates. Both sides claimed victory in the change. “We only care that our members somewhere in the footprint are doing the work,” said Robert Master, assistant to the District 1 vice president of the Communications Workers of America. “The push to outsource call center work was rebuffed.” Lending partial vindication to this claim was a commitment by the company to create over 1,000 unionized call center jobs over the next four years to accommodate new demand from customers. The company also agreed to reduce the number of call center closings. The company also won the right to offer buyout incentives to employees once a year without first getting the union’s blessing, making it easier to eliminate jobs that the new rule could eventually render obsolete. Elsewhere, the outcome appeared more one-sided. The unions managed to beat back proposed pension cuts, including a cap on the accrual of pension benefits after 30 years of service. The company also agreed to withdraw a proposal that would have allowed it to relocate workers for up to two months anywhere in its geographic coverage area, although it had already expressed an openness to withdrawing the proposal before the strike. Proposals to change seniority rules and to make the company’s sickness and disability policy more strict were also withdrawn, and the company agreed to change a performance review program in New York City that many workers considered abusive. Significantly, the new contracts also cover some 65 unionized workers at Verizon Wireless stores, signaling the first time that retail wireless workers at the company have been included in a union contract, a potentially important precedent.
This is an incredible contract. The workers win nearly twice as much money as they originally asked for. They force Verizon to cave on all the benefits and the relocation drive that infuriated workers. They make Verizon back down on outsourcing jobs overseas. They force the company to create 1000 new union jobs and allow Verizon stores to become part of the bargaining unit. In return, the workers give up basically nothing. They allow individual workers to take a buy out if they want it. OK. And they open up slightly on who precisely takes a given call, but maintaining that the worker taking it is a union worker. Who cares. They also had to do some givebacks on health care, but these are the compromises that must be made sometimes. Overall, this is an outstanding contract and a gigantic win for workers.
Importantly, the settlement was mediated by Secretary of Labor Tom Perez, who, once again, has been absolutely fantastic and is my top choice to be Clinton’s Vice-President, far more than Elizabeth Warren, who is perfectly effective in her current job. It’s also important to step back here and remember what would have happened if Verizon workers hadn’t won unions in the past. If that doesn’t happen, their healthcare is far worse, most of those jobs Verizon wants to outsource are already overseas, workers are sure not getting 11 percent raises, the pension is already gone, workers are being forced to relocate if they want a job, etc. This all happened because workers joined a union and went on strike to demand dignity on the job. Clearly, the next step for CWA and IBEW is to start organizing the Verizon stores. Allowing those workers into the bargaining unit is an enormous concession by Verizon. Moreover, employees in the service industry are almost totally unrepresented by unions and breaking into that sector could have transformational effects. Organize!
Speaking of Perez’s DOL, soon to be announced National Labor Relations Board rules declaring graduate student workers is already having an effect.
Graduate student unions on a number of private campuses have for years sought recognition from their universities and federal officials, to little avail. But organizing efforts at Cornell University are moving forward, in the form of an agreement on how to proceed until and if a legal barrier to collective bargaining is reversed. The development sets Cornell apart from most other elite privates institutions, which have maintained that teaching and research assistants are students — not employees entitled to collective bargaining rights — ahead of a major decision on the issue from the National Labor Relations Board. “Should current federal labor law change to deem graduate students at private universities employees, we believe the terms of this agreement will assist our graduate assistants as they make their own decisions about whether or not to join the union,” Mary Opperman, vice president and chief human resources officer at Cornell, said in a statement Wednesday. “Our goal is to provide them with an open environment to make that decision that ensures dignity and respect for all parties involved.” Cornell’s new agreement with its American Federation of Teachers- and National Education Association-affiliated graduate student union does not signal voluntary union recognition. So it’s not the kind of decisive agreement that New York University reached with its United Auto Workers-affiliated graduate student union outside of NLRB channels in 2013. Nor does Cornell express neutrality about the campaign, despite union requests that such language be included. But the new agreement does outline a possible path to Cornell having one of the few graduate student unions among private institutions, and establishes formal communication and election procedures, voter eligibility guidelines, and a dispute resolution mechanism. It offer protections for those involved in union organizing and says that a fair and expeditious election will be held outside of NLRB channels should the board decide that graduate students at private institutions are entitled to collective bargaining — a decision that other institutions have indicated they would fight in court. Cornell would grant “immediate” recognition in the event of a majority vote.
This is huge news as well. Universities are some of the worst anti-union institutions in the country. While many public university faculty and staff have organized in states that aren’t right to leech, private universities have simply refused to even consider it. Breaking down that wall, especially for some of the most exploited people on campus–graduate students–is a major victory for justice. This only happens because of a Democratic administration committed to advancing worker rights, as the Obama administration has largely supported, especially in the second term under the Perez regime at DOL.
For Hamilton Nolan, the lesson is that strikes work and that we should all go on strike when we feel the need to do so.
Strikes work. Strikes have always worked. Strikes still work. Pro-business forces like to deride unions as socialist parasites, but strikes are, in a sense, one of the purest free market actions that workers can take: the refusal to sell labor at a price that is deemed too low. This has the effect of raising the price of labor. Though “Economics 101″ idiots like to pretend that the free market will always magically produce the perfect wage for every job, the reality is that working people—people with less money—are always at a disadvantage when it comes to asserting the leverage necessary to raise their own wages, because they can’t afford to stop working and lose a paycheck. This is the biggest hurdle that strikes have to clear. It’s hard for working people to leave work, demanding better wages and working conditions. It’s a gamble. But it tends to pay off. As much as workers need wages, businesses need labor even more. The free market has not raised your wages in decades. The government has not raised your wages in decades. You need to raise your own wages. Organize. Then strike. It’s always good to be reminded that it works.
I’m a bit less sanguine about this. After all, there certainly have been disastrous strikes. But he’s mostly right. If workers stand up and act upon their demands, their chances of living a dignified life are much higher.
For me, the real lesson is that if you don’t support joining a union, you are a fool because you are only hurting yourself. Almost all of us should have unions. Even if you are a faculty member or public employee in the South and live in a right-to-work state, you should still have a union because it will serve as an organized voice and point of power, even if you can’t win a contract. I know, because I helped one get off the ground. Entry-level lawyers at big law firms should have unions. Workers at every private factory or establishment should have unions. Starbucks and McDonald’s workers should have unions. We should all have unions. Organizing like the Verizon workers is not a throwback to the past. It should be an entryway into the future.Hands & Feet Separation
Most free drum lessons on drum independence we’ve posted on DrumLessons.com focus almost exclusively on hi-hat foot independence and bass-drum foot independence. Working on hi-hat foot independence and bass drum independence is something you should definitely strive for, in order to acquire a higher level of drumming prowess. However, a certain level of hand independence needs to be developed for you to become a complete drum-set player. With that in mind, Jared Falk created this free drum lesson to take your independence a little further. By going through it you’ll learn how to incorporate your hands and feet into simple exercises that work on 4-way independence.
If you take a look at the sheet music provided, you’ll notice the exercises from this free drum lesson are basically a combination of linear patterns with quarter note hi-hat foot patterns. To get more millage out of this free drum lesson, go back to the one on left-foot independence and combine these exercises with the 8th note hi-hat patterns you’ll find there.
You can also take those left foot independence exercises and |
on my first effort.
http://transom.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Audio-Clip-3Capital-F.mp3 Download Listen to “Chenjerai voicing take 1”
Let me say I’m proud of this piece. It would be arrogant and lazy to expect my first piece to be amazing. So my issue isn’t about that. Some of what bothers me is just problems with poor writing choices. At times, I wrote in a voice that isn’t my own (Fisherman with Capital F? What does that even mean?). What bothers me most when I listen to this piece is that I’m acutely conscious of the way I’m adjusting my whole experience/method of inhabiting my personality. My voice sounds too high in pitch, all the rounded corners of my vernacular are awkwardly squared off. I’ve flattened the interesting aspects of my voice. On the suggestion of Samantha Broun and Jay Allison, I tried to rerecord part of that piece to better understand and illustrate these subtle differences.
http://transom.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Audio-4-Do-over.mp3 Download Listen to “Chenjerai voicing take 2”
When I hear this rerecorded piece, I’m not sure how much more effective it is, but I feel better listening to it. My voice is calmer, but hopefully not boring. In place of “Fisherman with a Capital F,” I allowed myself to get passionate for a moment about my subject’s fishing credentials. Overall, I feel more centered and I sound like myself, rather than sounding like myself pretending to be a public radio host.
What are we missing out on by not having hosts who speak in diverse ways?
Different hosts with different voices tell different kinds of stories. I make this point because there are many public radio programs that go to significant lengths to include the voices of underrepresented groups. These voices most often appear as people who are interviewed, but this is not the same has having hosts with different perspective and styles of speech.
In August and then again in November of 2014, my wife and I traveled to Ferguson, Missouri. When we first got there in August, I remember talking to some young African-American males who lived on the street where Michael Brown was killed. I asked one why he thought that there had been such an uprising in Ferguson. In response, he reminded me that Michael Brown’s body had lain in the street for four hours (he said eight) before being picked up. Of course I had heard this before, but he made me feel it. I sat quietly for over 40 minutes and let him tell his own story his own way. His voice smoldered with conviction as he spoke. The deep resentment and frustration in his steady low tones pushed through any detachment or emotional distance that I might try to maintain. I felt the weight of Michael Brown’s body, and the weight of so many other lives in this young man’s voice. I wasn’t hearing his voice thrown in as a sound bite garnish to another host’s main dish. Instead, he was the narrator, assembling memories, images, emotions, and even speculation into his own multi-modal account. I would like to hear people who speak with voices like this young man’s voice as hosts and narrators on public radio shows and podcasts.
So would we. And you? Help Transom get new work and voices to public radio by donating now.
The Importance of Vocal Styles
I can offer many examples of other voices that we don’t often get to hear as hosts. I think about my colleague Marilyn, an African-American female lecturer who speaks powerfully in various voices. Marilyn is from Chicago and when she speaks to me the way that she speaks at home, I learn all kinds of things about her, her family, Chicago, and life in general that don’t come across the same way when she speaks “professionally.” There’s no way to transcribe the music of her voice and that’s the point. You can only enter that world by hearing it yourself.
I also think about Uncle Carlos. My uncle-in-law Carlos lived part of his life in Ecuador and part of it in the Bronx. I remember him reminiscing about his recently deceased dog. Many people have a version of this kind of story, but no one can tell it the way my Uncle Carlos told it. “Oh man!” He would say, almost yelling at me! “You don’t understand the times that we,” (he and his dog) “got each other through!” “After he couldn’t walk so good, I would pick that dog up in my arms and carry him anywhere we need to go! You don’t get it man.” His voice — a beautiful mixture of New York and Ecuadorian English accents would cut into you. Then he would pause for long periods letting it sink in. This silence — the kind that is likely to be cut out in the editing process — was as important as his words. They were part of the unique rhythm and pace of his speech. He spoke loudly and passionately, too loudly and passionately for most public radio, but that’s the way our family communicates. I wonder what my Uncle Carlos would share with us if he were the host of a show.
So what do we do?
There are two important takeaways from all of this.
1. Depending on who you are, and how you speak, you may not find many examples of voices and styles of storytelling that sound like yours. It is not just about the kind of stories that non-white journalists tell. It’s also about the ways that vocal styles communicate important dimensions of human experience. When the vocal patterns of a narrow range of ethnicities quietly becomes the standard sound of a genre, we’re missing out on essential cultural information. We’re missing out on the joyful, tragic, moments and unique dispositions that are encoded in different traditions of oratory. Fortunately, there are organizations fighting for diversity in many areas of media. I recommend becoming involved with these efforts.
2. If you’re a radio producer or podcast host and your way of speaking is different from what you generally hear in radio and podcasts, produce many, many, podcasts in which you are the narrator. As boring and cliché as it is, there is no substitute for practice, and there is actually no other way to develop your voice. I’m still working on being a more consistently productive journalist in this regard. There’s just no way around it: The more you get used to your recorded voice, and writing in your voice, the more confidence you will build.
The Whiteness of Public Radio Voices
Before I started writing this piece, this problem seemed simpler to me than it does now. That is because I was focusing on what I heard, and what I heard was the voices of white people on most popular and public radio shows and podcasts. I didn’t want to hear it, but it would jump out at me despite my efforts to ignore it. Often, (not always) when I hear non-white journalists they also seem to be adjusting their vocal style of narration and reporting to what has come to be understood as professional.
However, as I dug deeper into this problem, I realized how tied up this phenomenon is with the broader complexities of speech, region, identity and dominant culture. Certainly, there are real problems with diversity that many organizations are working to address, but these problems don’t only have to do with race. In fact, as I look across the landscape of popular podcasts, problems of representation regarding gender, ableism, sexual orientation, age and other parameters of ethnicity might be even worse. I’m focusing on the racial aspects of this problem because this is how I personally experience the imbalance. I’m not saying that voices and styles of speech map on to the ethnicity of the speaker in any simple way. There is no single “authentic” African-American, Latino, Asian, Native American, or white way of speaking. To say otherwise would be to participate in a reductive and inaccurate essentialism of which I want no part.
However, I do think that there is what Paulo Freire called a “dominant syntax” and flowing from that is a narrow range of public radio and podcast host voices and speech patterns that have become extremely common. Public radio has become a kind of speech community with its own norms and forms of aesthetic capital. Just as it is not very common for me to hear a radio host with a thick Southie accent, there is a whole range of vocal styles that are common in the African American, Latino, Asian American, and Native American cultures but rarely heard from hosts.
What or who is the public in public radio? Those paying attention know that the demographics of race and ethnicity are changing in the United States. The percentage of non-hispanic whites in the U.S. population dropped to roughly 63% in 2014. Middle growth series projections estimate that by 2043 the “minority population” will constitute a numerical majority in the total U.S. population. Latinos are already the largest demographic in California. With these changing demographics come new stories, new languages, and new ways of speaking American English. The sound of public radio and podcasts must reflect this diversity if we are serious about social justice and encouraging active, constructive participation.
Hosts/Voices of Slate’s 25 Best Podcast Episodes Ever
You can find the article here.Through Monday, the preliminary number of U.S. tornado reports is running above average and is the most at this point in five years.
NOAA's Storm Prediction Center (SPC) has logged 299 preliminary reports of tornadoes, more than double the 2005-2015 average of 133 reports typically received by March 6.
The last time the nation had this many tornado reports through the first week of March was in 2012, when there were 304 preliminary reports.
Interestingly, despite the active start to 2012, the total number of tornado reports over that entire year (1,116) ended up below the 2005-2015 average of 1,402.
That active year continued into April before dipping below average in the typical peak months of May and June, and the number of tornado reports trended even further below average as the year continued.
(MORE: Tornado Central )
Four years prior to that, 2008 also got off to a fast start.
By March 6, 2008, there were 398 reports of tornadoes – more than both 2012 and 2017. This included a January 7-8 outbreak with 54 confirmed tornadoes in the Midwest, making it the second-largest January tornado outbreak on record, at the time.
The following month featured the infamous "Super Tuesday Outbreak" on February 5. While 24 states held primary elections, 87 confirmed tornadoes were responsible for 57 deaths in the Southeast. The number of tornado-related fatalities (58) reported in February 2008 was the second-highest on record for any February in the U.S.
In all, 2008 ran well above average in tornado reports for nearly the entire year, finishing with 2,194 total reports – almost 800 reports above average. The third-most-active May on record, which included 460 confirmed tornadoes, contributed to over 20 percent of 2008's tornado reports.
(MORE: Tornadoes in March: The Start of Spring's Notorious Reputation )
One reason for the far-above-average first two-plus months of 2017 is the persistent warmth of the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea. This helps to generate plenty of warm, moist air into which low-pressure systems can tap, providing fuel for severe thunderstorms to develop.
In records dating to 1891, this is the first year Gulf of Mexico sea-surface temperatures never dropped below 73 degrees, when averaged across the entire Gulf. As of March 6, sea-surface temperatures over the western Gulf were above average by 1 to 2 degrees Celsius (1.8 to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).
(MORE: Gulf of Mexico Warmth Could Lead to More Intense Severe Season, But Not More Hurricanes )
A more fundamental reason for the uptick in tornadoes so far in 2017 is the overall jet stream pattern.
Unlike some past winters, a persistent southward plunge of the jet stream has been in the West, rather than the East, so far.
This pattern allows warm, even somewhat humid air to fester in the South, and race northward into parts of the Midwest and up the Eastern Seaboard when these jet stream disturbances pivot out of the West.
The result, severe thunderstorms have occurred as far north as far upstate New York, and tornadoes have been reported as far north as central Minnesota.
MORE ON WEATHER.COM: Midwest Severe Weather Outbreak (Mar. 6, 2017)Ready to fight back? Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week. You will receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week.
Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue
Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
Support Progressive Journalism The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter. The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter.
Fight Back! Sign up for Take Action Now and we’ll send you three meaningful actions you can take each week. You will receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Sign up for Take Action Now and we’ll send you three meaningful actions you can take each week.
Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue
Travel With The Nation Be the first to hear about Nation Travels destinations, and explore the world with kindred spirits. Be the first to hear about Nation Travels destinations, and explore the world with kindred spirits.
Sign up for our Wine Club today. Did you know you can support The Nation by drinking wine?
Jane Mayer’s New Yorker profile of Charles and David Koch reveals a decades-long investment of many hundreds of millions of dollars to achieve a single goal. The billionaire oilmen sought to "bring about social change" to advance what Charles Koch calls their "radical philosophy." To make this happen, they’ve adopted a "vertically and horizontally integrated" strategy "from idea creation to policy development to education to grassroots organizations to lobbying to litigation to political action." Ad Policy
How radical? When, in 1980, David Koch ran for vice president on the Libertarian Party ticket—a race he also funded—his platform called for the abolition of Social Security, minimum-wage laws, gun control, all personal and corporate income taxes and much else. A worried William F. Buckley Jr. called it "Anarcho-Totalitarianism."
What the Kochs were doing, as Mayer astutely notes, is implementing the strategy originally laid out by Lewis Powell’s now infamous 1971 memo to the director of the US Chamber of Commerce, by which the political culture of the United States would be transformed on behalf of individuals and corporations of great wealth. The primary obstacle Powell identified was not the remnants of the late-’60s antiwar and civil rights movements, which were both in the process of disintegration. Rather, they sought to undermine the "respectable elements of society" and replace them with people like themselves.
We are all well aware of the success of the likes of Rupert Murdoch, Rush Limbaugh, the editors of the Wall Street Journal, Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, etc., in reorienting the media in a right-wing, xenophobic direction. But to focus exclusively on the conservative media—as I sometimes do—is a bit like worrying only about the oil slicks on the surface of a river and ignoring the gushers underneath.
The Kochs, after all, do not fund much media. Rather, they fund the politicians, "experts" and (frequently phony) citizen leaders who create the context for the content of media debate. And perhaps their greatest success has been their ability to turn the establishment media into the credulous carrier of the constant stream of propaganda their grantees have become so adept at producing.
Way back in late 1986, Elliott Abrams complained to me about what he called the "liberal establishment line," which considered Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars program to be "madness" and US support of the Contras in Nicaragua to be "wrong." "But now," he observed, "they’re cracking." How right he was.
Most establishment liberals, particularly those appointed to play the role of the "liberal" in the media, eventually made their peace with both of Reagan’s obsessions in the coming years. They did not do so, to put it mildly, because history proved the right-wingers correct. Regarding Star Wars, since Reagan proposed the program in 1983, the American government has wasted countless billions seeking technological breakthroughs that have never materialized, and yet no Democratic president or any significant Congressional committee chair has ever proposed admitting that the program is an unmitigated failure. Regarding the Contras, we had not only the revelations of the Iran/Contra scandal, the US-funded and -supported terrorism against civilian targets, and the exposure of Abrams as an ideologue so committed to his beliefs that he was willing to perjure himself before Congress to hide his actions and those of the administration. And yet not only was Abrams completely rehabilitated by the Republican right—pardoned by the first President Bush and nominated by the second one to oversee Middle East policy in the National Security Council—he is now the most visible "expert" on the topic for the Council on Foreign Relations, a "liberal establishment" institution if ever there was one. When he is quoted in the media, it is always respectfully, and never with reference to his demonstrated dishonest and criminal actions in the Reagan administration.
In other words, the "respectable elements of society" decided they would rather switch than fight; capitulating to the forty-year onslaught to which the Kochs and their comrades have subjected them in the name of Powell’s plans. The right has redefined the playing field to the point where ex–House speaker Newt Gingrich, who occupies no official government position and regularly spews mindless and vicious hatred toward Muslims, liberals and just about anyone else with whom he disagrees, could be the most frequently invited guest on Meet the Press in 2009, a year in which the presidency, the House and the Senate were all controlled by Democrats. (The actual House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, did not even appear once; neither did any other former House speakers. In fact, no ex–House speaker other than Gingrich has ever appeared on Meet the Press.) We have reached a point where George Will can spout misinformation about climate science on the Washington Post op-ed page and still be treated as a font of wisdom on ABC News and elsewhere. "Reality" matters even less than it did in the days when Reagan proposed his Star Wars fantasy and Abrams began his campaign of lies to Congress so that US-backed killers could wipe out entire Central American villages and get themselves compared to America’s founding fathers.
I could go on forever with such examples. But the point of Mayer’s dogged research is that none of this happened by accident. The Kochs, like the Coorses, the Scaifes, the Murdochs and countless others before them, invested in the long term. And thanks to their patient capital, the "respectable elements of society" have turned over the keys to the kingdom in return for being allowed to keep a few of their perks. And if that creates problems for America’s foreign-born, Muslim, Christian-hating president, well, that just makes it money well spent.The cliché that applies when a growing team like the Edmonton Oilers plays an established club like the streaking Columbus Blue Jackets, is apparent. “This is a great measuring stick for us,” the developing team always says. “Let’s find out where we are.”
Well, outscored 3-1 and outshot 35-22, the Oilers did indeed learn something about themselves Tuesday night in Columbus: they are nowhere near as good a team as the hottest in the National Hockey League today. The Blue Jackets maintained complete control for 60 minutes in reeling off their 16th straight victory.
It’s a winning streak that began on Nov. 29 versus the Tampa Bay Lightning and has been come to within one victory of tying the NHL’s all-time record of 17 straight, set by Mario Lemieux and the 1992-93 Pittsburgh Penguins. Columbus will take a run at tying that mark when they travel to the Verizon Center to play the Washington Capitals on Thursday evening.
The hockey world will focus on D.C. Thursday, with the irony being that Washington is now in charge of protecting a record held by their heated rivals in Pittsburgh.
Columbus beat Edmonton on the strength of a clinical power play that went 2-for-4 to increase its cushion atop the NHL, while exploiting Edmonton’s weakest link in veteran Benoit Pouliot, who coughed up a puck early in the third period to give Columbus an insurmountable 3-1 lead.
This was a team effort, for sure — on both sides. But the weakest board always breaks first, and Pouliot — who couldn’t be having a worse season if he tried, making $4 million and contributing a paltry seven points as we near the halfway point of the campaign — was derelict on the penalty kill as William Karlsson made it 2-1 in the second period.
Then in the third, Pouliot blindly threw a puck up the middle. It was picked up and deposited by Nick Foligno behind goalie Cam Talbot before you could say “buy out,” as Pouliot’s nightmare of a season continues. His play is inexcusably poor, for a player with more than 500 NHL games under his belt.
When you’re going good, as Columbus clearly is, the luck always follows. So when Cam Atkinson’s centering pass first hit Kris Russell’s stick, then bounded into the Oilers’ goal off the leg of defence partner Andrej Sekera, it was a freebie, first-period goal for a league-leading power play that clearly doesn’t need the help.
Atkinson got credit for his 18th goal of the season, tying the Riverside, Connecticut native with Vladimir Tarasenko for sixth in the NHL while leading his own team. The 5-foot-8, 27-year-old had 27 goals two seasons ago but his unlikely emergence as a suddenly elite goal scorer runs parallel to the Blue Jackets becoming the NHL’s best team, a feat almost nobody saw coming.
Oscar Klefbom made it 1-1 in the middle period, playing the trailer on a rush with Jordan Eberle and Pat Maroon. He snapped off a hard shot that found its way through Sergei Bobrovsky, likely a rare moment of human error for the NHL’s best netminder. He was rock solid the rest of the evening, never giving anyone a hint of belief that this game was retrievable for Edmonton.
The Oilers, who are enjoying a fine season themselves, move on to Boston as their four-game roadie continues.
Meanwhile Columbus heads for Washington, where history awaits.In a rare insight into the private lives of leopards a video from Russia’s nature reserve "Land of the Leopard" in Primorye shows the furry predator performing for the camera.
The singing sounds allow these large cats to communicate with each other, the press service of the reserve reported.
"A video with an unusual sound was made in the reserve of Kedrovaya Pad. One of the cameras is set at the top of a ridge there. A leopard named Typhoon was caught on camera when he returned to his territory. Having reached his favorite resting place, the predator, in a relaxed state indicated his presence with a powerful roar. The silence of the reserve in the taiga was broken by a sharp sound — a signal to all the forest’s inhabitants,” the press service wrote.
As experts note, Typhoon demonstrated the behavior of a healthy adult male as he declared his rights to the territory.
"It's rare to hear a leopard in the forest and we were able to record this sound for the first time," Viktor Storozhuk, research engineer in the Science Department at the Land of the Leopard said.
According to him, vocalization can be used during breeding season, when a predator attracts a partner with a loud growl. Special sounds can also be issued by a mother cat calling its young.
The leopards can also declare their presence by leaving visual and scent marks.In an on-air interview with activist DeRay McKesson, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer went to extraordinary lengths to get McKesson to condemn protesters who had damaged property. After listing the number of arrests, vehicle fires and structural fires in Baltimore, Blitzer asked, “There’s no excuse for that kind of violence, right?” McKesson, unwilling to play Blitzer’s game, responded, “Yeah, and there’s no excuse for the seven people the Baltimore police department have killed in the past year, right?” Blitzer, unused to having a guest who was willing to challenge CNN’s simplistic worldview, had an incredibly telling response, saying, “We’re not making comparisons. Obviously, we don’t want to see anyone hurt. I just want to hear you say there should be peaceful protests, not violent protests, in the tradition of Dr. Martin Luther King.” McKesson, noting that by demanding he condemn protester violence but not police violence, Blitzer was taking a position, then offered this coup de grace: “You are making a comparison. You are suggesting that broken windows are worse than broken spines, right?”
The Rivera confrontation was one of many between media professionals and citizens and activists in Baltimore. What is becoming clear is that many people are more than aware of the ways in which the news media have the power to frame and reframe events through words, images, suggestion and omission. What is also clear is that these people are no longer willing to put up with it.
Standing on the streets of Baltimore to cover what his employer Fox News was calling a “riot,” Geraldo Rivera found himself at the receiving end of a passionate and articulate lecture from Kwame Rose on skewed, sensationalist and racist media coverage. As Rose attempted to engage Rivera in a conversation, the reporter kept walking away, refusing to even make eye contact. The episode was captured on video, uploaded and went viral. Rose became a sensation. Rivera would later intone that Rose’s actions represented “exactly that kind of youthful anarchy that led to the destruction and pain in that community.”
The challenge to media storylines has also come from local politicians. When Baltimore City Councilman Nick Mosby was stopped on the street by a Fox News reporter and was asked, “When you’re watching this, tell me what this means for your city,” Mosby responded pointedly, “What do you mean, what does it mean for my city?” Realizing that no deeper question was forthcoming, Mosby explained that what was being seen in Baltimore was the result of structural inequality and a lack of investment in inner-city youth and that these were circumstances not unique to Baltimore but common in many places in he described as “socially and economically deprived America.” Unwilling (or unable) to engage with that deeper point, the reporter said that we saw similar events in Ferguson, at which point Mosby cut in and said, “We also see it in Kentucky, like when Kentucky lost that basketball game. We see crowds that loot and that flip over cars … but unfortunately, all the 95 percent of all the positive rallying that has been occurring here in Baltimore? The national media is going to focus on this. And that’s the problem.”
What we have seen in Ferguson, Baltimore and other American cities is the intersection of media savvy on the part of citizens and activists and an ability to reach large numbers of people via social media platforms and direct on-air confrontation. Imagine if the interaction between Rose and Rivera happened two decades ago. No mainstream news channel would have run the confrontation, and without an outlet to exhibit the material to a significant audience, the spread would have been close to zero. In other words, it never happened. Those days are now over, and that’s a good thing.
In these critical interactions between citizens and media professionals, an important issue is made visible: the extent to which the media have avoided discussions on media power and performance. The irony is striking, given that the news media generally define themselves as watchdogs over those in power on behalf of citizens. The problem is that media organizations are also purveyors of massive political and social power. This, I would argue, is one reason “The Daily Show” became such a hit. While politicians were regular fodder for ridicule, people were itching to see large media corporations taken down a peg over their weak coverage of topics such as the Iraq War, global warming, white-collar crime and racism as well as over their perpetual refusal to even acknowledge their close relationships to corporate and political power.
When people such as Rose, McKesson and Mosby question dominant media storylines on race, they not only challenge the facts as presented by CNN or Fox News; they are also peeling away the veneer of journalistic objectivity and questioning the power of all media companies to define events in broad and stereotypical terms, regardless of the consequences those definitions might have for those who remain in Ferguson and Baltimore after the cameras have been turned off and the reporters have left.This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: President-elect Donald Trump has announced he will nominate Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency. Pruitt has been one of the EPA’s fiercest critics and has led a legal effort to overturn parts of President Obama’s climate change policies, including his Clean Power Plan. Pruitt claimed the science of climate change is, quote, “far from settled.” He is also seen as a close ally of the fossil fuel industry. In 2014, The New York Times revealed that Pruitt and other Republican attorneys general had formed what the paper described as a, quote, “unprecedented, secretive alliance” with the nation’s top energy producers to fight Obama’s climate efforts.
AMY GOODMAN: The New York Times also exposed Pruitt’s close ties to the Oklahoma firm Devon Energy. In 2014, Pruitt sent the EPA a letter accusing federal regulators of overestimating the amount of air pollution caused by energy companies drilling new natural gas wells in Oklahoma. What Pruitt didn’t reveal was that the letter was secretly drafted by lawyers at Devon Energy. In 2015, Pruitt testified before Congress about his opposition to the EPA’s Clean Power Plan regulations. When questioned by Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Pruitt refused to acknowledge the existence of climate change.
SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE: Is climate change a problem anywhere in the world?
ATTORNEY GENERAL SCOTT PRUITT: Senator, I think that the process matters that the EPA engages in—
SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE: I get that.
ATTORNEY GENERAL SCOTT PRUITT: —to address these issues. And that’s the focus—
SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE: But I didn’t ask you a process question. I asked you a question about whether climate change—
ATTORNEY GENERAL SCOTT PRUITT: I think that question—
SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE: —is a real problem anywhere in the world.
ATTORNEY GENERAL SCOTT PRUITT: I think the question about climate action plan of the president, climate change, is something that’s a policy consideration of this Congress. If you want EPA to address that in a direct way, you can amend the Clean Air Act to provide that authority and the statutory power to do so, so that the states can know how to conduct themselves in a way that is consistent with statutory construction. That’s not—
SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE: So, to be clear—
ATTORNEY GENERAL SCOTT PRUITT: That’s not—
SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE: —neither of the attorney generals present will concede that climate change is a real problem anywhere in the world.
ATTORNEY GENERAL SCOTT PRUITT: Senator, I think it’s immaterial to discussions about the legal framework of the Clean Air Act.
SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE: Immaterial or not, I get to ask questions. And so, it’s material to my question. All right, let’s go on to something else.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse questioning Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt last year. Trump’s selection of Pruitt to head the EPA has been widely criticized by environmental groups and lawmakers concerned about the climate change crisis. Senator Bernie Sanders said, quote, “Pruitt’s record is not only that of being a climate change denier, but also someone who has worked closely with the fossil fuel industry to make this country more dependent, not less, on fossil fuels.”
AMY GOODMAN: Environmental Working Group President Ken Cook said, quote, “It’s a safe assumption that Pruitt could be the most hostile EPA administrator toward clean air and safe drinking water in history.”
To talk more about Scott Pruitt, we’re joined by two guests. Here in New York, May Boeve is with us, executive director of 350 Action, the political arm of the climate organization “350.org”https://350.org/. And joining us from Washington, D.C., is Wenonah Hauter. She is executive director of Food & Water Watch.
Wenonah, let us begin with you. Oklahoma’s attorney general, Scott Pruitt, tapped to head the EPA, your response?
WENONAH HAUTER: Well, you know, I first ran into Scott Pruitt when I was writing my recent book, Frackopoly, on the history of the oil and gas industry, and saw that he was one of the leading attorney generals lobbying on what he called sue-and-settle legislation, which we know that our citizenry has the right to sue the federal government when the government is not doing what’s in their best interest. And he was lobbying in favor of Devon and Continental Resources in trying to stop the ability of citizens to actually move forward with lawsuits.
I think that putting Pruitt in charge of the EPA is a lot like putting one of The Three Stooges in charge of the agency, because he is not really credible on any of the issues around the environment. We can look at what he did in 2013 when he brought nine attorney generals to Oklahoma City, some of the most powerful law firms that represent the energy industry, along with the CEOs of many energy companies, to put together a scheme about how they were going to stop the federal government from taking action to stop the pollution from fossil fuel drilling and fracking. This was paid for by the right-wing energy and law institute at George Mason University.
The fossil fuel industry actually helped raise the money to put him in office. And one of the first things he did upon becoming the attorney general of Oklahoma was to start a committee on federalism, because what’s unfortunate about Pruitt is, not only is he a cartoon character, but he’s a very smart politician. And he saw the possibility of creating what is a lot like a national law firm, made up of attorney generals and also the legal arm of the energy industry, to be able to not only hassle the EPA, but also what was going on at state legislatures regarding fossil fuel development. So I think he’s a very dangerous character.
I think that he is going to attempt to destroy the Environmental Protection Agency, and not just in the area of fossil fuels, but also around the pollution from factory farming and industrialized agriculture. He has been an ally of the big corporations that own these large animal factories. In fact, there was legislation that was turned down in Oklahoma in the last election called Freedom to Farm, which, of course, really means freedom of factory farms to pollute. So we know that, because the EPA hasn’t done a real great job of regulating factory farms anyway, that we’re going to see a lot of trouble ahead.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: May Boeve, in the news release that announced his nomination, the Trump transition team called Pruitt “an expert in Constitutional law” and said he, quote, “brings a deep understanding of the impact of regulations on both the environment and the economy.” So could you respond to that and, in particular, the significance of him being a constitutional lawyer?
MAY BOEVE: Well, it’s no surprise that he knows about the impact of regulation, because the regulations were starting to work. We were starting to see real pressure on the oil and gas industry on the issue of climate change. And they are pushing back. And so, they are celebrating that Scott Pruitt has been selected for this role. So, his expertise in this area means he’s going to try to dismantle the foundation of laws that this country has built around environmental protection. Most significantly right now are the regulations that have been put in place around coal plants, around fracking. They’re not nearly as strong as they need to be, but we certainly need the ones that we have. And so, this is a very dangerous appointment. It cannot be overstated. And it shows us exactly what we need to know about Donald Trump.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to go back to Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt’s appearance on Capitol Hill in 2015, when he testified about his legal fight against President Obama’s Clean Power Plan regulations.
ATTORNEY GENERAL SCOTT PRUITT: I think what is lost in the debate, at times, is the impact on consumers, those that will be consuming electricity in the future. In the state of Oklahoma, between coal and natural gas, 78 percent of our electricity is generated. As I indicated in my opening comment, 15 percent of our electricity is generated through wind. The choices available to the state of Oklahoma to comply with this mandate from the EPA of reducing CO2 by over 30 percent, it puts us in a position of having to make decisions about the shuttering of coal generation, which, as I indicated, makes up over 40 percent of our electricity generation. That’s going to increase cost substantially to consumers, this one rule. To give you an example, in the Clean Air Act, there is something called the regional haze statute, as you know—section of the Clean Air Act. That one rule alone, between PSO, Public Service Company of Oklahoma, and OG&E in the state of Oklahoma have seen 15 to 20 percent increases in their generation of electricity, with just one rule. When we combine all these others, it’s going to be obviously substantially more than that in the future for consumers in the state of Oklahoma.
SEN. JOHN BARRASSO: So these regulations would directly hurt—hurt—the people of Oklahoma.
ATTORNEY GENERAL SCOTT PRUITT: Some of the folks that can least afford it.
AMY GOODMAN: So there you have Scott Pruitt testifying before the Senate. Wenonah Hauter, respond to what Pruitt has just said.
WENONAH HAUTER: Well, this is really a false dichotomy that we see all the time when energy is discussed. Really, what we need to do is be moving into a more energy-efficient and an energy future that relies on renewable energy. This would create many jobs, and it would also solve many of the problems that are going to cost taxpayers a lot of money as we see the problems from climate |
find your email, please check your spam and promotions folders.
I just reached Level 5. Will I receive the Crossword bonus perk?
This Crossword bonus perk is only available to Local Guides in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and the U.K. who reached Level 5 before September 12, 2017.
When is the deadline to redeem this perk?
December 12, 2017 at 11:59 p.m. EST.
I missed the deadline to redeem this perk. Can I get an extension or a new sign-up link?
We cannot provide an extension or a new sign-up link.
Can I use the coupon with other promotions or discount offers?
The coupon cannot be combined with any other promotions or discount offers.
Can I redeem this perk for cash?
This perk has no cash value. If you received this perk, you may give your offer code to a friend or family member but you may not sell or exchange the perk for money.
I received an email for this perk, but I’m having trouble redeeming the offer. Who can help?
Please contact help@nytimes.com or call 1-800-591-9233.
I didn't qualify for this perk. When will you offer one for me?
The Local Guides program is constantly evolving. Perks may be offered from time to time. If you have a suggested partner, or a perk you would like to see offered in your area, we welcome your feedback in the comments below. Please also be sure that your email preferences have perks emails enabled by visiting Local Guides home.Kelly Collins chose to stretch out the loan on her new red Dodge Journey for an extra year because she wanted lower monthly payments, an increasingly common practice in debt-laden Canada.
[np_storybar title=”Canada’s cheap car loans have eerie trappings of housing crisis” link=”https://business.financialpost.com/2013/02/09/canadas-cheap-car-loans-has-eerie-trappings-of-housing-crisis/”%5DWith extended amortizations on car loans and no downpayments required, the auto sector is the most rapidly growing consumer debt sector in Canada. Read on
[/np_storybar]
“They were really good about letting me customize,” said Collins, who opted to move beyond a five-year term after being given the option to speed repayment if she has extra cash.
The average term of a light-vehicle loan in Canada is 69 months, close to a peak of 72 months set in the third quarter of 2013, according to data from marketing information company J.D. Power. The borrowing adds to signs Canadians are continuing to buy big-ticket items and tuning out warnings about unsustainable debt growth.
Longer-term car loans are leaving Canadians in debt for a longer time, Dennis DesRosiers, president of DesRosiers Automotive Consultants in Richmond Hill, Ontario, said in a telephone interview. “On a 96-month loan it takes 80-plus months before you are back in the money,” he said.
Policy makers have called near-record consumer-debt levels the chief domestic risk to Canada’s economy. While Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz says the ratio of household debt to income should stabilize around current levels, most of the government’s warnings, as well as its actions, have been directed at mortgage debt. The Finance Department has tightened rules around mortgage insurance in a bid to cool a housing market that the International Monetary Fund called “a key vulnerability.”
There’s been no similar government intervention in the auto market, where longer-term loans are fueling purchases, according to Equifax Canada Co. The credit-tracking company reported in March that auto credit demand rose 9% in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, with loans of longer than 72 months being the main impetus. Canadian car and light truck sales will rise to a record 1.77 million this year from 1.74 million last year according to Carlos Gomes, an economist specializing in the industry at Bank of Nova Scotia in Toronto.
Unprecedented Sales
Light trucks led unprecedented new-vehicle sales of 197,740 units in May, Statistics Canada said July 23, boosting retail sales to a record $42.0 billion. About 37 cents of every retail dollar spent that month was car related, compared with about 31 cents in the U.S. The agency reports retail sales for June on Aug. 22 in Ottawa.
“Canadian consumers have been ‘holding the economic fort,’ as exports and business spending lag previous recoveries,” Peter Buchanan, an economist at CIBC World Markets in Toronto, wrote in a report previewing this week’s report. “While July saw a strong rebound in auto sales, their ability to do so indefinitely is doubtful.”
The Bank of Canada is counting on rising exports and business investment to take over from debt-supported consumer spending in leading the world’s 11th largest economy back to full output over the next two years.
Easy Credit
Easy credit has also helped U.S. auto sales, which are on pace for the best year since 2006. Moody’s Investors Service analysts wrote in a January report that auto lending companies are lowering lending standards in an attempt to win market share.
The Justice Department has subpoenaed financing units, including GM’s and Santander Consumer USA, for documents related to debt underwritten and securitized by their subprime auto- lending businesses.
Newspaper ads over the past month feature offers of eight-year loans for some Hyundai Motor Co. Elantra models and seven- year terms on some Buicks from General Motors Co., which DesRosiers said was about twice the length of typical loans a decade ago. Manufacturers and lenders are catering to consumers like Collins who want low interest rates and longer repayment terms that cut their payments.
Stretching Payments
Collins said she bought her car three weeks ago with financing of about $30,000. “I wanted to stretch it out,” she said of her loan, as it meant that “my payments were smaller.” Asked if she was worried about any extra risk from adding a year to her loan, she said using the option for accelerated payments may end up improving her credit score. “It makes my credit look good.”
Scott Hannah’s colleagues see people every day who run into trouble with easy loans. The president of the Credit Counselling Society, a non-profit consumer service, says 10 to 15% of the 30,000 people his company meets every year are receiving advice because of car loans.
While stretching the term of a zero-interest loan doesn’t add to the total borrowing cost, it delays the point where the vehicle’s worth becomes greater than the debt. Hannah also said long-duration loans can entice people into taking on more debt than they may be able to handle.
Five Years
Hannah recommends consumers stick to a maximum length of five years and a 20% down payment on their car loans. “If you can’t put down 20% including taxes you aren’t ready to buy a car,” he said. “It’s not in the consumer’s best interest to take out a longer-term loan for a depreciating asset.”
There’s little evidence to date Canadians are struggling to keep up with their auto loans, with first-quarter delinquency rates of 0.76% over 60 days and 0.61% over 90 days both close to record lows, according to Equifax Canada.
“We don’t see any obvious red flags,” Regina Malina, a senior director at Equifax in Toronto, said in a telephone interview. “Whether we can relax and say there’s no problem, I’d say it’s too early too conclude.”
Gerry Cloutier, general manager of Myers Hyundai in Ottawa, has plastered the dealership with signs advertising 96-month, zero-interest loans.
Price, Payment
“People don’t buy price, they buy a payment,” Cloutier, 59, said. Today’s buyer wants monthly payments around C$200, a goal made attainable by longer loan terms and low borrowing costs, he said. Higher interest rates could slow the market or lead some customers to buy a smaller or cheaper car.
There is even scope for loans beyond eight years amid strong consumer demand and industry competition. “At some point, a manufacturer will come out with a longer term,” Cloutier said.
Bloomberg.comOne of the marquee events at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London is the Men’s 10,000 meters final on Saturday August 4th. Fortunately for the host country, one of the favorites to win the grueling event is of British heritage. But whether or not he can capture the gold medal in the highly anticipated event is up for debate and tremendous amounts of speculation.
The British Contender for the Gold Medal
The leading British contender is Mo Farah, who’s originally from British Somalia. He describes himself on his official website as “Britain’s greatest distance runner ever”, which seems like a rather lofty statement given the long storied history of other running legends such as Roger Bannister, Steve Cram and Steve Ovett and Sebastien Coe. But the 29-year-old Farah has done his best to support his claim as he has obliterated national distance records in the 3,000, 5,0000 and 10,000 meters, and was the 2011 European 10,000 meters champion. His personal best in the outdoor event was also set last year at the 2011 Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Oregon with a time of 26:46:57 and many running experts believe he has yet to reach his peak. Farah, who now lives in Portland, Oregon but maintains British citizenship, is considered to be a gold medal favorite in both the 10,000 meters on Saturday and the 5,000 meters next week.
Despite his many national distance records, Farah’s personal best in the 10,000 meters is nearly 30 seconds off the world record of 26:17:53 set in 2005 by Ethiopia’s Kenenisa Bekele, the Olympic defending champion in both the 5,000 and 10,000 meters and also won the gold for the 10,000 meters in the 2004 Olympics in Athens. Bekele remains a favorite although his ability to win a third consecutive gold medal has been marred by injuries in recent years. However the 30-year-old Ethiopian had the fastest 10,000 meters time last year and should never be counted out in an Olympic final.
The Other Contenders
Other leading contenders in the Men’s 10,000 meters finals at the Olympic Stadium located in the Stratford section of London are Moses Masai, Wilson Kiprop and Bedan Karoki, all from Kenya and Galen Rupp of the United States. If the conditions are just right on Saturday, any of these aforementioned elite runners are easily capable of surpassing the current Olympic 10,000 meters record of 27:01:17 set by Bekele in Beijing, since the top 25 fastest times in history are all well below 27:00.
Farah is one just a few athletes representing Great Britain that has a real chance at an Olympic gold medal in London and much of the nation is hoping that he fares well in both the 5,000 and 10,000 meter events. It’s been a particularly long time since a British distance runner has won a medal in either event – 56 years for the 5,000 meters and 28 years for the 10,000 meters so a British victory and the associated national pride that accompanies it might resemble the sense of pride and admiration the nation felt when compatriot cyclist Bradley Wiggins won the Tour de France late last month.
Legendary Olympic 10,000m Runners
Whoever the three athletes will be on the medal podium is still a toss up but the international stage has been set for what is expected to be an incredibly competitive and dramatic race. In previous Men’s 10,000 meter events, the Summer Olympics have featured many legendary runners including Finland’s Lasse Viren, Ethiopia’s Haile Gebreslassie and Miruts Yifter, Kenya’s Paul Tergat, and Australia’s Ron Clarke. And some of the greatest Olympic moments in history have come in the Men’s 10,000 meters such as Native American Billy Mills’ upset victory at the Tokyo Olympics in 1964 and Viren, who won the gold in the 5,000 and 10,000 meters at Munich and four years later in Montreal.
Because of worldwide interest in running and in particular 10k races, a huge throng of spectators will be expected at the 80,000 seat Olympic Stadium, while avoiding the empty seat controversy of the first few days of the London Olympics. Of course, many of those in attendance on Saturday will be British citizens and rooting for who they would like to consider as Britain’s greatest distance runner ever.Who funds the War Party? Before we answer that very interesting question, it’s important to define just what (and who) it is we’re talking about. I use the "War Party" phraseology as shorthand for a number of different groups and individuals, all of whom are linked by an ideological and/or financial interest in promoting a foreign policy of perpetual war. This includes those groups pushing for budget-busting "defense" outlays, as well as those whose commitment to militarism is more ideological. Then there are the foreign lobbyists who have an interest in maintaining and expanding the American Empire: and while there are a number of foreign interests involved in this vector, the one that stands out on account of the sheer quantity of its resources is the Israel lobby, which combines a rich source of funding with an ideologically-based activism second to none on Capitol Hill.
The following list is by no means exhaustive: that would require an entire book rather than a relatively short column. However, what follows should serve as an introduction to those who are seeking to impose their foreign policy agenda on a war-weary and dead-broke country.
American Enterprise Institute
The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) is a Washington thinktank founded in 1943, as the American Enterprise Association, by Lewis H. Brown, former president of Johns Mansville, an asbestos company, and one of the chief architects of the postwar Marshall Plan. Originally headquartered in New York, the organization moved to Washington, changed its name to the American Enterprise Institute, and has since become the preferred home of the neoconservatives. In the run-up to the war, and afterwards, AEI housed a number of neoconservative intellectuals, including Richard Perle, John Bolton, Lynne Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, and the ubiquitous Kagan family, among many others.
According to its Form 990, AEI has assets of $150,096,627. Its latest annual operating budget of record (2011) was $34,977,193. Of this, around $6 million was spent on its foreign policy programs, although the number is no doubt much higher when one takes into consideration other programs which cannot be separated out from its foreign policy propaganda. AEI’s foreign policy component is headed by Ahmed Chalabi groupie and inveterate interventionist Danielle Pletka.
AEI was the source of and inspiration for the Iraq "surge": a study done by Frederick W. Kagan and retired Gen. Jack Keane, "Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq," provided the rationale for the Bush administration’s effort to save a disastrous war from becoming a complete rout.
AEI has been in the forefront of neoconservative efforts to warn against the very idea of cutting the "defense" budget in response to the imminent bankruptcy of the United States government. As AEI scholar Mackenzie Eaglen, formerly with the management team of Donald Rumsfeld’s DoD – which lost billions in unaccounted cash in Iraq – put it to Defense News:
"The Republican Party has been slowly hemorrhaging having a strong national defense as a key priority of a conservative agenda for years. It predates President Obama. This president, along with what I’m calling the ‘Libertarian moment,’ has pushed this neglect into the headlines. In fact, it’s beyond the headlines.
"It’s now evident in legislation. Whether it’s the inability to exempt the Defense Department from being funded through the restrictions of a continuing resolution, like not being able to start new [weapon] programs, to not making a defense appropriations bill a priority over moving other spending bills, to the [2011] Budget Control Act itself, defense is just not a Republican priority anymore."
Poor MacKenzie: the Libertarian Moment is no fun for the War Party! Why, even the Republicans are beginning to question why our "defense" budget is at an all-time high when no single nation on earth presents a half-credible threat to our overwhelming military dominance.
Conservative foundations (Bradley, Pew, etc.), the usual range of multinational corporations, especially the oil industry, figure prominently among AEI’s chief donors – and, of course, the defense industry.
Heritage Foundation
The Heritage Foundation is the oldest ostensibly conservative thinktank in Washington, and it has a huge war chest: the latest figures clock in at $72,170,983 in income, plus $143,231,547 in net assets, as of the end of 2011. Although eclipsed, in part, by AEI, and less invested in the neoconservative lexicon when advocating higher military budgets and foreign intervention, Heritage has been instrumental in consolidating support for militaristic policies within the GOP, with which it is closely aligned. Founded by Edward J. Feulner and Paul Weyrich in 1973, with start up money from the Coors family, their foreign policy shop is largely concerned with preserving and expanding big-ticket budget items like missile defense and other expensive weapons systems.
A recent Heritage position paper whined that, due to the looming sequestration, "defense contractors have been paralyzed for months"! Those poor babies: perhaps if they give even more than they are already contributing to Heritage’s budget, such grossly inconsiderate behavior can be avoided in the future.
While geared to a more mainstream GOP perspective, Heritage can be counted on to buttress the neocons in their various campaigns — making some of the same talking points, albeit considerably cleaned up for an audience less prone to hysterics — such as the smear campaign directed at Chuck Hagel.
Project for a New American Century/Foreign Policy Initiative
The Project for a New American Century (PNAC), founded in 1997 by Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol and professional warmonger Robert Kagan, was one of the neocons’ more productive agitational efforts. PNAC can be given the "credit" for single-handedly building support within the political class for the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and had a decisive influence on the military and foreign policy of George W. Bush’s administration. Sponsored by the New Citizenship Project, which poured $3.5 million in grants into PNAC’s coffers, the organization agitated for war with Iraq throughout the Clinton years with a series of open letters signed by prominent neocons and fellow-travelers.
PNAC’s funding came largely in grants from the major right-wing foundations: Bradley, Olin, and Scaife. The single biggest donor was the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with $800,000.
PNAC is today inactive, having been succeeded by the Foreign Policy Initiative, which is basically the same creature rebaptized.
Center for American Freedom/Washington Free Beacon
The Center for American Freedom (CAF), founded by Michael Goldfarb, is the latest addition to the neocon arsenal. CAF is a 501(c)4 organization, and not required to disclose its donors or operating expenses, but founder Goldfarb claims they have an annual budget of "several million dollars." So far, their major project is the Washington Free Beacon, a tabloid-style "news" site specializing in smear jobs against neocon hate-objects – e.g., the Free Beacon is a veritable library of all the latest smears aimed at Hagel. Half Breitbart.com, half college humor magazine, the Free Beacon is a down-market version of the Weekly Standard, which seems logical since its editor is Matthew Continetti, former staff writer at the Weekly Standard and the latest addition to the Kristol clan.
Founder Goldfarb is a principal of Orion Strategies, a lobbying group with ties to the defense industry: Orion’s founder, Randy Scheuneman, is an instrumental player in the NATO expansion campaign. The government of Georgia under Mikheil Saakashvili was a major client. Rumor has it that the Koch brothers, Charles and David, are big backers of the new group: the Kochs, for their part, have issued a strong denial. The Nation has documented a working relationship between Goldfarb, Orion, the Free Beacon, and the government of Taiwan. And who’s to say that Sheldon Adelson, always a soft touch for any ostensibly "pro-Israel" project, isn’t a major contributor?
In addition to the above, there is an entire panoply of relatively minor neoconservative and neoconservative-leaning thinktanks, "emergency committees" (i.e. the Emergency Committee for Israel), and ad hoc organizations that serve as the fulcrum of the War Party’s permanent campaign. The Weekly Standard, the neocons’ Pravda, was founded by Kristol and initially funded by Rupert Murdoch, who sold the magazine to neocon billionaire Philip Anschultz in 2009. Like all magazines of opinion, it has continued to lose money, but Anschultz, who owns a string of newspapers across the country, apparently isn’t feeling the pinch.
Add to this the lobbying efforts of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the political action committee known as NORPAC, which ladles out cash to pro-Israel candidates, and what you have is a formidable apparatus with the power to shape American foreign policy to its own ends. Wielding almost unlimited resources, these groups can work their will on an easily-intimidated Congress, and a perpetually complicit media, such as occurred before and during the Iraq war. Indeed, the same cast of characters is now busy spinning a new but eerily similar war-narrative around Iran – the neocons’ latest target of opportunity.
All of which raises the question: can we beat the War Party?
The answer, I firmly believe, is an emphatic yes, but with one proviso: we need your help to do it.
You can see what we’re up against. The odds aren’t that favorable, to be sure, but we have one big advantage: we have the truth on our side. Because the truth is that America is an overextended empire, and a bankrupt one to boot. Because Iran doesn’t represent any kind of real threat to the United States, and war with that nation would be a disaster. Because the War Party needs its multi-million dollar budget to fool the American people into war – whereas we, on the other hand, just need a bare minimum to get the truth out.
It takes a lot to cover up a lie, whereas truth only requires an efficient and cost-effective method of transmission – which describes Antiwar.com to a tee.
This fundraiser hasn’t been all that successful, so far – which is why I’ve spent the previous 1500 words to show how much we’re out-gunned in the resources division. Yet this uneven playing field is no cause to give in to despair – because we can beat them, with your help.
Your tax-deductible donation goes a long way here at Antiwar.com. There’s no three-figure salaries, no perks, no fancy expense accounts – just a small and very hardworking crew of dedicated activists devoted to debunking the War Party’s lies. For 17 years, we’ve been supported by our readers, and every year our influence gets wider – while fundraising doesn’t get any easier.
It’s been a long, hard slough this time around, trying to raise the funds we need to continue our work. We’ve managed to raise $26,000 in matching funds from a group of generous donors – but we need you to match it, or else no dice. Please help us make our goal by making your tax-deductible contribution today.
NOTES IN THE MARGIN
I will be the keynote speaker at the Republican Liberty Caucus of California convention, this coming Saturday, March 2, in Sacramento. My topic: “Our Libertarian Republican Heritage.” The event will take place at the Sacramento Convention Center, Room 204, (address:1400 J Street: the convention center is adjacent to the Hyatt Regency). I am scheduled to be introduced at 2:10, to speak from 2:15 to 2:45, and to take questions from 2:45 to 3:00.
I’m on Twitter quite a bit these days, and having a lot of fun: indeed, I’m almost up to 3,000 "followers"! Help me cross the 3000 mark by following me here.
I’ve also written a couple of books, which you might want to peruse. Here is the link for buying the second edition of my 1993 book, Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement, with an Introduction by Prof. George W. Carey, a Forward by Patrick J. Buchanan, and critical essays by Scott Richert and David Gordon (ISI Books, 2008).
You can buy my biography of the great libertarian thinker, An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard (Prometheus Books, 2000), here.
Read more by Justin RaimondoGo ahead, kick the Raptors. Take your best shot. Just about everyone is doing it.
LeBron James is already talking openly about how much fun it would be to take on Dwyane Wade and the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference final. ESPN spent part of the morning talking about LeBron — a daily subject on the network — playing against his former team and old friends.
This isn’t new. In fact, it’s quite old.
But it is real and occasionally discouraging and predictable and all too typical. Part of it is geographical. Part of it is more historical than hysterical. Part of it is just the scale of relevance.
The NBA is a league of cool kids and superstars and the Raptors have yet to show themselves as being cool enough or superstar enough to matter anywhere but here.
“That’s fine,” said Dwane Casey, who had already been informed of LeBron’s words by Wednesday afternoon.
Nothing stays quiet in the NBA, the league that has always been part basketball, part gossip. Everybody talks about everybody everything.
The thing with the Raptors, though, down one game to the Miami Heat, is that nobody talks much about them at all. Most of the time, they have yet to matter.
“Nobody respects us,” said Casey. “Everybody has written us off. The people in the locker room over there are the most important people to believe that … Our guys should take offence (spelled with a Canadian ‘C’ — to what’s not being said about them).
“You have to do it, “ said the coach, meaning win. “This year, next year, year after that. You build a program. People are looking at us from six, seven, eight, 10 years ago. We’re a growing program. You have to earn that respect. You earn that by winning year after year.”
You don’t earn that by losing the first game of every playoff series in every playoff year. You don’t earn that when you are 0-and-5 in playoff opening games at home. You don’t earn that when you have two apparent stars, and one is making fun of himself for the fact he has the worst shooting percentage in playoff history and the other can’t seem to string together two great quarters, let alone two great games. This is run-your-hands-together material for the local supporters who have mastered in rubbing their hands together over the years.
But we interrupt this coronation of the Miami Heat with a brave announcement: The Raptors lost Game 1 to Indiana and still found a way, albeit barely, to win the series. And they lost Game 1 to Brooklyn two years ago and went to the final seconds of Game 7 — Kyle Lowry, who was actually making buckets back then, had his shot blocked because Terrence Ross ran the wrong play and Paul Pierce wound up in the wrong place.
This is what the Raptors have to overcome to be relevant in the country that doesn’t debate every hockey hit with the game of Suspension or No Suspension.
They have to make some shots. They have to run the right plays. They have to play some defence, especially against Goran Dragic and, in a more difficult way, against the seemingly ageless and rather smooth, Dwyane Wade. They have to even this best-of-seven series before they leave for Miami and a Game 3 on Saturday afternoon.
None of this, for the record, is necessarily easy.
What the Raptors don’t do often, though: Lose two games in a row. They managed it once in the last 29 games of the regular season and eight in the playoffs: That’s 37 games played, two losses in a row just once.
But that’s not enough to get them noticed or appreciated much, even after becoming the first 60-win team in franchise history. The thing is, they’d like 64 wins, and maybe more after that and then somebody down south might stop sneering. Or worse, ignoring.
“It’s been like that since I’ve been here,” said Patrick Patterson, the power forward and the Raptors’ director of Toronto tourism and public relations.
“It’s nothing new as far as not getting the respect that I feel we deserve. It’s something we face every day and something that we’re OK with because, at the end of the day, it’s us in the locker room versus the world.”
So far, the world is winning. The Raptors can change some of that in this playoff series. They can win and really mess with LeBron’s dance party of an Eastern Conference championship.
And how much fun would a drive to Cleveland be?
Email: ssimmons@postmedia.com
Twitter @simmonssteveOn Friday night's Eagles vs Patriots preseason opener, the unthinkable happened. The Eagles Iron Man, magician, man of many hats, and long snapper Jon Dorenbos suffered a concussion.
With Dorenbos to miss time as he recovers, the Eagles have signed a long snapper to replace him in practice this week. His name is James Winchester, and he's here to long snap balls.
Winchester is an officer in the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 a former Oklahoma Sooner.
Here's more on him:
James Winchester, 6'3" 200lbs was the long snapper for the Oklahoma Sooners in 2010 and 2011. He has worked his way into gaining a 3 day camp tryout with the Buffalo Bills as released exclusively to Special Teams University long snapping coach Kyle Stelter. In 2011 James was the starting long snapper on punts in all 13 games and also snapped field goals and extra points in two games. He was also a valuable member of the scout team as a receiver. In his senior season James had four tackles on the season on punt coverage including two at Baylor. In 2010 James was the starting long snapper on punts, recovered three fumbles on the season while covering punts including a game-clinching recovery vs. Texas. He also had two tackles against Colorado and another vs. Iowa State.
And you can follow him on Twitter here.
Winchester is here just in case of an emergency. The Eagles hope Dorenbos will be able in time to return for Thursday's preseason game against the Carolina Panthers.
Hopefully this post has fulfilled your long snapper news quota for the day.
Mike Update: Winchester will be wearing the legendary "49." The ultimate sign of staying power.When the Super Friends of the classic 1970s cartoon series gather at the Hall of Justice, Cincinnatians find it eerily familiar—after all, the hideout drew inspiration from the Queen City's Union Terminal. But now the art deco masterpiece is in need of some super friends itself.
The majestic train station, completed in 1933, houses Cincinnati Museum Center, which includes a children’s museum and an Omnimax theater. But Union Terminal is also on the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s list of America’s 11 most endangered places, in need of $212 million worth of repair. Yet, the building’s future remains in limbo: Cincinnati and Hamilton County officials are at odds over who should bear the cost of the preservation.
Rather than leaving it up to a battle of bureaucracy, though, voters will get a say in the matter. Issue 8 on the Hamilton County ballot this year, if approved, would increase sales tax in the county by a quarter of a percent for five years; the levy would provide up to $170 million toward renovations, with the remainder coming from private philanthropy and grants. Even the Legion of Doom has come around: local Tea Party supporters, who had fought against a proposal that would have funded preservation efforts for both Union Terminal and Music Hall (another building on the most endangered list), have either voiced support of Issue 8 or remained silent.
The Hall of Justice from the Super Friends intro. Screengrab/Hanna-Barbera Productions
While locals had suspected the comic-book connection for decades, the Cincinnati Enquirer confirmed in 2009 that Hanna-Barbera background supervisor Al Gmuer had been inspired by Union Terminal when he worked on what would become the Justice League’s HQ. (Hanna-Barbera was owned by Cincinnati’s Taft Broadcasting from the late 1960s to the ‘80s.)
Meanwhile, at the Hall of Justice today, years of water damage combined with construction flaws have created major structural issues. Union Terminal's original architects placed steel and concrete together without leaving room for the expansion and contraction that's so commonplace in Ohio’s cold climate. And it's not just structural—the building's mechanical, electrical and plumbing infrastructure is in dire need of updates to accommodate the 1.4 million people who visit the site each year.
"Engineers are looking at the seven- to 10-year range until the disrepair becomes major," says Elizabeth Pierce, vice president of Cincinnati Museum Center. "But we’ve been putting Band-aids on this building for the past 10 years, and we’re encountering the results. If we don’t fix it now, the deterioration of the building will escalate from the current rate—and it becomes significantly more expensive to do than it is to do right now."
Union Terminal was in peril even as its animated counterpart was becoming a staple of childhood TV rituals: Passenger trains stopped service to the station in 1972, and the all but abandoned building was at risk of demolition when the city of Cincinnati bought it in 1975. After a brief interlude as an entertainment center in the early ‘80s and a period where the city of Cincinnati offered rental space for $1 per year, Union Terminal became the home of Cincinnati Museum Center in 1990, the same year Amtrak restored passenger train service to the station.
Cincinnati Museum Center and National Trust staffers have been on the ground for weeks in the Queen City to get out the vote. The National Trust even set up a popup action center downtown—the first time it’s done so in a city where it doesn’t already have an office. Fans can take selfies with reproductions of Union Terminal’s Winold Reiss murals or cutouts of the building’s iconic facade.
Union Terminal needs a hero. But Aqua Man isn't coming this time—so the citizens of Hamilton County have to step up.This Friday marks the release of Yoshi’s New Island, so what better time to put on our archaeologist hats and delve into the history of Mario’s dino pal?
Super Mario World may not have been as hip and blast-processed as Sonic, but the game did have one major thing on its side — you could ride a friggin’ dinosaur in it. Yoshi would go onto become Nintendo’s most significant new creation of the 16-bit era, starring in numerous spin-offs and sequels. Since that 16-bit era, Yoshi’s games have been a bit hit or miss, but Super Mario World and Yoshi’s Island earned the green guy cred for life.
So, here are a few facts you might not know about the career of gaming’s most famous dinosaur…
1) Yoshi was supposed to debut on the NES. Ever since the development of the original Super Mario Bros. for the NES, Shigeru Miyamoto wanted Mario to have some sort of animal steed to ride around on, but Nintendo’s programmers just couldn’t make the concept happen using the NES’ limited capabilities.
Early Yoshi concept art. Hee hee, pixel Mario is adorable.
2) Yoshi was originally going to be some form of Koopa. An early idea was for Yoshi to be a tame Koopa Troopa. Eventually he morphed into a dinosaur, because the shape of a dinosaur’s body meshed better with Mario’s sprite.
3) Yoshi was probably influenced by a Japanese game that takes place in hell. Devil World is the only Shigeru Miyamoto-designed game to never be localized for Americans because, well, it revolved around a dinosaur attacking hell and collecting crucifixes and bibles to defeat a Speedo-wearing Satan. For our purposes today, the important part of that insane description is the dinosaur part — the hero of Devil World was Tamagon, a small green dinosaur with red spikes on his back that hatched from an egg and swallowed enemies. Sound familiar? The game’s sound effects and music also had a distinctly Yoshi-esque feel. Judge for yourself…
Share This Video Facebook Twitter EMAIL
4) The frog suit from Mario 3 was a Yoshi stopgap. Takashi Tezuka, the designer of Super Mario 3, came up with that game’s frog suit to get dino-crazed Miyamoto off his back. I guess letting Mario turn into a cold-blooded creature instead of riding one was enough to temporarily mollify Miyamoto. While not confirmed, I can’t help but think that the infamous Kuribo’s Shoe from Mario 3 was also a, “We can’t do a rideable dino yet, stop yelling at us Miyamoto-san!” stopgap.
5) Yoshi’s gender is, uh, complicated. So, Yoshi is often referred to as a “he”, but “he” lays eggs, so wouldn’t that make him a female? But the Japanese version of Smash Bros. Melee claims Yoshis actually reproduce asexually. But but, Yoshi can’t be that asexual, because he seems to have a romantic thing going with Birdo (who’s also of unclear gender). Oh well, let’s just forget the labels — Yoshi’s a Yoshi.
Looks like Yoshi finally sprung for a rock. You’ve got my blessing you crazy kids.
6) The creators of Pokemon made Yoshi’s first spin-off. Yoshi’s first solo game, the NES match-three puzzle game Yoshi, was made by Game Freak, who would go onto create Pokemon five years later.Asian sexual health groups fear that Brunei’s plans to stone convicted homosexuals to death will hamper efforts to combat HIV among men-who-have sex with men in South East Asia
The Asia Pacific Coalition on Male Sexual Health (APCOM) and the Islands of South East Asian Network on Male and Transgender Sexual Health (ISEAN) have expressed alarm at the prospect of the implementation of the Sultanate of Brunei’s new penal code which would see |
a year. The more information, the merrier!
: Related to the first point on our list, you might as well do something besides watching new tournaments. Regardless of what you watch, you can always easily expand articles. If you recently stumbled upon a really great game from an event already on Liquipedia, you can add the more interesting games in a new paragraph. Link to the VOD, write a few sentences as to why the game was worth watching, and you're done. As easy as a Forum Post, but helping out a lot! If you have more time on your hands, you can also write a little about the participants, sum up the write ups and reviews, so people will know what it was like in a year. The more information, the merrier! Share your Archives!: Several player profiles do not even have a picture. Several tournaments do not have VODs, or replays. This is another very easy thing to fix on your ends. If you have, by any chance, pictures you made of a player, upload them to Liquipedia. If you have replay packs, which could help us out restoring old grids, leave a note on the talk page. We will harass you sooner than you might think.
However, please note that you must not upload anything if you're not the creator when it comes to pictures. We do need consent of the author before uploading anything to avoid copyright issues. As for the point of restoring grids — a good thing to judge whether or not you should try to get in touch with the contributors in order to forward your replays — is to check if there's an article about the tour. If there is no article, there's a high chance we might need the information. In any case, do not hesitate to help out!
The efforts of Liquipedia Brood War's contributors have to be put into perspective. Unlike the other portals, our beloved game relies on the work of a very few contributors. Brood War only has a handful of motivated users updating and expanding each month. We desperately need more manpower!The title already gives a hint: our work never stops. Any true Brood War fan should be proud to have the ability to contribute a little bit in order to preserve our history. There are hundreds of things anyone could do to help out just a little. However, we do understand that adding to the Wiki for the first time might be terrifying, especially if there is no guidance. Indeed, help pages and tutorials were missing for a long time — but not any more. There are general help pages for several genres of articles.Another thing to stop people from actually editing might be the lack of overview; where is information missing? The following lists might help you out and tell you what's required. Most important categories are on the top, less important ones on the bottom. Stories from the Twitterverse
Official Liquipedia Account.According to the official website DJI discontinued Phantom 3 Professional, Phantom 3 Advanced and Phantom 3 4K production. Basically, all Phantom 3 models except Standard have been discontinued. You can find this kind of notice if you follow the Phantom 3 Pro link:
Please note that the Phantom 3 Advanced/Professional/4K is no longer being produced. For the latest DJI technologies, please see the Mavic.
Why DJI Discontinued Phantom 3 Production?
There was a lot of pressure on the brand new DJI Mavic Pro orders that caused shipping delays, so they probably decided to free up some resources to manufacture new products.
Support Is Still There
We have messaged DJI support to find out whether they will support the Phantom 3 series products or no production would mean no more support? DJI ensured us that they still offer technical support and repair for the Phantom 3 Pro, Advanced and 4K and it would take about 2 weeks to have your drone repaired or replaced.
Phantom 3 Pro/Adv have been released in the March of 2015 and it’s been one of the most popular drones on a market for almost 2 years. Now it’s time to give the young a chance as DJI prioritizes Mavic Pro.
Thank you for reading!(CNN) -- A Louisiana justice of the peace who drew criticism for refusing to marry an interracial couple has resigned, the secretary of state's office said Tuesday.
Keith Bardwell resigned in person at the Louisiana secretary of state's office, said spokesman Jacques Berry. The state Supreme Court will appoint an interim justice of the peace to fill Bardwell's position, Berry said, and a special election will be held next year to fill the position permanently.
Bardwell, a justice of the peace for Tangipahoa Parish's 8th Ward, refused to perform a marriage ceremony for Beth Humphrey, 30, and her boyfriend Terence McKay, 32, both of Hammond, Louisiana, and sign their marriage license. The two were married by another justice of the peace.
The couple filed a federal discrimination lawsuit against Bardwell and his wife, Beth Bardwell, on October 20, claiming the two violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
Bardwell, speaking to CNN affiliate WBRZ, said he was advised "that I needed to step down because they was going to take me to court, and I was going to lose."
"I would probably do the same thing again," he said. "I found out I can't be a justice of the peace and have a conscience."
Sen. Mary L. Landrieu, D-Louisiana, who had called for Bardwell's dismissal, said Tuesday night that "Bardwell has finally consented to the will of the vast majority of Louisiana citizens and nearly every governmental official in Louisiana. Bardwell's refusal to issue marriage licenses to interracial couples was out of step with our Louisiana values and reflected terribly on our state. We are better off without him in public service."
Initial reports were that Bardwell refused to issue a marriage license to the couple, but in the lawsuit Humphrey and McKay say they obtained the license from the parish court clerk's office and contacted Bardwell to see if he would perform the ceremony and sign the license to legally validate the marriage.
Humphrey wound up speaking by telephone with Beth Bardwell, the lawsuit said, and Beth Bardwell asked Humphrey if they were a "mixed couple." When told they were an interracial couple, Beth Bardwell said, according to the lawsuit, "We don't do interracial weddings," and told her the two would have to go outside the parish to marry.
Bardwell did not return repeated phone calls from CNN in October, but told CNN affiliate WAFB that he had no regrets about the decision. "It's kind of hard to apologize for something that you really and truly feel down in your heart you haven't done wrong," he said.
In addition, he told the Hammond Daily Star in an October story that he did not marry the couple because he was concerned for the children that might be born of the relationship and that, in his experience, most interracial marriages don't last.
"I'm not a racist," he said. "I do ceremonies for black couples right here in my house. My main concern is for the children."
Humphrey said in October that she wanted Bardwell to resign. "He doesn't believe he's being racist, but it is racist," she said.
According to the lawsuit, Bardwell estimated he refused to marry at least four other interracial couples in the past 2½ years.
"Defendant Beth Bardwell... aided, abetted and conspired with defendant Keith Bardwell to deprive plaintiffs of their constitutionally protected civil rights," according to the suit.
No response to the suit has been filed, and it was unclear whether the Bardwells had retained an attorney. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages, claiming that Humphrey and McKay suffered emotional distress as a result of the incident.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has said he believed Bardwell should lose his license, and the National Urban League called for an investigation into the incident by the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, saying in a statement that Bardwell's actions were "a huge step backward in social justice."
According to the Census Bureau, Tangipahoa Parish is about 70 percent white and 30 percent black.
The U.S. Supreme Court tossed out any racially-based limitations on marriage in the landmark 1967 ruling in the case Loving v. Virginia. In the unanimous decision, the court said that under the Constitution, "the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State."
CNN's Shawn Nottingham contributed to this report.Ever since GIGABYTE’s Server team and I first started discussing reviews, it was interesting to see what a purely B2B (business to business) unit could do. Since then, GIGABYTE Server has expanded, catering to both the B2B and B2C (customer) markets and selling direct to end users. With the release of Haswell-EP we reported on their large launch at the time and they sent us the MD60-SC0 for review.
GIGABYTE Server MD60-SC0 Overview
For those not versed in 2P workstation and server culture, the MD60-SC0 looks a bit different to consumer line products. The DRAM and CPU sockets are aligned for airflow, first coming across the power delivery then the socket, and out the rear panel all in one straight line with the dram providing a baffle effect to channel the air. This means that the PCIe slots are in a somewhat awkward position in the middle of the motherboard, limiting the length of PCIe devices, and making the platform focus more on CPU power and storage rather than a GPU powerhouse without riser cables.
The sockets might also confuse some users. Unlike the standard square LGA2011-3 sockets we see on most Haswell-E or Haswell-EP motherboards, the MD60-SC0 uses the narrow socket configuration. This requires different coolers as well due to the different screw hole placement, and these coolers are typically not sold at retail and thus come OEM only. Gigabyte also supplied us with a pair of Dynatron R14 heatsinks for our review which certainly looked the part, although the noise at high loading is something I wouldn't wish on anyone. This system combination belongs in a server room for sure.
The system is based on the C612 chipset, which is similar to the consumer based X99 but with 2P related features, such as MTCP over PCIe. We were also supplied with a type-T LSI RAID mezzanine card to enable some on-board SAS ports. So while the ports are part of the motherboard, the raid card is a separate purchase and leverages the T slot configuration. It also allows a series of RAID card potential upgrades over time if needed.
As with most server motherboards, the MD60-SC0 does not have any form of onboard audio but does offer two gigabit network ports alongside an Aspeed management interface. The board also comes with a QSFP+ port for added network connectivity.
Benchmark wise, as this is the first Haswell-EP motherboard we have tested, it is a little hard to place. As usual with management-esque type motherboards, POST times are long and power consumption is in the upper echelons. DPC Latency with 2697 V3 CPUs was quite reasonable though, despite the other two CPU combinations giving much higher peaks.
One of the main server design crux points is the orientation and the size of the board, so the MD60-SC0 has to fit into your design paradigm to make the short list. With narrow sockets and the PCIe orientation it clearly aims itself at the OEM and server builders more than consumers.
Visual Inspection
The first thing that strikes as the motherboard is taken out of the box is two things – the size of the sockets, and the fact that the motherboard is not a simple square but with a cut out. The size of the sockets is merely from the point of view that I have not encountered the Narrow ILM LGA2011 based socket before, let alone the LGA2011-3 iteration. Using the socket is easy enough, although instead of the hooks we get with the larger socket the narrow socket has a flattened lever on one side and a raised lever the other. The usage is exactly the same.
Similar to the narrow socket, Type-T mezzanine connectors are a new concept for this reviewer. The gap in the PCB is such that the add-in card can fit, as the card is built within a certain 1U/2U standard. I would assume that non-perfect rectangular PCBs are harder to create, requiring a cutout, but then again all the motherboards we have reviewed at AnandTech all have cutouts for screw holes, and as such is probably not the oddest thing we have encountered.
Each socket uses all four memory channels at two DIMMs per channel. Combine this with the narrow sockets and there is space left for SATA ports on the edge of the board. Either way you cut it, it is a very tight squeeze and as such the narrow CPU coolers have to conform to Intel specifications exactly. The 16 total DRAM slots will accept 128GB of UDIMM memory, up to 512GB of RDIMMs and 1024GB of LRDIMMs. The thought of 1TB of DRAM in a single system is mindboggling.
Each socket is supplied with six phase power and an applicable heatsink. For those more accustomed to the mid-to-high end consumer market, this combination might not look like enough, especially when the motherboard has to deal with 160W CPUs. One thing C612 motherboards have in their favor is a lack of overclocking, meaning that power draw is a known quantity. Also, with this motherboard being oriented with sockets and DRAM aligned with the rear panel, the focus will be in systems with high pressure fans blowing in a single direction across the motherboard. This will aid the cooling, especially when at full tilt.
The PCIe mezzanine type-T arrangement is a full PCIe 3.0 x8 affair, with each side of the PCIe arrangement dealing with power and data. One important thing to note with type-T is the ability to cope with height restrictions. PCIe devices are notoriously tall, and are rarely given upright in server systems that are not 4U or above. Type-T allows smaller height arrangements, and as this motherboard is geared more towards storage with SATA breakout connectors and the eight SAS RAID ports, Type-T is a good fit for smaller height systems. It is worth nothing that the red SATA ports on the motherboard are the basic SATA 6 Gbps ports for testing the system or OS/storage when the breakout cables are not in use.
With our memory right up against the SAS ports, there might be a slight conflict if locking cables are used here especially at the edges with the DRAM latches. Though one would imagine that in a server, the cables are fixed and only the drives are moved if they need replacing.
In this area of the motherboard is also where we see the fan header arrangement. Beside each socket is a four-pin fan header, although these are SYS headers. There are five SYS headers on board – four on the right hand side of the board and one at the top. The two CPU fan headers are found to the left of both the sockets.
The PCIe arrangement affords two possibilities: either an x8/x16/x8/x8 arrangement with the type-T at PCIe 3.0 x8, or an x8/x16/-/x16, again with the type-T at PCIe 3.0 x8. Either way, due to the location of the sockets, large PCIe co-processors can only be used with a riser card or cable. For our testing, we typically equip the system with a GTX 770 Lightning. This was not possible with this system, and as such we used an R7 240 instead and we were unable to perform our normal GPU based testing.
Above the PCIe slots is the meat of the IO and control, with the Aspeed management engine chip paired with 256MB of Samsung flash and also the Intel 82599ES controller in quick succession.
Also in this area of the motherboard is a USB 3.0 header, a TPM header, a COM header and a Thunderbolt header (for use with a TB card). The QSFP Ethernet controller requires its own heatsink, and the port extends some way onto the motherboard:
Perhaps a little surprising is the power connectors. Bonus points for their location on the edge of the motherboard, although typically we see them a lot near the CPUs, especially the 8-pin connectors. This might have implications for power arrangement and delivery though the PCB, although as the board squeezes two sockets with 2DPC DRAM support in the way that it does it seems to be a reasonable compromise.
The rear panel is networking focused, giving the QSFP+ port alongside two Intel I350 ports and the server management port. All six USB ports on the rear are USB 3.0 standard, with a combination PS/2 port, a COM port and a VGA port (from the Aspeed) also in the mix.
Board Features
GIGABYTE MD60-SC0 Price US (Newegg) Size SSI EEB CPU Interface LGA2011-3, Narrow ILM Chipset Intel C612 Memory Slots Sixteen DDR4 DIMM slots
Up to 128 GB UDIMM, 512GB RDIMM, 1024GB LRDIMM
Up to Quad Channel, 2133 MHz Video Outputs VGA (via Aspeed) Network Connectivity Intel 82599ES (QSFP+)
2 x Intel I350
10/100 Management Port Onboard Audio None Expansion Slots 2 x PCIe 3.0 x16
2 x PCIe 3.0 x8
1 x PCIe 3.0 x8 Type-T Onboard Storage 2 x SATA 6 Gbps, RAID 0/1/5/10
4 x SATA 6 Gbps via mini-SAS
4 x S_SATA 6 Gbps, no RAID, via mini-SAS
8 x SAS/SATA via Type-T RAID card USB 3.0 6 x USB 3.0 via Rear Panel
2 x USB 3.0 via Onboard Header Onboard 2 x SATA 6 Gbps
2 x mini-SAS Breakout connectors
8 x SAS RAID Ports
1 x USB 3.0 Header
1 x COM Header
1 x TPM Header
7 x Fan Headers
1 x Thunderbolt Header
Front Panel Server Header Power Connectors 1 x 24-pin ATX
2 x 8-pin CPU Fan Headers 2 x CPU (4-pin)
5 x SYS (4-pin) IO Panel 1 x Combination PS/2 Port
6 x USB 3.0 Ports
1 x COM Port
1 x VGA Port
1 x QSFP+ Port (via Intel 82599ES)
2 x 1Gbit RJ-45 Ports (via Intel I350)
1 x 10/100 Network Management Port (via Aspeed) Warranty Period 3 Years Product Page Link
The big cost here will be that QSFP+ port, although we are not sure on exact cost between manufacturer and end-user – it could be in the region of $50 to $300. The narrow LGA2011-3 slots will also require different CPU coolers to normal as well. The mezzanine Type-T arrangement and RAID slots will need an added purchase to get these working too.Sarah Palin has long sold herself as a fiscal conservative, arguing against the Democrats’ health overhaul on the grounds that the nation simply can’t afford it.
But when the former vice presidential candidate resigned as governor of Alaska in the summer of 2009, she left the state with a 70 percent debt-to-GDP ratio — the highest state debt burden in the United States.
That’s according to data compiled by the Washington Independent’s Megan Carpentier, who notes that Alaska has a debt burden similar to “that of Jordan and Palin’s favorite health care resource, Canada, and a higher ratio than Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, India, the Philippines or Uruguay.”
By comparison, crisis-stricken California has a debt ratio of less than 40 percent. All the more confounding about Alaska’s debt is the fact that it is an oil-producing region with a small population to share in that wealth. Oil-rich Alberta, Canada, for example, collects no sales tax and still managed to retire its debt entirely in 2004.
While Alaska’s massive debt burden can’t be blamed entirely on Palin’s two-and-a-half-year stint as governor, she did face similar debt problems while mayor of Wasilla, and those appear to be of her own making.
Wasilla’s municipal debt went from around $1 million when she came in to office, to around $22 million when she left, mostly as a result of the construction of a sports arena and public works projects championed by Palin.
While Alaska’s debt load is high by the standards of US states, it’s worth noting some nations have considerably higher debt loads. Japan, for example, is carrying a debt load of more than 190 percent of GDP; Greece, recently hit by a debt crisis, has a 108 percent debt-to-GDP ratio.
The debt load for the US federal government clocked in at around 53 percent in 2009; the debt is expected to increase to 68.5 percent by 2014.Dec. 4, 2015, 5:45 PM GMT / Updated Dec. 4, 2015, 5:45 PM GMT By Chris Fuchs
Oral arguments are set to begin before the U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 8 in Evenwel v. Abbott, a case that asks whether the total number of registered or eligible voters — as opposed to the total population — should be used to draw up state legislative districts.
The outcome of the lawsuit, brought last year by two Texas voters against the Lone Star State, has strong implications for the rest of the nation, particularly in states with significant minority populations who are ineligible to vote because they are legal permanent residents or haven’t turned 18.
“About one in four Asians and Pacific Islanders are not yet citizens of the United States, yet most are eligible for naturalization,” Democratic National Committee spokesman Eric Walker told NBC News. The DNC filed an amicus brief for Evenwel v. Abbott in September.
“Excluding these lawful permanent residents for the purposes of redistricting would significantly decrease their political power relative to other groups, such as the white plurality," Walker said.
RELATED: Supreme Court to Hear Case on Drawing Voting Districts
At the center of the debate is the “one person, one vote” rule and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. While the Constitution requires that congressional districts be drawn equal in population, the Equal Protection Clause is silent on which total population should be used in creating state legislative districts. Most states glean that data from the U.S. Census, a nationwide headcount conducted every 10 years that includes non-citizens, felons, and children.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1966, however, that Hawaii could instead determine its legislative districts using total state citizen population since a large number of people counted in the Census—military personnel and seasonal tourists—were not Hawaii voters.
A decision in favor of using the total number of eligible or registered voters to draw state legislative boundaries would likely be a boon to Republicans, who tend to live in areas with higher concentrations of voters, according to a May 26 Slate article written by elections-law expert Richard L. Hasen. This is especially true if such a ruling were ever extended to cover congressional districts. It would also benefit voters in rural instead of urban areas, where people ineligible to vote are more likely to live, Hasen wrote.
“The vast majority of Asian-American residents under the age of 18 are citizens. If this cohort is excluded from the apportionment base, it puts the Asian-American community at a disadvantage."
The case in Texas began last year when Sue Evenwel, a member of the State Republican executive committee, and Edward Pfenninger sued then Gov. Rick Perry, claiming that the state’s new senatorial voting districts, signed into law in 2013, were “malapportioned.” Evenwel and Pfenninger, who are represented by Project on Fair Representation, a conservative advocacy group, argued that the redistricting violated the "one person, one vote" rule since the vote of someone in a district with a high percentage of eligible voters would carry less weight than the vote of someone in a district with a low percentage of eligible voters.
Last November, however, a three-judge panel of the Federal District Court in Austin dismissed their lawsuit, saying it was up to states to decide how to apportion state legislative districts. Around six months later, the Supreme Court announced it would hear the case.
In their brief to the Supreme Court, Evenwel and Pfenninger, who live in areas with large numbers of eligible voters, say that states do not need to stop using the Census to draw up districts. Their brief also says that “total population data often protect the one-person, one-vote rights of eligible voters because non-voters typically are evenly distributed throughout a given jurisdiction.” But they argue that wasn’t the case in Texas.
RELATED: Can This New App Help More Asian Americans Vote in 2016?
“When total population figures do not protect eligible voters, demographic data that ensures ‘the vote of any citizen is approximately equal in weight to that of any other citizen in the state’ must be used in the apportionment process,” according to the brief.
One such form of demographic data is an estimate of citizen voting age population, based on sampling from the American Community Survey, the most commonly used citizen estimate administered by the Census. But the DNC contends that the annual survey has limitations.
The committee argues that it is based on a sample of a small share of the population, that it is backward-looking and that it would exclude “from the apportionment base young citizens who turn 18 after completion of the decennial redistricting process,” according to the brief. Four former directors of the Census Bureau also jointly filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court not to replace total population with either citizen voting age population or registered voters for drawing state legislative districts.
But one group of demographers — among them the founding director of RAND Corporation’s Population Research Center — maintains that citizenship data from the American Community Survey is “reliable enough to allow states, like Texas, to draw, analyze, and adjust voting district boundary lines of substantially equal numbers of eligible voters,” according to the demographers' amicus brief.
Walker, of the DNC, said using citizen voting age population would result in 45 percent of the Asian-American population and 30 percent of the Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander population being excluded from the base used to draw up state legislative districts.
“The vast majority of Asian-American residents under the age of 18 are citizens,” Walker said. “If this cohort is excluded from the apportionment base, it puts the Asian-American community at a disadvantage."
In Evenwel and Pfenninger’s view, the Texas legislature did not “even make a good-faith effort” to configure state senate districts with roughly equal numbers of eligible voters, according to their brief. “Texas’ malapportionment of eligible senate voters is especially egregious because it could have substantially reconciled both total and voter population,” Evenwel and Pfenninger's brief argues.
For its part, the DNC believes removing non-voters from the base used to determine state districts would result in harmful consequences for people of color, according to the DNC’s brief.
“In sum, in our representational democracy, elected officials represent the interests of voters and non-voters alike,” the brief said. “Excluding current non-voters from the apportionment base of state and local electoral districts cannot be reconciled with the core conception of representation ingrained in our founding principles, nor with this court’s one-person, one-vote jurisprudence.”
Follow NBC Asian America on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr.Will we ever be able to go even one week without some incident of racism aimed at Aboriginal people hitting the papers? This is the question I am currently asking myself. Barely a day has gone by lately where I haven't had someone asking for my views on something racist someone else has said or done. The emotional labour of continually having these conversations is taxing, yet I have no hopes of it letting up soon.
On Sunday morning, I woke to the news that an AFL fan threw a banana at Aboriginal player Eddie Betts while referring to him as a monkey during an Adelaide versus Port Adelaide game on Saturday. It appears that some opposition fans simply cannot abide a high-performing Aboriginal player and must therefore remind him of his place in society.
Eddie Betts was called a "monkey" and had a banana thrown at him, but people question whether it was racially motivated.
While it is heartening that the club has acted swiftly to punish the woman responsible by revoking her club membership, I'm left wondering if anything was learnt from Adam Goodes' experience of similar crowd behaviour. Port Adelaide, after all, have stated that they will place a life ban on her IF her actions are found to be racially-motivated, as if this fact is somehow murky.
Mere days earlier, performance artist Marina Abramovic was in the firing line after diary entries from 1979 were released detailing her then-impression of Aboriginal people she had encountered. These diary entries are being compiled to form her memoirs. Her observations were undoubtedly crude, referring to Aboriginal people as looking like "dinosaurs" while also passing comment about our stick-like legs and round torsos.The only reason I can explain it to you is I am not a fan of our president, but this goes beyond not being a fan. I didn't send it as racist, although that's what it is. Is sent it out because it's anti-Obama.
Earlier this week a Great Falls Tribune reporter found something startling in his inbox: a shockingly racist and misogynistic email forwarded from the most powerful federal judge in Montana, which "joked" that the president of the United States was the product of his mother having sex with a dog. The story soon became national news, with groups like ours calling on Judge Richard Cebull to resign. Cebull quickly apologized to the president and submitted himself to a formal ethics review, somewhat quelling the story. But the story is about more than one judge doing something wildly inappropriate and deeply disturbing. It's about a conservative movement in which the bile and animosity directed at the president -- and even his family -- are so poisonous that even someone who should know better easily confuses political criticism and sick personal attack. Come on: going after the president's late mother? Attempting to explain his email forward, Judge Cebull told the reporter, John S. Adams,
Judge Cebull is hardly alone in using the old "I'm not racist, but..." line. In fact, his email was the result of an entire movement built on "I'm not racist, but..." logic that equates disagreement with and dislike of the president with broad-based, racially charged smears. These smears, tacitly embraced by the GOP establishment, are more than personal shots at the president -- they're attacks on the millions of Americans who make up our growing and changing country.
Mainstream conservatives have genuine objections to President Obama's priorities and policies. But since he started running for president, a parallel movement has sprung up trying to paint Obama as an outsider and an imposter -- in unmistakably racially charged terms. Too often, the two movements have intersected.
The effort to paint Obama as a threatening foreigner sprung up around the right-wing fringe in the run-up to the 2008 election with the typically muddled conspiracy theory that painted him as both a secret Muslim and a member of an America-hating church. They soon coalesced in the birther movement, which even today is championed by a strong coalition of state legislators and a certain bombastic Arizona sheriff.
But the birther movement, the "secret Muslim" meme and the idea that the president of the United States somehow hates his own country are no longer confined to the less visible right-wing fringe. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, until recently a frontrunner in the GOP presidential race, continually hammers on the president's otherness, most notably criticizing his "Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior." Rick Santorum flatly claims that Obama does not have the Christian faith that he professes, and eagerly courted the endorsement of birther leader Sheriff Joe Arpaio. And before they dropped out, Rick Perry and Herman Cain couldn't resist flirting with birtherism.
But perhaps more than either of these fringe-candidates-turned-frontrunners, Mitt Romney has been catering to the strain of conservatism that deliberately confuses policy disagreements with racially-charged personal animosity. Romney went in front of TV cameras to smilingly accept the endorsement of Donald Trump, whose own failed presidential campaign was based on demanding the president's readily available birth certificate. And Gov. Romney continually attacks Obama -- falsely -- for going around the world "apologizing for America."
Judge Cebull needs to take responsibility for his own actions. And if the GOP has any aspirations of providing real leadership to this country, it needs to jettison the deeply personal vitriol being direct against Barack Obama and start talking about real issues. When a federal judge has seen so much racially-charged propaganda against the president of the United States that he can claim not to know the difference between genuine disagreement and offensive personal smears, something in our discourse has gone terribly awry.BEREA, Ohio -- While the Cleveland Browns will up the tempo and intensity of training camp practices, coach Hue Jackson has zero issue with a particular veteran taking regular days off.
"I understand it and know exactly what it is," Jackson said during the team's minicamp.
That veteran would be left tackle Joe Thomas, a future Hall of Famer and a guy who has not missed a snap while making the Pro Bowl nine times in his nine-year career. But he practiced every other day in OTAs, and will miss a day a week during the season.
Managing the workload of veteran Joe Thomas appears to be a priority for new Browns coach Hue Jackson. "My job is to make sure that he can get to the game and play as well as he can play," Jackson said. Jeff Haynes/AP Images for Panini
Two or three years ago, Thomas and the team's medical staff came to an understanding. If the team wanted him on Sunday, it would have to give during the week. A left tackle's body can only take so many snaps and hits, and Thomas wants to make sure he's there when it matters.
"I think they pay me to play on Sundays," Thomas said.
Jackson will run a much more up-tempo training camp, which he said will include live hitting. If a coach were ever going to be the gruff, old-style type, he could force Thomas to practice -- or else.
But Jackson is not doing that. He will give Thomas his time off.
"Joe has done a tremendous job here, and Joe would be the first to tell you that there are certain things that he knows that I expect from him, and he’s done them all," Jackson said. "I know in this guy’s nine years -- [he] doesn’t miss much of anything. My job is to make sure that he can get to the game and play as well as he can play, but making sure that he is prepared to play and has done enough work.
"I will feel very comfortable with that."
Thomas' teammates do not begrudge him missing practice. They know what he does on Sunday, and players want guys who "show up on Sunday."
He also has played through issues that might sideline others. In his career, he's had three torn MCLs of varying degrees, and two high ankle sprains, but none sidelined him.
At 31, which Thomas said is an "advanced age" in the NFL, he simply wants "to be smart about it," and his coach is fine with it.
"I know exactly and he knows exactly what it is he needs to do," Jackson said. "I’m very comfortable with our medical staff, our strength and conditioning staff of our conversations about how to get him to where he needs to be so he can play great.”As previously discussed, it appears that the protagonist in H.P. Lovecraft’s tale “The Festival” may have somehow entered a parallel or alternative universe where Kingsport was populated with strange beings that enter our space-time through some underground caverns and would attempt to mimic or pose as humans through the use of gloves and wax masks. Thus, these entities may frequently pose as humans in their universe and in ours as well.
The Festival by Martnez (also known by Baghoul on http://www.deviantart.com)
The protagonist in “The Festival” was called to Kingsport to visit during the Yuletide by relatives. Specifically, he states his “…fathers had called me to the old town beyond.” The phrase “old town beyond” may be another reference to this town of Kingsport being in a parallel universe. Additionally, while the protagonist is supposed to be related to some of these Kingsport residents there is very little evidence to support this. In sharp contrast to the protagonist in “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” where there was some morphological evidence to support the idea that he was related to the hybrid Deep Ones, in “The Festival” there is no morphological or genetic connection revealed between that protagonist and the Kingsport residents.
One of the Kingsport residents tries to convince the protagonist that they are related and to join them as they mount the strange flying steeds and enter the deep underground caverns (into the other parallel universe?). As proof, the Kingsport resident give the protagonist a seal ring and watch with the family arms; the protagonist knows that the ring and watch were buried with his great-great-great-grandfather. However, if anything this provides evidence that the Kingsport residents were opening the tombs and crypts of the death in our universe.
Kingsport Celebrant by King Ovrats (www.deivantart.com)
So why were the Kingsport residents trying to convince the protagonist to join then in the underground caverns? These strange residents may be similar to Lovecraft’s ghouls in that they may be detritivores or scavengers, feeding off the bodies of people who have been buried in the Kingsport in our universe. However, the strange Kingsport residents may be running low on cadavers and so they needed to attract others to the town. Additionally, feeding off Kingsport ancestors of people now living may have provided the strange residents with the means of finding and reaching out to these people throughout the world. Perhaps some fragments of DNA left in the decomposing corpses provided the genetic information the strange Kingsport residents needed to track the descendants of the dead they would feed on; it should also be pointed out that the residents may not be feeding on the dead at all. However, this hypothesis is being proposed based on their general appearance of the strange residents.
In Lovecraft’s investigations the strange residents of Kingsport are rare; they are only documented in the tale “The Festival” and are not identified in another other story |
to provide information about the proposed plant to those living closest to it and to the public library in Cuero, Dewitt County’s seat. Subra, who is vice-chair of Earthworks’ board of directors and co-authored the report Reckless Endangerment While Fracking the Eagle Ford Shale, tracked down the firm’s studies for a closer look.
“There are two binders, three or four inches thick,” she told DeSmogBlog. “The first 30 to 40 pages tell you what is going on.”
Subra will share her findings at a public meeting in Nordheim on February 3. She has a good idea about which toxic materials will be dumped at the plant based on investigations she’s done into similar facilities.
“The plant would have volatile [organic] compounds, including hydrogen sulfide and toxic heavy metals including arsenic, cadmium, lead and chromium that all can be emitted in the air and carried off-site by the wind,” she says. “Emitted toxins from waste disposal facilities will affect an area from five to seven miles away.”
So far, the biggest downside of the fracking boom for the town of Nordheim has been the 18-wheelers passing through, Payne says. However, the installation of a giant waste disposal plant where fracking industry waste would be trucked in from a 100-mile radius will undoubtedly bring more unwelcome changes.
Cafe in Nordheim, Texas ©2014 Julie Dermansky
Payne fears the waste at the disposal plant will contaminate the air and the water. She says the company told her the chemicals will never run off into a nearby creek that feeds into the San Antonio River, but she worries about what would happen in the case of a flash flood.
She also worries that her first responders aren’t equipped to handle an industrial-scale fire. Payne says Pyote representatives assured her the plant will never catch on fire. But many of the materials Subra suspects would be dumped at the plant are flammable.
“What makes them think lightning won’t hit it? Lightning hit an injection well close to the city and blew up the tank,” Payne says.
Payne takes issue with the company’s use of the word “never.” To her, assuming “never” is inviting disaster.
Main Street in Nordheim, Texas ©2014 Julie Dermansky
Payne intends to present her objections to the Texas Railroad Commission personally when it holds a hearing about the permit in the near future. She doesn’t see a need to hire a lawyer or use the industry’s technical terms, believing it is enough to cite common sense facts.
“Surely if the contaminants that get on trucks within the disposal plant are toxic enough to merit cleaning before they leave the facility, the toxins are a danger to the city,” Payne says.
Since the Texas Railroad Commission’s regulations do allow for some leaching of contaminants into the soil, Payne is concerned the shallow aquifer that supplies water to the area could be contaminated.
DeSmogBlog asked the Texas Railroad Commission what circumstances could lead to denying a permit for a waste facility so close to a city. Spokesperson Ramona Nye sent a link to the rules they follow. When asked if the commission had turned down any proposed waste disposal sites in 2013, Nye didn’t provide an answer, explaining: “This information is not readily available and would require staff research.”
Flare from a fracking site visible just outside of Nordheim city limits. ©2014 Julie Dermansky
“Government regulation is not a popular idea, but you have to regulate some things,” Payne says. “In 2008, we had one well in DeWitt County and in 2013, 10,493 wells were drilled in Dewitt County.”
Payne points out that the fertilizer plant that blew up in West Texas hadn’t been inspected in years and the facility in West Virginia that contaminated the area’s water supply hadn’t been subject to inspection recently either.
For Payne, the worst-case scenario is a citizen getting sick from the waste facility. Does she think she can stop the Texas Railroad Commission from approving the permit for the waste disposal plant?
“No,” she told DeSmogBlog, “I don’t, but I am going to do what I can to protest this anyway.”
Blighted house across from a closed business in Nordheim, Texas©2014 Julie DermanskyThe original artist behind the popular cartoon frog “Pepe” has staged a comic book funeral for his creation in hopes to end the character’s new legacy as a symbol for the “alt-right.”
Cartoonist Matt Furie’s socially awkward amphibian first appeared in 2008 as part of his comic series, “Boy’s Club.”
Since then, the multi-dimensional character has taken on a life of its own and now appears in all manner of Internet memes.
Wendy's just tweeted and deleted this pic.twitter.com/c7l1nzOKZr — Colin Jones (@colinjones) January 4, 2017
Pepe the Frog Creator Stages Funeral in Attempt to Kill Off Meme Icon – https://t.co/dm7xOek2v3 #AlexJones pic.twitter.com/9FzxnsaJk9 — Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) May 9, 2017
Almost overnight the innocent frog entered the political realm. Avid Trump supporters crafted and retweeted various Pepes, injecting the frog into memes expressing support for their candidate.
At the height of “meme magic” hysteria, then-candidate Trump dared retweet an image of himself in Pepe form.
Somewhere along the way, however, Pepe fell in with the wrong crowd.
Deviant digital artists began devising memes re-aligning the frog’s mild-mannered persona with that of white supremacists, anti-semites and other hate factions, despite the fact that a majority of Pepe memes used by Trump supporters were perfectly innocent.
As a result, the Anti-defamation League branded Pepe a symbol of hate. Hillary Clinton’s doomed 2016 presidential campaign also took issue with the “racist” cartoon frog (despite also being drawn in Pepe form.)
Furie witnessed Pepe’s sinister transformation to his dismay and set out to take back control of the design.
In a Time Magazine article last October, Furie defended his “chill frog-dude named Pepe,” but knew there was little he could do.
“I understand that it’s out of my control, but in the end, Pepe is whatever you say he is, and I, the creator, say that Pepe is love.”
Furie’s explanation was heartfelt, but it did little to counter the growing influence of the cartoon frog credited with, among other things, playing a small part in the president’s victory.
I am so proud to be one of the Deplorables #Trump2016 pic.twitter.com/IFD1hfC60w — Roger Stone (@RogerJStoneJr) September 10, 2016
Upset the internet hijacked his beloved illustrated frog, Furie felt it was time to lay Pepe to rest once and for all.
But can a successful meme ever be killed?Daniel Dalton / BuzzFeed / Danny Parmerlee
Patrick deWitt is receding. Not visibly. He looks well, in fact: relaxed and rested. But he’s withdrawing, disengaging. It's very much on purpose. “More and more I find myself turning away from everything relating to contemporary society,” he says. “I don’t know how healthy it is, but I am creating a very private bubble that I live in.” By the look of him, it’s pretty healthy. DeWitt, 40, is entirely angles. A rectangular face, handsome and bespectacled, perched atop his long, thin frame; like someone took Peter Fonda and stretched him, but not detrimentally. We're sitting in the Ace Hotel in Shoreditch, London, where the restaurant is empty and the music, currently Eurythmics, is loud. He is measured, his speech tempered and thoughtful, as soft now as it was during the reading he gave in Soho last night. We're talking about culture, and how he came to separate from it – less a divorce than a conscious uncoupling, for reasons of his own sanity. “It was during the writing of this book,” he explains, “that I recognised the internet was actually fucking me up.” Not that he has anything against the internet. He likes it too much. It's a problem. “I always look at the stupidest shit. The most frivolous. And I really love it,” he laughs. “It’s like eating candy. And I don’t have the self control to turn away from it. “Television I don’t have, for the exact same reason. I love television. Having one here in the hotel room, it’s on the whole time. I’m actively seeking out the stupidest, lowest-common-denominator shows I can find. And I love them, you know?” I do know. I nod accordingly. “I can’t be trusted with these devices, so I’m better off without them. I just stay away as much as I can.” He looks at my iPhone. Thankfully, he isn’t one to speak in absolutes. “I know a lot of people who use the internet really wisely. It enriches their lives in some way,” he says. “That’s just not how it works out for me. I have an impulse to wallow in bullshit. It’s a real perversion of mine. It’s easier to take myself out of the game.” His speech is always considered, and he always offers caveats. You get the impression he’s spent a lot of time thinking of his answers in advance. You also get the impression that he worries, mostly because he tells you this, explicitly, several times. “Travelling around the last couple of weeks, I’ve been watching television, seeing the things that are happening in the world, it’s not…it doesn’t make me feel good. If I open the door and look, it’s like 'ah, fuck', and I close the door again.” Pause. Caveat. “I’m always quick to point out that this is just how I choose to live; I wouldn’t recommend it. And thank god that more people aren’t feeling the way I’m feeling.” Judging by his new novel, his lifestyle is serving him, and his readers, just fine.
Daniel Dalton / BuzzFeed
Undermajordomo Minor is the tale of Lucien “Lucy” Minor, a melancholic 17-year-old in a vague 19th-century eastern European state, who takes a job serving the mysterious baron of a crumbling castle. There he meets a mentor, tangles with thieves and soldiers, and falls in love with a local girl. So far, so fable. But this isn’t your average fairy tale.
Part folktale, part comedy of manners, part other, it exists at both ends of deWitt’s spectrum at once: pitch black and morning light, as quietly unsettling as it is tender, as sad as it is laugh-out-loud hilarious. It also exists as counterpoint to the prevailing culture of violent anti-heroes. It’s perhaps in this regard that deWitt’s exile from the contemporary is most successful. Because above all, Undermajordomo Minor is a love story, and in its earnest and tender portrayal of that love, unabashed and irony-free, it’s welcome relief from the current mood. “A declaration of love in this cultural climate is not necessarily welcome,” he says. “But I do think that we’ve overdosed on irony.” For someone with such an aversion to irony, deWitt is behind enemy lines and deep into ironic territory. This doesn’t seem to faze him any, but then I doubt Shoreditch stereotypes have permeated his bubble. And if they had, he’d likely still be unfazed. Though there is much that is undeniably hipster about his lifestyle – the Portland home, the lack of TV or internet, the vinyl collection – his earnestness prevents it becoming the kind of parody shows like Portlandia portray. In fact he's something of a misfit in the Ace, with it’s coffee bar co-working space awash with MacBooks and moustaches. But he likes it here. That's enough. This earnest current runs through the book. What might be parody in the hands of another writer is well balanced, steered away from potential pastiche. He toes the line, treads on it, but never steps over. It’s a masterful act, one played with genuine affection. “I’ve fallen in love in my life a few times. It’s the most exciting part of being alive, that I’ve experienced anyway. I wanted to try and convey that feeling. “A friend of mine, whom I admire very much, was concerned that it was too tenderhearted. I realised in talking to him about it that I was at least partly, semi-consciously, reacting to a prevalent nihilism amongst our generation. "I didn’t want it to be an ironic love story. I didn’t want it to be a bleak love story. I wanted to write a proper love story. I feel strongly that that attitude, that nihilistic and dismissive attitude, that very cool attitude, I think that we’ve seen just about enough of that." “I think that now’s a good time to tell a love story. Partly because it’s a timeless trope, but also because I think it’s needed, right now.”
It's hard to disagree.
Daniel Dalton / BuzzFeed
Had deWitt not engaged in a physical recession, we’d be here to talk about a financial one, in the form of a book – the other one he wrote since his Booker-nominated second novel, The Sisters Brothers, dropped in 2011. A novel he abandoned along with his TV.
“After The Sisters Brothers I tried to write a contemporary story, dealing with an investment adviser in New York City who moves to Paris. I did all this research, but after about a year and any number of pages written I was bored stiff." While that story slipped away, a new idea was seeded by the Jewish and European fables he found himself reading. “I thought it would be fascinating to look into the mind of a man who was obsessed with the accumulation of wealth, and it was very shallow for me. Maybe I just didn’t have the empathy to crack that code. I just don’t care, ultimately, about rich people getting richer, or losing their wealth. Jumping into the fable story felt absolutely just correct.” He wrote the book in sequence, he says, “more or less”. The first 30 or 40 pages fell on to the page very quickly. “Boy leaves home to enter into the world, it’s a very basic jumping-off point for any fable or fairy tale type story. It just seemed the most clichéd beginning. “I love the idea of cliché intermingling with more contemporary things. Engaging in cliché is really fun,” he says. “As long as it’s counterbalanced by something else.” He pauses as the iconic drum break from Phil Collins' "In The Air Tonight" kicks in. DeWitt is a writer very concerned with his art. He wants to make good art. To release work he’s proud of. He’s still proud, he says, of Ablutions, his first novel, but not much before that. “Fortunately my apprenticeship took place during the pre-internet years,” he says. “If it existed on the internet it would be a deeply shaming thing for me.” He could have finished the banker novel, could’ve released it, “it would have been decent," he adds. "But I just don’t think the world needs any more decent novels.” He’d much rather hold off and wait, he explains, until he’s got “something that I do believe in, all the way.” Undermajordomo Minor is certainly that thing. But more than that, it’s the philosophy he’s found, the way he’s shaped his life, that he believes in. In turn, it’s shaping his work. “I’ve come to realise, in the last year or two, that I am an escapist. I don’t want to be part of any zeitgeist. I’d much rather write in the long term. And you don’t have to write in the distant past to do that, but I already have an idea for another book that takes place in the distant past, and it may well be that I work in this mode for the rest of my life.”
Daniel Dalton / BuzzFeed
Tender and sad, funny and heartbreaking, warm and violent. The book – and the author himself, one suspects – exists on spectrums. For the lightness at play, a dark vein runs through it. DeWitt flirts with the macabre. But he's no fan of horror. “I feel anxious enough in regular life,” he says, “without engaging in anxiety in my free time.”
And yet the creeping dread he conjures is intense and vivid, the flashes of violence sharp and jarring. It is a quiet horror. It creates a very real sense that beneath the veneer of decorum, his characters are in pain. “The frightening parts of the book, I think, represent real fears for me, and I’m very sensitive to that sort of thing. I have really vivid nightmares. It’s not my idea of fun. But a part of me wants to go in that direction, so I don’t fight it.” Be thankful then, for spectrums. The horror is almost always comedic. Blackly so. “Everything I do," he says, "is always tempered with humour at some point or another.” Much of the humour arrives in the dialogue, streams of unfailingly polite verbal sparring, supplemented with sparse description and action. The characters don’t so much argue as joust, their veiled barbs wrapped in silk, unwavering in decorum. “I was overtly inspired by Ivy Compton-Burnett, particularly Manservant and Maidservant. There’s something about perverse conversation under the umbrella of this very decorous, polite banter. I could have written in that tone for many more pages.” The Sisters Brothers also contained many of these poetic, philosophical discussions that don’t necessarily move the plot along. Here it is dialled up, drawn out, and deployed to roaring effect. “I’m obsessed with the way humans interact with one another. I’ve become a sort of unabashed eavesdropper, sitting on an occasion like this, stealing people’s words, writing them down, appropriating them. It’s just an endless source of fascination." “I like sitting down and writing a conversation between two men, which essentially serves no purpose,” he continues, "other than to illustrate the idiosyncrasies of the mind. This book is filled with these stories where not that much is necessarily revealed. It’s more just a recognition of my love of language, of conversations held between two human beings.” Much of the dread comes in quiet moments that punctuate conversations or chapters. When the Baron Von Aux lies in the bathtub, screaming underwater, quite silently, you feel it. It’s the anxiety, the frailty, that lies under almost every surface in the novel. Yes it’s a novel about love, and love is rarely simple and unfettered. “I think of the Baron as a cautionary tale of what can come from giving yourself to someone else. The potential harm that can come from falling in love, how vulnerable you become. It's an unpleasant situation to be in, and most people have experienced that to some degree or another. With the Baron we’re just dealing with that extreme example.” DeWitt smiles. He is affable, polite, and considered. He’s been in love. And he knows pain. It’s sitting there, just under the surface of both man and book.
Daniel Dalton / BuzzFeed
The writing process exists on a spectrum, too, and as easily as those early pages came, it soon moved to the other end. “The first section was really simple to write, and the rest of it was just a struggle, every page.”
He ended up a year late on his deadline, though his publishers were accommodating, offering him two six-month extensions. "Everyone was very sweet about it actually," he says, The Smiths intruding from the speakers above. “I find that I tend to forgot the bad parts. I think this is how it is for every book. I remember Ablutions as being a joy to write, I remember The Sisters Brothers as essentially having written itself. I tell people this, and people that knew me then tell me that that’s not true at all. I’m always pulling my hair out. Somehow all the negative experiences fade away and I think of it as this purely pleasurable experience.”
At this point, he still remembers the difficulties. “About a year after I got back from Paris, I became really self-aware. I realised that this book was going to be scrutinised to a degree that I wasn’t used to, owing to the success of The Sisters Brothers. If I failed, I was going to be failing publicly, on a large stage. It was really crippling for a while.”
DeWitt is candid about placing himself, and his struggles, into his fiction. But also about how writing, and writing humour particularly, is catharsis. “There are any number of things in my work that are self-referential or meta. Being alone for long periods of time you need to entertain yourself. I gravitate towards humour, because if I were to sit and write expressly melancholic works, it would affect my world view, my happiness, my sense of calm. Humour improves the quality of life, makes life easier to digest. The fact of the matter is I’d rather laugh than cry.” Slowly, frustratingly so, the novel began to take shape. The ending, however, proved elusive, or, as deWitt puts it: "The ending was fucked." It remained so until days before his final deadline in December of 2014. Thankfully, at the eleventh hour, he managed to find it. “I really enjoyed writing the ending," he says, donning his trusty rose-tinted glasses, "because it came after such a long struggle. I wasn’t sleeping, I was really kind of a maniac by the end of it. There was a lot of hair pulling, and then a real burst.
"It’s very gratifying, to be presented with a problem and then to solve it. It reminds me why I got involved in the first place.”
Daniel Dalton / BuzzFeed
Patrick deWitt needs a hobby. He tells me this explicitly.
“I’ve been thinking I need a hobby.” He shrugs.
Granta
“I have reading and writing. I have my family and my friends, but I need something else to do. It’s increasingly obvious to me that there’s a gap to be filled there, particularly in the afternoon.” The solution may already be in front of him. Inside his bubble. Earlier this year, he bought a house. “It’s getting more difficult to do in Portland, but I sort of squeezed in before it’s beyond my means.” As a younger man, deWitt worked in construction with his father and uncles. The men in his family are carpenters. I ask if he’s planning to renovate the house himself. “Yeah, I’m already thinking of knocking out part of the roof, building a proper master bedroom. My father and I will be doing that together, in the coming year.” In the meantime, he's working on new idea. A new book. An adventure. “I think I’m going to write a book about an explorer,” he says. “It would take place on a ship, largely. I’m thinking it’ll be written in the first person as a diary, but who’s to say.” I wonder if this is the next book, or the next other book, one we’ll never see. I’m sure he wonders this, too. He’s said it aloud now, so it exists, if only as a question in an interview some years down the line. Our chat comes to an end. He walks me out, shaking my hand and thanking me, twice. I get the impression he means both of them. For all his escapist leanings, he’s written a very realist book. It’s dressed up in rags and transported by train to a land of castles and barons, but as stories about the human condition go, it’s a wonderful achievement. It’s one he accomplished by putting some distance between himself and the world, just enough to find space to breathe, to write. In saying nothing about the world we live in, about the financial crisis, about our addiction to wealth and to smartphones, he has said so much. Is it possible to write like this while living a contemporary life? Maybe. But not for Patrick deWitt. Maybe not for anyone with an impulse to "wallow in bullshit," as he puts it – to binge-watch TV shows and check their smartphone a hundred times a day. He's found a way of existing that works for him. One that has furnished us with a funny, tender, human novel. But he doesn't have it all figured out. "As I said, I do need a hobby," he tells me. "But I’m working on that.”
He pauses. "Maybe home renovation will be the answer." Who’s to say?Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption David Cameron: "While Europe has taken a big step backwards...we did secure some small steps forward for Britain in its relationship with the EU"
David Cameron has suffered "utter humiliation" over the nomination of Jean-Claude Juncker as European Commission president, Ed Miliband has claimed.
The Labour leader told MPs the PM's renegotiation strategy for the UK in Europe was now "in tatters".
But the prime minister insisted he would work with Mr Juncker despite his opposition to him.
He accused Mr Miliband of being "opportunistic and wrong".
The two leaders clashed during heated Commons exchanges following Mr Cameron's statement on the European Council gathering last week, at which EU leaders chose Mr Juncker.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Ed Miliband: It was "an appalling failure of relationship building, winning support and delivering for Britain."
Mr Cameron forced a vote of EU states on Friday on the selection of the Luxembourg politician - but lost it by 26 to two.
'Defeated PM'
Mr Miliband mocked the prime minister for being unable to get other countries to support his stance.
"You were outwitted, out-manoeuvred and out-voted," he said. "Instead of building alliances in Europe, you've burned them. You're a defeated prime minister who can't deliver for Great Britain."
But Mr Cameron hit back that Mr Miliband's performance was "worthy of Neil Kinnock", the former Labour leader who lost two general elections.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Joaquin Almunia, Vice-President of the EU Commission, said a UK exit from the EU would be "very bad news"
"The fact is that the leaders of the principal parties in Britain agreed that this person was the wrong one, but as soon things get difficult, the weak give up the chase."
Defending his actions, he said he felt it was wrong that the European Parliament effectively dictated the choice of the new president of the commission and it "was important to push the principle and our deep misgivings about this issue right to the end.
"I at least wanted to put Britain's opposition to this decision firmly on the record."
While Mr Juncker's nomination marked "a bad day for Europe", he said the UK must now work with him, while also being "the voice" of those seeking change in Europe.
'Desperate'
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, who was not present in the Commons for Mr Cameron's statement, told Mumsnet any notion of Britain leaving the European Union would be "immensely damaging".
But the Lib Dem leader added that it was now important to "move on" from the debate over Mr Juncker's appointment to "secure Britain's place permanently in the European Union".
UKIP MEP Diane James accused Mr Cameron of "blundering from one desperate act to another", saying that he, the European Commission and the voters all knew "that the big EU policies that affect the UK are simply not up for grabs."
Earlier on Monday, Joaquin Almunia, vice-president of the European Commission said "it would be very bad news" if the UK left the EU.
He also predicted that Mr Cameron would be able to work with the in-coming European Commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker.
He told the BBC Mr Juncker was "a committed pro-European" but also "a pragmatic politician" and the UK "was an important member of the EU".
'Benefit of the doubt'
Only Britain and Hungary voted to block the appointment of Mr Juncker, who is seen as a backer of closer political union in the EU.
Although Germany was on the opposite side over Mr Juncker, its finance minister told the Financial Times a British exit from the EU was "unimaginable" and "absolutely not acceptable".
Image caption David Davis told Today Mr Cameron could yet gain from his Juncker defeat
Wolfgang Schauble said his country would do everything in its power to keep Britain in the union
"Clearly, we have in many economic questions and regulatory questions a broad consensus," he said.
"Historically, politically, democratically, culturally, Great Britain is entirely indispensable for Europe."
The Labour ex-European Commissioner Lord Mandelson, who met Mr Juncker in Berlin last week, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that he should be given "the benefit of the doubt".
"He explicitly said he does not advocate a united states of Europe - he's not a green-eyed federalist minister as some in Britain have portrayed him.
"Mr Juncker has the experience and the knowledge to be an effective president of the European Commission."
But prominent Conservative Eurosceptic MP David Davis said while Mr Juncker was a "bad candidate", Mr Cameron had to turn his opposition to the EC president into a "tactical advantage" to secure constitutional changes that allow Britain to protect "our national interests".BOONE, Iowa — Bus tour? Call it the Ted Cruz road show.
As he has barnstormed Iowa this week on a six-day jaunt, the Texas senator perhaps best known on Capitol Hill for his bombast has showcased another quality: his sense of humor. He has punctuated his stump speech with well-practiced one-liners even as he warns crowds that America is in “crisis.”
“Has anyone else noticed the Democrats have scheduled their debates at, like, 1:30 in the morning on a Saturday, airing on Alaska PBS?” Cruz observed during a stop Monday at a Christian bookstore in Boone, where supporters wedged into the small space among bookshelves.
The next Democratic debate, Cruz deadpanned, would be held at Leavenworth federal prison. “Well, they wanted to make it easier for Hillary to attend,” he said. One woman’s guffaw stood out amid the laughter and applause.
A number of Republican candidates in this election cycle have attempted the same: to use humor to appeal and relate to would-be supporters.
Marco Rubio, for example, often jests about his famous water bottle incident during the 2013 GOP response to the State of the Union. “I’m also aware that California has a drought,” he said during the September Republican debate in Simi Valley, “and so that’s why I made sure I brought my water.”
And, although Ben Carson is known for his understated style on the campaign trail, one of his most memorable moments was a joke during the first debate, when he was asked how he differs from the other candidates. “I'm the only one who has removed half a brain,” Carson said, “but if you went to Washington, you'd think someone beat me to it.”
But using levity on the stump is not always the obvious or best strategy: It can be risky, and it doesn’t work for every candidate.
Attempts at humor can also provide fodder for rival candidates to characterize an adversary as unserious or immature. An ad released this week by a pro-Cruz super PAC mocked Rubio for joking about fantasy football. But, on the campaign trail, Cruz has no qualms about showing his funny bone — or trying, at least.
For some audiences in rural Iowa, the jokes have fallen flat. An Onawa audience Tuesday only half chuckled when the candidate joked that if children wear Superman pajamas, Superman wears Chuck Norris pajamas — and Chuck Norris wears Steve King pajamas. King, a member of Congress from Iowa, has endorsed Cruz and joined him this week as the opening act on the tour.
King, for his part, has found the Hawkeye State frontrunner’s act amusing. “We can be conservatives and have fun, and we are doing that,” he said.
The fun has not been limited to stand-up comedy. Cruz has also drawn attention for his frequent impressions, including one of Billy Crystal’s character in “The Princess Bride” and of various characters from “The Simpsons.”
And Cruz last month released an ad in which he read “Christmas classics” to his young daughters, including “How Obamacare Stole Christmas.” The spot, which aired during “Saturday Night Live,” has racked up more than 1.8 million views on YouTube. “All of the other reindeer couldn’t afford to hire Rudolf,” Cruz read from one “book” in the ad.
Cruz has not grown a funny bone by accident. In the scope of his meticulously deliberate campaign, his humor is part of a conscious effort to soften his image and reach audiences who might not otherwise pay attention.
“Would it kill Republicans to crack a joke?” he said in South Carolina last year. “I actually think for some Republicans it might. You know, lighten up a little. … So many Republicans run a Soviet-style campaign.”
The strategy is not new to presidential politics. Ronald Reagan was famously funny. In a debate with Walter Mondale during the 1984 election, a moderator asked Reagan whether his age would compromise his ability to serve a second term as president. After responding that it wouldn’t, Reagan turned the question in his favor.
“I will not make age an issue of this campaign,” he responded. “I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” Jokes for Reagan could be situational, but they were also a deliberate facet of his style: He kept a collection of one-liners written on index cards and stored in his Oval Office desk.
The 2012 Republican field had its share of comedians: Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain each was quick with a joke.
Prior to his campaign for president, Cruz showed that he could use levity to defuse potentially dicey political subjects, including that of his birth in Canada. (Cruz, because his mother is American, is a U.S. citizen.)
“Frankly, there have been moments when I just wanted to self-deport,” Cruz joked at the 2014 Gridiron Club dinner in Washington.
“Canadians are so polite, mild-mannered, modest, unassuming, open-minded,” he added. “Thank God my family fled that oppressive influence before it could change me.”
That same issue arose again Tuesday, when Donald Trump warned it could be “very precarious” to nominate Cruz due to his birth in Canada and supposedly questionable eligibility to hold the nation’s highest office. Again, Cruz used humor to respond, tweeting out a clip of Fonzie, the “Happy Days” character, jumping a shark – a now-iconic example of a desperate attempt to win favor with the public.
“The best way to respond to this kind of attack is to laugh it off and move on,” the conservative lawmaker explained.
As a debater at Princeton, Cruz “could be foiled with humor,” The New York Times wrote last year, but he also used jokes as an effective tactic. In his political career, he has consistently peppered his speeches with one-liners he keeps handy, in the Reagan mold. Some have endured for years: In Iowa this week, Cruz often said of his daughters, “The best indication that God is a benevolent God: Both girls look just like their mother.” That line has been in his repertoire since at least 2009, when he ran for Texas attorney general.
Indeed, Cruz’s lines often come off as scripted to his crowds. “It was a little forced, I thought,” said Matt Albert, a student at Dordt College, where Cruz held a town-hall event Tuesday.
Over two days in Iowa, however, Cruz seized a few opportunities for improv. At an event in Winterset on Monday, fat drops of water fell from the ceiling, landing directly in front of the candidate.
“The budget is so bad,” Cruz said, “the pipes are leaking!”Multiple Media Outlets Reported Sanders Rally Played Extremely Anti-LGBT Rap Song That Calls for Murder of 'Homo Thugs'
Billboard, International Business Times, Politico, The Root, The Source, BET, and many others over the past 24 hours have reported that on Thursday Senator Bernie Sanders took to the stage in Lancaster, California, with a grossly homophobic and transphobic song by rapper DMX playing. That song, "Where the Hood At," among other things calls for the murder of LGBT people and denounces sex between people of the same-gender.
Here's one version of the video that many have posted and retweeted:
Here it is, Bernie Sanders coming out to DMX's "where the hood at" in Lancaster, Ca. #FeelTheBern #BernieSanders pic.twitter.com/3GlVD67BGA — Edwin Acuna (@Edwinprime) May 26, 2016
The New Civil Rights Movement reached out to the Sanders campaign to determine the validity of the video those outlets had used as proof of what would be anti-LGBT insult.
"Senator Sanders did not enter a rally in Lancaster to anything other than thunderous applause from the crowd," Sanders Campaign National Press Secretary Symone Sanders told The New Civil Rights Movement in an email conversation Saturday afternoon, adding, "DMX is not currently nor anticipated to join our pre-rally playlist."
The Sanders campaign also provided NCRM with a short clip of the event:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hx5_AGN61II&feature=youtu.be
The New Civil Rights Movement also reached out to the person who posted the video with the DMX song, asking for confirmation and proof of its authenticity. We have yet to receive a response.
A portion of the lyrics in the DMX song that are of great concern:
Man, cats don't know what it's gonna be
Fuckin with a nigga like me, D-to-the-M-to-the-X
Last I heard, y'all niggas was havin sex, with the same sex
I show no love, to homo thugs
Empty out, reload and throw more slugs
How you gonna explain fucking a man?
Even if we squashed the beef, I ain't touching ya hand
I don't bunk with chumps, for those who been to jail
That's the cat with the Kool-Aid on his lips and pumps
I don't fuck with niggas that think |
condescending [that] Democrats are trying to use this issue as a political distraction from the failures of their economic policy," Jenkins said.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), speaking on the Senate floor Tuesday morning, appeared to slam the Democrats' push as cheap political showmanship and accuse Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who had just addressed the issue, of playing games.
"Yesterday, here in the Senate, Republicans were hoping the Democrat Majority Leader would finally work with us to pass a job creation package that contains ideas from many of our members — legislation with provisions several key Democrats support too," McConnell said. "But that’s not what the Majority Leader chose to do. Instead of focusing on jobs, he launched into another confusing attack on the Left’s latest bizarre obsession. Democrats chose to ignore serious job-creation ideas so they could blow a few kisses to their powerful pals on the left."
However, shortly after this story was posted, McConnell's office said his remarks were being misconstrued. Spokesmen pointed to his use of the word "yesterday," and said that he had been referencing Reid's Monday speech targeting the billionaire Koch brothers, rather than his procedural motion, also on Monday, to begin work on the Democrats' Fair Pay Act.
According to many independent assessments, women who do the same job as a man are often paid significantly less, on average earning just 77 cents to a man's dollar. Even when many of the factors that lead women to make different job choices are controlled for, significant gaps remain.
Jenkins did not address the issue of women getting paid less for the same job, but suggested that women simply tend to choose different jobs.
"When it comes to employment, the fact is many women seek jobs that provide more flexibility for their family over more money, which is the choice that I made as a young working mom," Jenkins said.
Jenkins' and McConnell's opinions notwithstanding, women overwhelmingly backed the Democratic ticket in the last election, running up the largest gender gap in the history of Gallup polling. Women supported President Barack Obama over GOP nominee Mitt Romney by a 12-point margin.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) chose his words more carefully than his colleagues at the press event when asked whether there was anything in terms of legislation that Republicans would consider doing to address the gap.
Though Cantor demurred from offering new ideas, he did tweak the White House, noting reports that women working there get paid about 88 cents on the dollar, compared to men.
He said a better idea than passing new laws was trying to enforce the old ones.
"I point to the White House, and say what it is that they're doing? They've got a problem in the White House," said Cantor. "Let's put the politics aside."
He suggested that repealing part of Obamacare would help, and pointed to a bill the House GOP passed last week that would change the definition of full-time work in the law from 30 hours a week to 40.
"If you look to see those most impacted, it's women. Sixty-three percent of those impacted by the 30-hour workweek rule are women," Cantor said. "If the Senate Democrats would pick [the bill] up, we could help women right now."
Under the Affordable Care Act, employers must provide health insurance for full-time workers, currently defined as people employed more than 30 hours per week. Republicans argue that because of that, employers are pushing people -- in this case, mostly women -- into part-time work, although independent fact-checkers have found that claim to be false.
This article was updated after a spokesman for McConnell clarified the intended meaning of his remarks.Remember when Trump shouted down CNN as fake news? Well, now Trump could legitimately level that charge at the New York Times and all the news organizations that ran with a story claiming his administration was suppressing a report on climate change.
The Times ran big with a story that the Trump administration had suppressed a major new climate report put together by a collection of government scientists which confirmed that man made climate change was putting us at risk.
The media loved the angle that brave scientists leaked it. Media outlet after media outlet ran with the story without checking to see if it was true.
It wasn’t.
Watch as I fill in the details and share the correction the Times had to run and the other hysterical misleading headlines that are still out there.
Will CBC or any of the other broadcasters that repeated these false claims put out their own corrections?
The problem with Trump’s critics is that they overplay their hands.
And in doing that, the New York Times and all those media outlets have become what they claim to hate: fake news.That's a wrap!
THANKS for making the event a success! You were one of 1499 Angelenos who registered for Climate Day LA on Tuesday at The Theatre at Ace Hotel (seriously impressive, but couldn't we have just one more sign up?!), and we couldn't have done it without you.
From the pop-ups, VR experiences, and exhibitors upstairs, to the action-oriented conversations downstairs, we're proud of Los Angeles for showing up and showing out!
If you missed any of the opportunities onsite, here is a recap to keep the momentum going:
Get involved by signing up with the Path to Positive LA initiative. This is the premier network for cutting-edge communications materials that will help you level up your climate leadership and connect you with the diverse community that came together at CDLA.
. This is the premier network for cutting-edge communications materials that will help you level up your climate leadership and connect you with the diverse community that came together at CDLA. We offered three Engagements in Action throughout the day. You can still participate by adding your support via our website: http://climateday.la/takeaction
throughout the day. You can still participate by adding your support via our website: http://climateday.la/takeaction Relive the fun! Check out Climate Resolve's Storify for a recap of the day and the photo gallery below by Quinn Tucker of Quasar Media:
We're excited to build on the energy and determination you brought to Climate Day LA -- now more than ever. Onward, The Climate Day LA TeamIgnoring China's concern, a meeting between President Obama and the separatist Tibetan Buddhist leader Dalai Lama takes place at the White House.
The Dalai Lama speaks at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, DC, US June 13, 2016. (TRT World and Agencies)
Despite protests by China, US President Barack Obama met the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader, at the White House on Wednesday.
Obama met the Dalai Lama privately in the residence of the executive mansion at 10:15 a.m. local time. It was the fourth meeting between the two in the past eight years, the last being when the latter visited the US in 2014.
In a press release, the White House said that Obama urged "meaningful and direct dialogue" between the Dalai Lama and his representatives with Chinese authorities to lower tensions and resolve differences.
China considers the Dalai Lama a dangerous separatist and has accused the US of not honouring its pledges to not support any separatist activities against Beijing.
"We demand the US government earnestly stands by its promises, conscientiously handle the relevant issue in accordance with the one China principle and not give any space to any individual or behavior which tries to create two Chinas, one China one Taiwan, or to split China," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said prior to the meeting.
US President Barack Obama delivers a statement after a meeting with his national security team at the Treasury Department in Washington, US, June 14, 2016. (TRT World and Agencies)
According to the White House statement, Obama told the exiled Buddhist leader that he does not support Tibetan independence.
The Dalai Lama, who once called President Obama a long-time friend, has long called for "genuine" autonomy for Tibet rather than independence.
To a query about Beijing's response over his meeting with the US president, the Dalai Lama said, "I don't know-you should ask them… in Peking there are different views. Some people there have a more realistic view. Some are more hardline, which is more narrow-minded."
Source: TRT WorldMr Hughes designed the residence as part of a collaboration with Swiss company exklusivHAUS – creators of unique custom homes – for a client requesting something out of the ordinary.
The completion of the property took five-and-a-half years at a cost of $12.2 billion (£7.5 billion), making it the world’s most expensive home, usurping a $2 billion (£1.2 billion) Mumbai property owned by Indian businessman Mukesh Ambani.
The house, which resides at a secret location in Switzerland near the Italian border, also features platinum fixtures and fittings and flooring made from meteoric stone with shavings of original 65-million-year-old T-Rex Dinosaur bones embedded in each tile.
Spread across 2,442 square metres, the property boasts 8 rooms, a vast terrace, a basement with a special stone wine cellar and a garage large enough for 4 cars.
Amongst the other gold luxury items created by Stuart Hughes are a Rolls Royce Phantom and an Apple iPhone 4.
Photo Gallery:The clip of London begins with a tram passing along Tower Bridge Road in Bermondsey – instantly recognisable as the same street it is today, with only the vehicles and the soot that stains Tower Bridge dating it. The film then shifts to a pan across a River Thames that doesn’t exist anymore – a thicket of cranes, ships and blackened warehouses – before shifting back to London Bridge, with a view of then fairly newly completed neoclassical office blocks, again almost indistinguishable from the same view today.
London in 1927 in Colour – a five-minute distillation of the London footage from Claude Friese Greene’s early colour compilation, The Open Road – is one of hundreds of historic clips all over the internet that offer an early cinematic portrait (usually pre-war) of city x in year x. Berlin in 1900, Paris in 1928, Broadway in the 1920s, each with thousands of hits. What is their appeal, and what can we learn from them? This sort of old footage plays games with memory, something which can have particularly strange results when urban memory is highly contested - as in bombed and reconstructed cities such as Warsaw.
London (1927)
Watching pre-war footage of cities can be an enjoyably alienating sensation – not so much the shock of the old, as the shock of the combination of the familiar and the entirely strange. For instance, I immediately recognised the first shot of London in 1927 in Colour as being taken from much the same vantage point you could obtain today by sitting on the top deck of the 188 bus. But the economy and life lived in the area has transformed, with the warehouses and cranes replaced with office blocks and luxury flats (the Shard would only just be out of shot).
What makes a lot of this footage so compelling is the leisurely way it is shot, frequently by mounting a camera on the top of a bus or tram: simple, easy and panoramic, the film you could have made had you taken your cameraphone on top of the 188 bus in 1927. With many silent clips, the lack of newsreel-style voiceover also induces a certain dreaminess.
Nankin Road, Shanghai (1901)
An inhabitant of the Puxi side of the Haungpu river, rather than the south side of the Thames, couldn’t have the same reaction in watching Nankin Road, Shanghai, 1901. This view of a main street in the city’s British-administered International Settlement reveals a great density of Chinese shop signs and many more people on the streets than in most London footage. There’s the odd bicycle or horse and cart, but mostly the traffic is rickshaws, long before their recent, semi-ironic revival in western capitals. Men run along the street carrying other – often European – men on their backs. At the end, a platoon of Gurkhas patrols the street, flanked by two less disciplined-looking, fag-smoking British officers. Nothing of this landscape survives in today’s high-rise, neon-bedecked Nanjing Road, and few could seriously miss it.
Liverpool overhead railway (1950s)
Contrasts of the urban past and present formed the basis for an installation project by the filmmaker Patrick Keiller, The City of the Future, where archival footage – mostly from Mitchell and Kenyon, mostly from the top of buses and trams – juxtaposed with shots of the same places in the 21st century prove a seemingly counter-intuitive point. The vast majority of the British streets (if not those in the “colonies”) were basically unchanged, but for the fact that the people therein were a bit healthier and fatter, and the buildings less sooty but more dilapidated. The “city of the future” envisaged by the likes of HG Wells happened only in pockets, at least in the places tracked by these films.
It’s the opposite approach to that of Terence Davies’ acclaimed Of Time and the City, where similar footage was marshalled into a much more pessimistic depiction of a British city that had allegedly prostituted its grandeur for an inept modernisation. Much of Davies’ film hinged on thrilling shots from the Liverpool Overhead Railway, a rapid transit system unforgivably demolished and replaced with a dual carriageway in the 1950s. Even then, however, as this other footage from the overhead railway shows, the main thing missing from the same view today is industry, not buildings.
Havana, Cuba (1930s)
Another sense of “non-change” is provided by this popular clip of Havana, filmed by the travelogue-maker André de la Varre in a similar laconic, drifting style to Mitchell and Kenyon or Friese-Greene. The view of this magnificent, colonial city could probably be recreated shot-for-shot, building for building today, bar the monuments to the US army. However, the dilapidation of the Cuban capital now would contrast with the bourgeois elegance on show in these eight minutes. If only, the viewer might wonder, the revolution hadn’t happened, then maybe Havana would be like Miami by now! The advance from a ferociously unequal mafia capital to a country with the highest life expectancy in the region is not easy to register via panoramic shots of monumental architecture and busy streets.
Warsaw (1955)
What, though, about cities that weren’t mostly left alone (as in Britain or Cuba), or that didn’t redevelop themselves to the point of unrecognisability (as in China), but which were destroyed? The Polish capital Warsaw was razed to the ground by the Wehrmacht in 1944 after their suppression of the Warsaw Rising. The response from the post-war government was to rebuild the historic Old and New Town, partly via a meticulous study of Canaletto paintings, rather than from available pre-war footage of what had by then become a rather dilapidated and commercialised area.
This can be seen in this charming 1955 city short: Niedzielny Poranek (Sunday Morning) by Andrzej Munk. Though semi-fictional, centred on the flirtations of the city’s public transport staff (meaning a lot of good shots from moving buses), it does what it was intended to do in showcasing the romance and success of the reconstruction. However, the city’s 19th-century commercial areas were not reconstructed, and it’s this absence that forms the basis of a rather extraordinary essay in imaginary reconstruction, the short film Warszawa 1935...
Warsaw reconstructed (1935)
There is decent real footage of the pre-war city, such as the clip Pre-war Warsaw in Colour, which gives a view of the city in 1939 with the usual sorts of views – parks, “picturesque” residents (here, Orthodox Jews) and grand neoclassical buildings. However, this partial and fragmented picture was not enough for the makers of Warszawa 1935, who created a film that had never actually been made about the city on the eve of its destruction – pieced together in its absence through animation and meticulous architectural reconstruction.
The result is thorough and architecturally precise, if somewhat sentimental with its sweeping perspectives and elegaic music. But this 3D spectacular rings remarkably hollow. It is an attempt to prove that what contemporaries saw as a tense, impoverished city ruled by a military dictatorship was actually a successful capitalist metropolis – a retrospective CGI ad for a 1930s property developer, with the same creepy purple skies as architectural renders.
No city could ever have been this coherent, this clean, this elegant. Claiming Warsaw as a “Paris of the East”, it makes the actual Paris of 1935 – available in clips such as Paris, the Beautiful 1930s - look positively squalid. But then the difference is that nearly every component of that Paris still exists, so you could still make that film today.
Join Owen Hatherley, Oliver Wainwright and Mike Herd for a Guardian Masterclass on how to write about cities on Tuesday 27 JanuaryThe nation's top two carriers — Verizon and AT&T — are keen to remind federal regulators of their spectrum constraints at every opportunity. To that end, Verizon took to a joint filing to the FCC with SpectrumCo last Friday in defense of their proposed sale of AWS spectrum, a transaction that T-Mobile has publicly opposed. In the filing, Verizon goes over why and how its existing 700MHz LTE deployment will be out of breathing room "in some areas" by next year with wider-scale exhaustion by 2015; it says that it'll be able to alleviate a bit of the strain through future LTE femtocell rollouts and "piecemeal" refarming of existing CDMA 1x spectrum, but that neither technique will be sufficient to meet the need.
As with many FCC filings, Verizon's is of limited use to the public because much of it is redacted — hard numbers about the carrier's existing deployment and plans for expansion are intentionally left out, which makes it unclear just how the 2013 timeline is being arrived upon. Also unclear is why Verizon continues to offer a double data promotion on 4G data plans when it allegedly knows of an impending exhaustion. Of course, Verizon intends to use these AWS acquisitions for LTE deployment — hence the doomsday language in the filing — but T-Mobile has already made clear that it won't let the deal slide past regulatory approval without a challenge.ON THURSDAY, 30 exquisitely appointed and very wealthy NBA owners, or their appointees, will file into an ornate, high-ceilinged midtown Manhattan conference room. According to a leaked memo from NBA commissioner Adam Silver obtained by ESPN's Ramona Shelburne, the main topic will be "an extremely significant issue for our league."
The league, Silver's memo says, is trying to gain control of "the resting of star players in marquee games."
In many ways, nothing about this is new. The season has always been 82 games, and it has always caused injuries, and resting star players has always been an effective long-term strategy.
What's new, though, is the clarity of the forces at play. Just as the science has grown adamant that sitting players reduces injuries and improves performance, the economics make clear that some games, played by some players, are many times more important than others to the league's bottom line.
The trick is to get the best players in uniform and at their best for the nationally televised games that pay the bills.
Silver's memo indicates that there might be "significant penalties" for teams. But the more appropriate response would be to mourn what the NBA has quietly already lost: the 82-game season.
THIS PAST DECADE, just 11 percent of All-NBA selections have played 82 games in any given season, according to research by ESPN research guru Micah Adams. That number was 18 percent in the 2000s and 35 percent in the 1990s. Last season, not one All-NBA player logged the full season, the first time in NBA history that has ever happened.
Here's a fun list: James Harden, Al-Farouq Aminu, Al Horford, Robin Lopez, Mason Plumlee and Karl-Anthony Towns. Those six are the only players who started 82 games last year, the lowest figure since the NBA began tracking starters in 1982. As recently as 1999-00, that number was nearly five times higher, at 27, or about one player on every team. Nowadays, it's about one per division.
The reason, essentially, is that all roads lead to sitting. Many players are injured. Many others play for tanking teams at the bottom of the standings -- when Magic Johnson took over the Lakers franchise, he quickly shipped off his best player, Lou Williams, and shut down the team's two highest-paid players with 20 games to go. The Kings and Suns have done similarly.
But more recently, at the strict order of medical training staffs and head coaches, the best players on the best teams are sitting out in the name of injuries that in many cases haven't even occurred yet. (Note that all of the six who played all of last season come from teams in the middle of the standings.)
And it's this last group that has the owners aflutter. The league is in the first year of the biggest deal in its history, reportedly approaching $3 billion a year from Turner and ESPN/ABC combined. The pressure is on the league to deliver TV ratings, which effectively means ensuring the handful of megastars show up in the tiny sliver of games that appear on national TV, in what Silver's memo calls "marquee games."
Talking to ESPN's Chris Haynes last week, Kevin Durant spoke of a double standard, where the league turns a blind eye to many sitting players.
"I've seen guys that's not even in the playoffs resting, sitting out for the rest of the season," Durant said. "And it's nothing against those guys. I'm not trying to bash them or anything. [Phoenix Suns center] Tyson Chandler is out. They got him sitting out for the rest of the year. I'm sure he wants to play, but they're not saying anything about Tyson Chandler.... It's only a concern for the top players."
IT'S A FRIDAY morning in March, and the Cavs' locker room is not the happiest of places. The defending champs have a losing record since the All-Star break and are laboring through a brutal late-season stretch that has seen them play in 12 cities in less than a month, including five sets of back-to-backs.
At some point in all that, the Cavs' training staff evaluated James' workload measurements, from optical tracking data and other sources, and observed troubling signs of fatigue. They decided to rest James for a Saturday game on ABC against the LA Clippers, the first game of a back-to-back. Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving sat as well, both fighting through knee injuries.
Predictably, it hurt TV ratings. How much? The following Tuesday, Sports Media Watch called Clippers vs. Cavs "the lowest-rated NBA game ever on broadcast television."
In the wake of that game, Silver wrote his decree, declaring that NBA governors -- owners and their proxies -- could no longer shrug at the actions of their teams.
"Tyson Chandler is out. They got him sitting out for the rest of the year. I'm sure he wants to play, but they're not saying anything about Tyson Chandler.... It's only a concern for the top players."
"With so much at stake," he declared in his memo, "it is simply not acceptable for governors to be uninvolved or to defer decision-making authority on these matters to others in their organization."
There are, of course, many ways to interpret that. Could he really be implying that when the Cavs' training staff evaluates James, the ultimate decision on whether he plays should go not to a doctor, a trainer, a coach, a sports scientist or to James, but to owner Dan Gilbert?
Four days after Silver's memo was leaked, James sat at his visitor's locker in Charlotte, answering questions with a dozen microphones and cameras in his face, while the rest of his teammates silently pecked away at their iPhones. Would he play that night, the first game of a three-games-in-four-nights stretch? If the training staff recommended a rest day because of his injury risk, should owner Dan Gilbert be able to overrule?
Before James could answer, a loud laugh belted out from across the room.
It was James' co-star, Kyrie Irving.
James delivered a careful answer: "I trust my training staff," James said. "I trust my trainer [Mike Mancias], who has been with me for 15 years now. He knows my body. My coaching staff knows what's best for the team."
NBA teams and their stars, such as LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers have been criticized for resting during marquee matchups. Trevor Ruszkowski/USA TODAY Sports
Of course, there is a way owners could make the call to sit James.
The general manager of the Houston Rockets has spent his adult life thinking about how to spot NBA inefficiencies using math and statistics. And to Daryl Morey, the numbers just don't add up.
Morey -- whom best-selling author Michael Lewis profiled for a chapter in his latest book about behavioral economics called, "The Undoing Project" -- posited that the NFL essentially prints money thanks to a funny thing called scarcity. With each team playing just 16 regular-season games, every game is critical. And the money pours in. The games' stars don't routinely take games off, nor are teams incentivized to tank big chunks of the schedule.
So why can't the NBA make a play for scarcity? With guys taking games off and teams tanking as the season progresses, why does the NBA insist on pretending its best players can be at their best 82 times before the playoffs? Is that really a business play?
"The idea that the NFL would make more money with 82 games is absurd," Morey said. "Shorter schedule increases the importance of each game, which drives TV ratings, which drives the lion's share of money for most top pro leagues."
Morey believes the NBA would make more money in the long-term if it cut games from the schedule. The NFL faces diminishing returns because of the barbaric physicality of the sport. It chose 16 games.
Dr. Marcus Elliott, who founded P3, a sports science lab headquartered in Santa Barbara, has studied hundreds of athletes from both the NFL and the NBA, and the physical toll each sport takes on its players.
"The idea that the NFL would make more money with 82 games is absurd."
"The NBA is harder than the NFL, even if it doesn't have the big contact injuries," Elliott said. "NFL games are brutal on the body. At some positions they are head-to-toe bruise, and then they basically rest from high-intensity loading for five or six days."
NBA players, Elliott said, seldom have time for meaningful recovery.
"NBA pace and intensity has gotten so high. It's so ballistic, with accelerations and change of directions, even the athletes who are best adapted to play the game incur some tissue damage, with muscle soreness generally peaking 24-48 hours out, at which point they can be playing another game after a long flight and crappy sleep. Do this 82 times, plus playoffs... that's a recipe for injury."
Some of world's top sports economists are watching Silver and the NBA's next moves closely. The current DNP-Rest conundrum in the NBA will undoubtedly be the topic of lecture halls in economics departments across the world. Can a reduction in supply (games) increase demand (ratings)? If scarcity works in the NFL, can it work in the NBA?
One of those curious minds is The Economist's Dan Rosenheck, who runs the blog Game Theory on the magazine's website, and to whom cutting games seems like common sense.
"Cutting to the high-60s would seem to be conservative," Rosenheck said. "The current configuration of the league obscures rather than clarifies who the best team is, because of the incentives for good teams to rest and bad teams to tank."
Rosenheck pointed out that cutting games would not only make games more essential for viewers, it would also raise the cost of resting stars.
"It's not just the scarcity of games in the 16-game NFL regular season that makes them so popular," Rosenheck said. "It's that a single loss can devastate a team's playoff chances. Every game is high-leverage. You don't want to rest anyone if you can help it."
TODD MCFALL LIVES in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, an hour from Charlotte, but went in on a season-ticket package for Hornets games. And like most fans, he couldn't wait to watch LeBron James in person on March 24. But by the time the game rolled around, with the DNP-Rest epidemic looming large, McFall waited to see quotes from James, affirming he'd play, before hopping in the car.
McFall teaches economics at Wake Forest and wrote a book on the economics of NCAA basketball. The concerns on both sides are familiar to him. As he cruised I-77, his thoughts turned to the absurdity of owners and players being on opposite sides. Owners should be thinking longer-term, just like coaches. Sit a star like LeBron or Steph Curry a day here and there and you improve the chances he won't miss weeks.
"These players are worth tens of millions of dollars to franchises, and so it makes sense that franchises are wanting to smooth out productivity over a longer horizon," McFall said.
Though the NBA is adding a week to next season's schedule, it's not nearly enough to kill back-to-backs.
McFall, for his part, thinks the league should look to trim the schedule to about 70 games as it rakes in money from TV deals.
"There's risk, but I see tremendous upside thinking differently about the way a season unfolds," McFall said. "If the NBA can figure out a way to create a schedule with fewer games and find a way to weave the games into the fabric of society a bit more, then it will be able to charge higher prices for those fewer games. As it is now, the games land on different days throughout a week, and for the average fan, it's too hard to keep track of a schedule that isn't more fixed. The games can be more ritualistic, like the NFL or European soccer."
Speaking from experience, McFall asked, "Why follow when there's a perception that the star player on the elite team might not even play when his team visits? Those reputational hits don't take too long to create lasting damage."
A PECULIAR THING has happened in the two weeks since Silver's March 20 memo. Just 13 players have officially been listed as out because of rest, according to league data. How strange is that? In the same two-week stretch last season, 26 players received DNP-Rests.
There's a tradition in the NBA of using white lies to cover for players who aren't ready to go. Star's too hungover to play? Behold the magic of "flu-like symptoms," a phrase with a history of providing cover. The shoddiest way for the league to allay concerns about star players resting is to simply call it something else -- sources from one team say that's exactly what is happening now, with the knowledge and blessing of the league. Many players from teams good and bad have missed games with injuries since Silver's memo. Did Avery Bradley really have to sit out a game with an "illness?"
What about Danny Green, JJ Redick, Marc Gasol, Kyle Korver, Iman Shumpert and Richard Jefferson? Is Carmelo Anthony really too hurt to play, or is he resting? Did Devin Booker, fresh off a 70-point game, really have a sore ankle, or did the Suns feel he was too good to play? Does Brandon Ingram really have knee tendinitis, or is that part of Magic Johnson's plan? Which players, from which teams, have made up injuries? Who knows?
Warriors coach Steve Kerr, like Gregg Popovich before him, has made the call that some regular-season games just aren't worth winning. And despite Silver's memo, he plans on resting his stars as he and his training staffs see fit -- even if it comes on a national TV game.
"We're going to tell the truth," Kerr said.
The DNP-Rest epidemic might have begun with Gregg Popovich and the San Antonio Spurs, the first franchise to be fined for resting its stars. Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports
THE AT&T CENTER has not been particularly kind to LeBron James. In the 2014 Finals, when the air conditioning malfunctioned, his body became crippled with dehydration-induced cramps and he had to be carried off the floor. The Spurs have ended his championship dreams not once, but twice.
A week after Silver's memo leaked, James walked off the team bus and toward the Spurs' home court, with every intention of playing. Even though this was the third game in four nights, Silver, league partners and fans could breathe a collective sigh of relief. In a cathedral built to Tim Duncan -- maybe the NBA's all-time leader in minutes lost to injury prevention -- James would ignore fatigue and suit up for this nationally televised game.
That, of course, doesn't mean he was anything close to 100 percent. Of the 29 Cavs games on national television this season, 14 were scheduled in a back-to-back set. What's more, four of the five ABC games with the Warriors on the schedule came in a back-to-back set.
The Spurs led by 24 at halftime, running circles around the exhausted Cavs. And in a cruel twist of fate, in the third quarter, James was flattened by a David Lee elbow to the back. James left the game. The Cavs scored 74 points, their lowest point total since 2009 with James in uniform.
Afterward, coach Tyronn Lue admitted he was considering shutting down his stars for the remainder of the season.
"They're pretty worn down," he said.
But James was having none of it, telling reporters after the game, "I'm OK."
He hasn't missed a game since.Passing CP/AT YDS TD INT D. BELL 17/29 156 0 2 Receiving Rec YDS TD LG A. DURIE 5 32 0 16 S. WATT 4 64 0 48 S. TRANKS 3 17 0 10 J. COPELAND 2 25 0 13 C. OWENS 2 7 0 6 B. RIDEAU 1 11 0 11 Rushing ATT YDS TD LG C. KACKERT 20 139 2 23 A. DURIE 3 14 0 7 D. BELL 1 1 0 1 Fumbles NO LST REC YDS C. OWENS 2 2 0 0 A. DURIE 1 0 0 0 C. KACKERT 1 0 0 0 L. SHELL 0 0 1 0 R. FOLEY 0 0 1 0 Field Goals FG LG XP PTS G. SHAW 1/2 35 3/3 6 Punting NO AVG NET LG G. SHAW 7 35.6 219 52 Punt Returns NO YDS AVG LG TD C. OWENS 6 52 8.7 14 0 M. BLACK 1 81 81.0 81 1 Kickoffs NO YDS LG SG G. SHAW 4 254 72 0 Kick Returns NO YDS AVG LG TD C. OWENS 3 59 19.7 22 0 A. DURIE 1 11 11.0 11 0 Defence TKL SK INT FF C. WROTEN 7 0 0 0 R. FOLEY 6 0 0 0 L. SHELL 6 0 0 0 E. KUALE 5 0 0 1 K. EIBEN 5 0 0 0 R. FLEMONS 4 2 0 1 W. PILE 4 0 0 0 D. WEBB 3 0 0 0 K. HUNTLEY 1 1 0 0 B. PARKER 1 0 0 0 M. BLACK 1 0 0 0 J. YOUNGER 1 0 0 0 S. SMALLS 1 0 0 0
25 Q4 00:00 Ball On Down To Go E14 2 11 26 Team Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 OT T EDMONTON Eskimos 1 14 1 10 0 26 TORONTO Argonauts 7 10 1 7 0 25 Passing (comp/att/yds) 17/29/156 Receiving (rec/yds) 17/156 Rushing (att/yds) 24/154 Total Yards 310 Sacks Allowed 0 Turnovers 4 Passing (comp/att/yds) 24/34/261 Receiving (rec/yds) 24/261 Rushing (att/yds) 22/97 Total Yards 334 Sacks Allowed 3 Turnovers 3 Current Drive Qtr Time Team Pos D/Y Play 4 00:01 EDM E14 2/11 (00:01) R. RAY Team Loss (1 yds) 4 00:09 EDM E15 1/10 (00:09) R. RAY Team Loss (1 yds) Scoring Plays Play# QTR Scoring Type Team Play 138 4 Convert(1) EDM (2:41) D. DUVAL Convert - Convert(1) 137 4 Touchdown EDM (3:19) R. RAY Completed Pass to F. STAMPS (21 yds) - Touchdown
*****SCORING DRIVE: 5 plays, 60 yds TIME: 2:50 127 4 Field Goal EDM (7:49) D. DUVAL Field Goal (24 yds) - Field Goal
*****SCORING DRIVE: 6 plays, 16 yds TIME: 3:11 117 4 Convert(1) TOR (13:10) G. SHAW Convert - Convert(1) 116 4 Touchdown TOR (13:35) D. DUVAL Punt T29 (34 yds), M. BLACK Punt Return (81 yds) - Touchdown
PENALTY EDMONTON: D. CLARKE No Yards - Declined 91 3 Single TOR (10:45) G. SHAW P |
. There are spots to be taken and just like every year a group of rookies could sneak onto the 53 man roster or practice squad.
Players like Max Bullough (ILB), Marcus Williams (CB), Jason Ankrah (OLB), Matt Feiler (OT), Travis Labhart (WR) and Anthony McClung (WR) are all players who could impact their position groups throughout this process.Ok, for a while now i have noticed that Hashirama Senju's younger brothers name sounds a lot like a combination between Hashirama and Obito. Now, Since Obito is also known as Tobi this very much supports my theory. Which goes as follows. I believe that the Naruto and Dragon Ball universe are one in the same and that the events of Dragon Ball are in a semi-distant future. This would suggest that jutsu such as the rasengan are more of a primative version of the Kamehameha Wave. But more on that another time.
Since they are in the same universe the people in naruto getting a hold of the fusion dance (or in that time would have been known as the fusion jutsu) is not entirely unlikely. This is also supported by the use of the transportation technique or the instant transmission being a way that the race that originally taught Goku the Fusion dance teaching others on earth the same.
Now you may be wondering among other things why would they not have just gone back to being Obito and Hashirama. Well thats simple! Batara Earings! These earings allow to people to fuse together however this type of fusion is not something that can be easily undone and would have caused them to stay fused. It is also well known that both fusion by batara earings and dance can cause a different sort of personality to emerge.
Now the next question may be ''Well how did those two of all people fuse and they were different ages?''. Well my good friends it is simple. The Yamanaka clan were of course around in those days and it is not entirely unlikely that one of them being Obito's accomplice from present times was to use the mind control jutsu to make someone who posessed the dragon balls at this time give them to Obito. Using this he was able to wish to go back in time and not age untill a certain time as to whenever it suited him.
This part is where it gets complicated. Obito then found another Yamanaka and explained to them that he was from the future and of course they did not believe him and they thought he was a spy from another village. This Was disproven when he showed them his sharingan. He explained about the dragon balls and proved he was from the future by telling them events that would happen over the course of the next few months. These of course came true. He then was able to Get close enough as to use his Kamui to transport Hashiramas body that Madara had not used for his own gain to him and began the strange process of which is unknown. What is unknown is how exactly he fused whether it be batara earings or dance.
At this point Obito went into hiding with his accomplice who perished over time as they were not immune to ageing like Obito was due to the wish he had made earlier. He was also now who we know as Tobirama and had used the Skills of his Yamanaka friend which he had also fused with to mind control everyone into thinking he had existed for years. This of course worked and he had even used the limited Tsukuyome to invent a small future in which he faught and helped the village, This would cover up any loose he may have forgotten to fix or hide.
After time however and a talk with the near dead Madara and avoiding his younger self, Obito was able to find a way to un-seal himself from the Yamanaka and Hashirama as they were causing him to age quicker due to them being nearly dead when fusing. This unfortunately meant he lost the Yamanaka Kekke-Genkai and was unable to use Mind control or mind transfer jutsu. He did however now have Senju dna which is why he was able to achieve the Rinnegan in the end!
But hey guys, its not just a theory... But a Game Theory! But an Anime Theory!When it comes to the finances, few things define the experience of 20-somethings like student debt. Many of us live with it in some form or another, and for those of us who are strapped with high-five and even six-figure sums, it can seem like a mountain that’s impossible to climb. Many people, at the dawn of their careers, decide that hundreds of dollars a month (which barely chip away at interest) and never living other financial dreams such as home ownership, is simply their reality.
But the truth is, there are many alternatives to the traditional route of budget-crushing monthly repayments which last pretty much indefinitely. We’re going to be exploring some of those alternatives here, starting with the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. Many of us may have been curious about this program in passing, but may have assumed that we couldn’t qualify. To debunk some myths and see how it really works in practice, we spoke to Allie, a 20-something working for her local government who is nearly a year into the program, and has never looked back.
1. What degree(s) do you hold?
I hold a Bachelor’s and a Master’s in social work.
2. What is your current debt?
I have roughly $62,000 in student loan debt.
3. Do you actively pay as of now?
I do pay now, about $111 a month. Which if you’ve heard from anyone with student loan debt, that is ridiculously low.
4. What are you doing in the PSLF program?
I had heard about student loan forgiveness but I had always thought it was a gimmick. Generally, “I would never qualify and be able to get some of this debt forgiven” was the idea that I had about any student loan forgiveness programs. I thought of that phrase — forgiveness — like the ads on Facebook that you try not to click on because you know it’s fake. Turns out, it’s real. And now I work for my local state government, in the program.
5. Could you give us a brief breakdown of the timeline?
I started paying after my six-month grace period ended, in part because I was lucky enough to land a “real” job that used my degree a month after I graduated. After a few tense months, I figured out how to apply for the program and got all the paperwork filled out and signed, and started making qualifying payments before my 24th birthday.
Basically, I have to make 120 payments in the program before the rest of my loans are forgiven, which is 10 years [at $111/month, or a little over $13,000 in total]. I have to resubmit proof of income every year since it’s based on my income, but that is a huge deal for me. I would have ended up paying a much larger monthly payment for over 25 years if I had not done PSLF.
6. Did you have any other plans to repay debt before finding PSLF?
I was kind of just closing my eyes and hesitantly going about things before. I was paying about $340 a month before I enrolled and figured everything out. I was hoping to pay a little extra a month and gradually get my debt down, and I was also trying not to have a panic attack about paying something for the next 25 years of my life. I was really freaking out about my loans before I enrolled in PSLF, and now I really feel like they are manageable.
7. Are you enjoying the program?
Surprisingly, it is pain-free as it can be. The paperwork was a hassle a first, but now I just pay my $111, which is totally doable, and I can get on with my life (while living normally month-to-month).
8. Would you recommend it to others, and if so, would there be any caveats?
I would, especially if you have a large amount of debt. The process can seem daunting, and it kind of is — there are a good amount of qualifications one has to meet to move on to the next step in the program. First, you have to apply to consolidate your loans, then you have to apply for an income-based repayment plan and submit your proof of income, and then you have to fill out a form about your employer making sure they are an institution that qualifies for the program. It can be tedious, and I am essentially best friends with the people in the records department now. But just like anyone else, the people doing these things are trying to do their best job, and after about two months, I had everything sorted out after a few bumps in the road.
9. Do you plan on continuing your education at any point?
I always entertain the idea of going back for my PhD, or going back to get another Master’s degree in something. But, to be honest, I would never do that as long as I have this debt — maybe after I have everything paid off and I could save for tuition or make better financial choices about my education. Wanting to be excited about what you do for a living is a priority for me, and until that stops happening with what I’m doing now I don’t think I would go back.
10. Are there any misconceptions about PSLF you’d like to clear up?
I think maybe that people automatically assume they don’t qualify for it. I thought that, and lo and behold, it saved me tens of thousands of dollars and 15+ years of loan payments. I would say to look into it, and even if you think your job doesn’t qualify, you never know. I thought my job didn’t, and it does! This program is saving me money and, ultimately, mental health costs. It’s allowing me to live well.
If you are interested in finding out more about the program, click here.
Image via Flickr
Allie T. is based in Louisville, KY. she is on Twitter.Suburban schools: Disabled sports directive a surprise
hello
19-year-old Eric Dompierre, right, who has Down syndrome and is the kicker for the Ishpeming High School varsity football team, arrives on the field for the first day of practice at the Ishpeming Playgrounds in Ishpeming, Mich. Breaking new ground, the U.S. Education Department is telling schools Friday, Jan. 25, 2013, they must include students with disabilities in sports programs or provide equal alternative options. The directive, reminiscent of the Title IX expansion of athletic opportunities for women, could bring sweeping changes to school budgets and locker rooms for years to come. Associated Press/August 2012
It appears school administrators are about to be surprised with a directive that could have a sweeping impact on their locker rooms and budgets.
Local officials have yet to receive U.S. Education Department letters requiring schools to include students with disabilities in sports programs, or provide equal alternatives.
Elgin Area School District U-46 officials were among those unaware of the new mandate as of late Thursday. Patrick Mogge, director of school and community relations, said the impact on the athletic budget is still unknown.
"We'd have to look at the fiscal impact," Mogge said. "Our folks can run those numbers once we know the full details and we'll comply with the law to its fullest extent."
St. Charles Unit District 303 spokesman Jim Blaney similarly said he was unaware of any new rules coming down the pipeline and was unable to comment.
That was also true of Joanne Panopoulos, assistant superintendent for student services in Wheaton-Warrenville District 200. She said the district supports students with disabilities if they need additional support participating in sports, but that officials haven't received any announcements.
Mary Todoric, spokeswoman for Libertyville-Vernon Hills Area High School District 128, said in an email that the district will review the U.S. Education Department's new disabilities directive with its legal counsel and implement changes accordingly.
At this point, there is no deadline for schools to comply.
Stevenson High School spokesman Jim Conrey said the Illinois High School Association already has made strides providing opportunities for physical activity to students with disabilities by creating special divisions within more individualized sports such as track and field, swimming and bowling.
The Lincolnshire school, which has nearly 3,900 students enrolled, looks forward to working with the IHSA to make those outlets and others available for its students, he said.
"The larger question is how to provide more physical activity for disabled students in general, and not just a few," Conrey said. "We've taken that issue seriously at Stevenson for a long time. Our physical education teachers have worked hard to make sure all students are getting proper amounts of exercise. They're fortunate to be blessed with access to an exercise room with specialized equipment for kids in wheelchairs or who have other physical challenges."
• Daily Herald staff writers James Fuller, Tara Garcia Mathewson, Christopher Placek and Russell Lissau contributed to this report.Most of the people arrested during a summer of demonstrations against fracking in the village of Balcombe have been acquitted, leading to accusations that police tactics in a £4m operation criminalised peaceful protest.
The last of the criminal trials resulting from 126 arrests made by Sussex police during days of action outside the Cuadrilla site last summer finished this month. Of 114 charges, relating to 90 individuals, only 29 resulted in convictions, according to freedom of information responses from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and the police.
Sussex police are accused of using mass arrests, draconian bail conditions and section 14 notices under the Public Order Act 1986 to criminalise peaceful protest at the site in Balcombe, where the energy firm Cuadrilla conducted exploratory drilling.
Lydia Dagostino, the solicitor who acted for most of the defendants, claimed many believed the policing operation was used as a blueprint for the future policing of anti-fracking protests. She said: "Who knows if there was some kind of directive given about how they tackled this – 'this is the energy industry do what you want to do'. It was almost like they [the police] said 'we are going to arrest people and justify it later'.
"What they did criminalised protest. They used the section 14 orders and bail conditions, which were imposed on everyone and which stopped them from going within miles of the site, to stop them from protesting. It was like an injunction by the back door. If you turn up – new to protest – and you think you are going to be sitting down singing the anti-fracking anthem and then see people being arrested and handcuffed, it is quite shocking and frightening and puts you off being there."
The last of the trials involved Simon Welsh, a poet from Balcombe, who was arrested for failing to comply with a section 14 order on 9 September as he led the crowd outside the Cuadrilla site in a song.
Welsh, 35, was acquitted at Eastbourne magistrates court this month. He is one of 15 people, including the Green MP Caroline Lucas, acquitted at magistrates court of breaching such orders at the Cuadrilla site. A related section 14 trial due in September has been dropped by the CPS.
Welsh said: "I was leading people in song. I was holding a microphone of a loud hailer, and I was belting out lyrics when I was arrested.
"We are talking about people standing for something they believe in in a way that, to me, seems to make the rules no longer applicable. Police action becomes questionable; the law as it stands becomes questionable."
In another case, known among demonstrators as the log trial, 11 individuals arrested for obstructing the highway on 26 July by sitting on a log outside the Cuadrilla gate were also found not guilty.
District judges have challenged the validity of the section 14 notices issued by the police during the protests. The order effectively throws a protest-free exclusion zone around a site but can be issued only if a senior officer believes there will be serious damage to property, serious disruption to the life of the community and serious public disorder.
In one ruling, the district judge at Brighton magistrates court said the notice was invalid.
"The words'serious' in section 14 (1) (a) are inserted for a reason. If a police officer merely believed that public disorder, damage or disruption (which were not serious) were anticipated, there would be no ground for approving a notice.
"I have very real concerns that there were grounds for reasonable belief that a future assembly may result in the serious consequences envisaged by section 14 … I have such concerns about the notice … that I find it to be invalid."
Ch Supt Paul Morrison, of Sussex police, defended his force's response: "Protests are an important safety valve for strongly held views and the right to protest in public is a synthesis of iconic freedoms: free assembly and free speech," he said.
"We are looking at the judgments and the implications for policing future events of this nature but I am satisfied that public order policing in Sussex is conducted professionally and fairly."
Cuadrilla began drilling activity in Balcombe last summer. More protests are likely in the area after the firm was granted permission last month to carry out further tests before sealing off the well.
Cuadrilla has said it will not frack for oil at the site, but wants to check oil supply suitability using flow-testing.The Chicago Teacher’s Union took legal action against the city for trying to increase Chicago Public School classroom sizes to 35 students.
In an unprecedented move that hinges on a decades old municipal code, the Teacher's Union filed a lawsuit against the school system citing overcrowding.
A code passed in 1958 -- after the Our Lady of Angels School fire that killed 92 students -- requires that all classrooms have at least 20 square feet of space per body.
That means classrooms of 35 students and one teacher require at least 720 square feet of space.
The Union suit will include affidavits from teachers who have measured their rooms.
School officials say 90 percent of the classrooms in the CPS system are at least 700 square feet, and the typical classroom is 720 square feet.
"On top of the educational problems it would create, such huge class sizes would violate the city's health and safety codes in thousands of our classrooms," said Union President Marilyn Stewart in a statement. "So whether you look at it from an educational standpoint or a health and safety standpoint, what CEO Ron Huberman and his Board of Education are trying to do is unconscionable."
Made in Chicago
CPS estimates it can shave about $125 million off its budget by increasing class sizes from the maximum of 32 students to 35.
Get Breaking SMS Alerts: Be the first to know when news breaks, and when weather changes dramatically.
News: Text CHIBREAKING to 622669
Weather: Text CHIWEATHER to 622669Brazil still has a long way to go in the field of ecotourism. While in some places, as on the island of Fernando de Noronha, in the northeast, the rules concerning wildlife preservation are strict, in others there is less attention to long-term conservation and the ecological and social impact of tourism, often leading to the pure and simple exploitation of animals, as well as local people and their cultures.
One of the most profitable tourist activities in the Amazon is swimming alongside pink dolphins or feeding them from a flutuante, a private floating deck, often situated within a national park. Tourists regularly ride, restrain and harass the dolphins. Some even lift them out of the water for photographs. (Sometimes this is done with the encouragement of a tour guide.) There are accounts of people being accidentally bitten, and on one occasion, a man retaliated by punching the dolphin.
A few years ago, a commission of federal agencies and research institutes issued local guidelines for the activity — including the amount of food to be offered and the requirement that only tour guides could feed the dolphins — but few people adhere to them. According to the owner of one flutuante, tourists must only avoid touching the dolphin’s blowhole. (Please!)
There’s no federal legislation prohibiting feeding and touching the dolphins. As a result, their behavior has already changed: Many now survive on the frozen fish provided by tourism groups. They’re also conditioned to stay close to the flutuantes and to humans. According to researchers, aggression is now common among the dolphins.
Another popular activity in the Brazilian Amazon is caiman-spotting. In the evening, groups of people cruise the riverbanks, seeking out the huge nocturnal lizards that resemble crocodiles. It wouldn’t be disruptive if so many guides didn’t make a point of jumping in the water to grab the caimans and hold them up for photos.
Amazon tour operators also offer recreational fishing of piranha, the omnivorous fish with sharp teeth and a ferocious reputation, and fake fishing of pirarucu, an ancient, giant fish that is at risk of extinction. The latter takes place in enclosed water tanks. In some ways, it’s better because the pirarucus aren’t injured by hooks, only mildly harassed by tourists trying to lift them out of the water.Company suspends three senior executives in what is potentially one of the biggest commercial espionage cases in recent years
Nicolas Sarkozy ordered the country's intelligence services to establish whether China is behind alleged industrial spying at the car-making giant Renault.
A source at the Elysée palace said secret services were "investigating a Chinese link" in the scandal after the company suspended three senior executives for allegedly committing "very serious faults".
All three were working on Renault's high-profile electric car programme and one as a member of the company's management committee.
If the allegations were confirmed, it would be one of the biggest and most potentially damaging cases of commercial espionage in recent years.
Tonight a French magazine claimed the three men had leaked information about the development of batteries for the electric vehicles that Renault hopes to put into production in the next 18 months.
Le Point said the employees had been approached by a private company used as a subcontractor by Renault. It claimed that in return for information, money had been paid into foreign bank accounts.
More damaging for Renault, Le Point also alleged the leaked information concerned multi-million euro technology that the company had yet had a chance to patent, meaning it was not protected from being copied.
However, one of the accused men, Mathieu Tenenbaum, was reported to be "stunned" by the allegations and said he was waiting to hear details of the accusations against him. His lawyer, Thibault de Montbrial, told AFP that the deputy director of the electric vehicle programme was thrown out of the Renault building "in a matter of minutes with no justification apart from a laconic and enigmatic 'we know what you have done, you should admit it'."
"This gulf between the silence of his bosses on Monday and the pre-declaration of his guilt in the public communication by Renault for the last four days has left him puzzled."
Renault has refused to comment after suspending the three employees and has not confirmed reports it plans to take legal action against them.
The government has warned of an "overall risk" to French industry. Renault is 15% owned by the French state.
Bernard Carayon, an MP for the ruling UMP and a specialist in economic intelligence, said the Chinese connection was being taken seriously.
"The suspicions are effectively going that way," he told Le Figaro.
He added: "This scandal rests on a lack of sufficient preventive measures especially when certain state services, in particular the DCRI [Direction Centrale du Renseignement Intérieur, the French intelligence services] are in a position to give technical advice at a high level to companies."
Renault is France's biggest car-maker and, with a workforce of 54,300 in France and a total of 122,600 worldwide, is a key player in the country's economy.
The three suspended staff worked at the Technocentre at Guyancourt, 20 miles from Paris, where company engineers work on coming up with new models.
Renault, and its Japanese partner Nissan, has invested €4bn in developing electric vehicles and plans to put three models on sale this year and a fourth next year. "The group [Renault] is worried about its electric programme and hopes its advance in this technology won't be threatened," a source told Le Figaro.
China is promoting ecological vehicles as part of the development of its car industry and its output is expected to reach 1m units by 2020, according to a Beijing official. Vehicle emissions account for 70% of air pollution in major Chinese cities.
A member of the DCRI told Le Point that French companies had underestimated the potential damage of industrial spying: "French companies don't have a sense of economic intelligence," he said.
He added: "This is a classic case of spying. The Chinese are masters of this and they've gone on the offensive."Scroll to continue with content Ad
Dwight Howard's four-year, $88 million maximum contract agreement with the Houston Rockets will include an early termination option after the 2015-16 season and a 15 percent trade kicker, league sources told Yahoo! Sports.
Howard, a seven-time All-NBA center, committed to signing with the the Rockets on Friday, leaving the Los Angeles Lakers after a tumultuous season. The luring of Howard to Houston makes the Rockets legitimate Western Conference championship contenders, and they could be NBA title contenders with further supplements to what's become a rapidly improving roster.
The New Orleans Pelicans have expressed interest in making a deal for Rockets backup center Omer Asik, multiple league sources told Yahoo! Sports.
The early termination clause – or opt-out – could make Howard a free agent again in '16, allowing him to re-sign a five-year, maximum contract deal with the Rockets or change teams again. In the event Howard is traded during the duration of this contract, he will be paid 15 percent of the remaining money left on his deal through the kicker.
Related coverage on Yahoo! Sports:
• Dwight Howard finalizes deal to join Rockets
• What's next for Dwight Howard, Rockets, Lakers?
• Kobe Bryant sums up feeling about Dwight Howard in Instagram photoThis is my favourite statement from a talk Rob Pike gave in 2001. Despite its age, despite many flaws, C is still the de facto standard, the lingua franca. Why? As with other older languages, inertia is partly to blame, but this cannot be the only reason. C must possess a near-perfect balance of vital language features.
I can roughly envision the assembly generated by a C statement, so I can make educated guesses about time and space efficiency.
Not only is C easy for humans to understand, but machines too pick up the language quickly. C compilers can be developed rapidly: my favourite example is this International Obfuscated C Contest entry. Perhaps no other language is so ubiquitous. I have seldom worked with a platform without a C compiler.
The canonical reference, Kernighan and Ritchie’s "The C Programming Language" is slim, yet contains much more than the language specification. There are only a few elementary concepts to introduce. Most of the text demonstrates the power of these concepts.
Brevity
Brevity is the soul of wit. We automatically clip, shorten, abbreviate and decapitate lengthy expressions. We enjoy doing so.
In my Eiffel days, I was encouraged to write "integer", not "int", "character", not "char", and so on. I believe Java encourages this practice too. Supposedly clarity is maximized. But how can this be if we do the opposite when we speak? Do you say “taxi cab”, or “taximeter cabriolet”? Redundant utterances are tiresome and worse still, obscure the idea being expressed.THE DEATH in November in Washington of Mikhail Lesin, a prominent Russian businessman who long survived in the halls of power in Moscow, has left many questions. Mr. Lesin was found dead in his room at the Dupont Circle Hotel, after which family members told the Russian news media he died of a fatal heart attack. Now, four months later, the D.C. Medical Examiner’s Office reports that Mr. Lesin died of blunt force trauma to the head and had bruises on other areas of his body.
Mr. Lesin matured in the twilight of the Soviet Union and was among those who proved fleet-footed enough to capitalize on the opportunities created by the birth of capitalism in the new Russia. Some seized natural resources, others grabbed giant factories. Mr. Lesin’s gamble was on television advertising. When the stolid broadcasters of the Soviet era were replaced by a snazzy independent television news channel, NTV, founded by the oligarch Vladimir Gusinsky, Mr. Lesin’s agency became the exclusive broker for advertising. He made a fortune, navigating business and the corridors of political power. Mr. Lesin’s agency worked to reelect the ailing president, Boris Yeltsin, in 1996. One time, it spliced a taped video message by Yeltsin right before the final vote to conceal the fact the president had just suffered a heart attack.
When President Vladimir Putin rose to power a few years later, Mr. Lesin helped him take control of Russian television and force Mr. Gusinsky out. Mr. Lesin became Russian press minister, played a major role in Mr. Putin’s drive to subjugate the news media, and helped establish Russia Today, a propaganda network. Mr. Lesin surely knew a lot about the obscure workings of Mr. Putin’s Kremlin. He also prospered while in power. According to a letter sent to the Justice Department by Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Mr. Lesin’s family owned some $28 million in Los Angeles real estate. In late 2014, Mr. Lesin stepped down from a position at the media conglomerate Gazprom-Media, but did not seem headed for Kremlin ostracism. Nor was he made subject to the U.S. sanctions imposed on so many others in Mr. Putin’s coterie after his invasion of Ukraine.
We don’t know why someone would have assaulted Mr. Lesin, if that’s what happened. But it can’t be forgotten that others who have found themselves on the outs with Mr. Putin have met with violence. Alexander Litvinenko, a former officer of the Federal Security Service, was murdered in London with radioactive polonium. The journalist Anna Politkovskaya was murdered in her apartment elevator. Business owners and others have fled Moscow out of fear.
Why was Mr. Lesin in Washington? What meetings did he hold, or plan? Why was the fact of the “blunt force trauma” kept quiet for so long? Law enforcement authorities should rule out foul play or thoroughly investigate it, and tell the public what they find.The deadly suicide bombings in Ankara have heightened fears that Turkey’s troubled Syria policy may be experiencing blowback.
The twin attacks – Turkey’s most devastating in recent history – killed at least 97 civilians and wounded 246 more on Saturday during a predominantly Kurdish peace rally in the capital.
ISIL is the prime suspect in the suicide bombings, and investigators are close to identifying one of the perpetrators, prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu told Turkish broadcaster NTV on Monday.
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has dangerously supported hardline militant groups – such as the Army of Conquest, a coalition that includes Al Qaeda’s Syria branch Jabhat Al Nusra and the Salafist group Ahrar Al Sham – to topple Syrian president Bashar Al Assad.
His contentious policy in Syria was already under strain before this, with Russia directly intervening in the war and the US forging close ties with Turkey’s other nemesis on the ground – the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD).
The growing tussle of superpowers in the Syrian war is edging Turkey out of the equation, according to analysts.
“Turkey, in my judgement, is no longer a first rank player in the Syrian crisis. It will always have a role to play, but only because of its geography,” said Soli Ozel, professor of international relations at Kadir Has University in Istanbul.
Russia’s intervention has altered the course of war, not least for Turkey. One immediate effect will be the likely inclusion of Mr Al Assad in any transitional deal, a bitter pill Turkish leaders will have to swallow.
“Turkey will probably be part of any negotiating table, but I doubt that it will have much of a say as to who sits at the table,” Mr Ozel said.
Mr Erdogan will officially maintain his stance on ousting Mr Al Assad so as not to appear to have backed down from his position, but this may change should, as expected, Mr Erdogan’s AKP fail to win a majority in the upcoming elections, according to veteran Turkish journalist Semih Idiz.
“Turkey’s current policy [on Assad] is unsustainable and could change after the elections on November 1,” he said.
The shift appears even more likely, Mr Idiz added, given the West’s gradual gravitation towards accepting Mr Al Assad in any interim peace deal.
Turkey first emerged as a major player in the Syrian conflict when anti-regime protests began in 2011, pursuing a vigorous policy of backing mostly religiously conservative rebels to overthrow the Assad regime and empower the Muslim Brotherhood. But Ankara’s objectives are slowly blunting as the war draws in direct interventions from the US and Russia.
The priorities of the major powers have taken precedence, with Washington’s main focus on eradicating ISIL and Moscow determined to protect its key ally Mr Al Assad and prevent the Syrian state from crumbling further.
Another indicator of the zero-sum effect Russia’s intervention has had on Turkey’s influence in Syria is the question of Mr Erdogan’s proposed safe-zone within northern Syria.
“The Russian intervention has put the last nail into the coffin for Ankara in terms of its demand for a safe zone,” Mr Idiz said.
Russia’s violations of Turkish airspace last week demonstrate Moscow’s hostility towards a no-fly zone, and send a message to Turkey to respect Syria’s sovereignty, according to Mr Idiz.
Russian incursions into Turkey’s airspace and their close aerial encounters are also a power play that exposes Ankara’s inability to stop the Russians.
“[Russia is] showing its power and exposing Erdogan’s helplessness,” Mr Ozel said.
Pushed back by Russia and facing ISIL’s terror, Turkey is also being squeezed by its main ally, the US.
Washington’s war on ISIL has brought the Americans closer to the PYD, the only acceptable ground force that has proven capable of defeating ISIL extremists.
“Turkey is clearly displeased with the rising international profile of the PYD, which it is insisting is a terrorist organisation like the PKK, but appears to have little it can do to prevent this,” Mr Idiz said.
A key Turkish interest is to prevent the emergence of an independent Kurdish state in northeastern Syria, fearing it would inspire further unrest among its large Kurdish minority.
While a Kurdish state is unlikely, the importance of the PYD to Washington in its fight against ISIL has curtailed Ankara’s ability to weaken the group.
“The fact that the PYD, which is getting support from the US led-coalition against ISIL, is establishing warm ties with Moscow, is set to weaken Turkey’s hand even more against this group,” Mr Idiz said.
Mr Erdogan’s Syria policy was designed to expand Turkish influence in its southern neighbour.
Instead, he may be relegated to spectator status as he watches three worst case scenarios unfold: Mr Al Assad retaining interim power; the Kurds obtaining unprecedented power along the Turkey-Syria border; and radical ISIL with no qualms spreading its terror into the heart of Turkey.
foreign.desk@thenational.aeThe mud-slinging that’s become standard fare in political elections seems to have reached fever pitch with the presidential contest, and the tensions between the major political parties is playing out in homes across America as well. Party loyalties are dividing parents and children, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, and navigating the conflicts that emerge is no easy task.
“It’s tricky in families when people disagree over political candidates because a lot of times we think of ourselves are being very similar, and close to the people around us,” says Lynn Bufka, associate executive director of practice research and policy at the American Psychological Association. “Then to discover that you have very different points of view on something you feel strongly about, you feel that, ‘Maybe I don’t really know this person? Perhaps there was something I miscalculated about them.’ It becomes not just a question of disagreeing on something but a question of perhaps we don’t know each other way we thought we did.”
One of the major issues in the campaign—the allegations of sexual harassment against Republican nominee Donald Trump—is a big fracture point. Family members who support Trump may be accused of defending such behavior, and even condoning it. A vote for Trump, in the minds of people who don’t support him, is a vote for condoning sexual abuse and harassing behavior.
But family therapist Jenn Matheson, president of the Colorado division of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, says that’s an assumption that can only lead to more conflict. “Both parties with differing points of view in a conversation have to commit to having a conversation with the goal of understanding the other person,” she says. It’s not about being right or wrong or making personal assumptions about the family member with a differing opinion. “Because someone has a different point of view, that does not mean they are stupid, or evil or nasty and deplorable,” says Bufka — even if the candidates have used such personal put downs in the campaign.
The Brief Newsletter Sign up to receive the top stories you need to know right now. View Sample Sign Up Now
Trump supporters, for example, may not agree with or condone his comments about women, and feel strongly that sexual harassment should not be endorsed in any way, but still feel that this issue and his behavior aren’t as important to them as other issues or positions he supports. “It’s important to figure out what you’re disagreeing about,” says Bufka. “Are you disagreeing about the comments and whether they are okay, or disagreeing about whether someone running for president can espouse the views expressed in those comments and still run for president. Those are two different things.”
It’s also important to appreciate that two people can see the same situation and experience the same thing and interpret it in different ways. Trump supporters, for example, may choose not to believe the allegations as their truth about the candidate, and turn their focus on other aspects of his campaign and platform.
That makes it even more important, say therapists, to figure out where differing perspectives come from. That may even help people figure out their own reasons for why they support a candidate — are they for Clinton because they desperately want to see the first female president? Do they support Trump because they think our country needs someone who isn’t a politician to lead? These thoughts can only be teased out if disagreeing family members have a frank and open discussion in which they aren’t trying to convince the other person to adopt their own views, but to understand why he or she feels the way they do.
That’s easier said than done, given that such difficult conversations, especially among family members who are comfortable with each other and less likely to be constrained by rules of social politeness, |
in a circle, eyeing one another nervously. One of them had bootlegged a CBT audio course from the internet. For 10 weeks, we listened to the course, practised the exercises, and did the “homework”. And for me, it worked. The panic attacks stopped after a few weeks, and I gradually got back my confidence in my ability to steer a course through life. I steered a course to Russia, where I worked as a foreign correspondent for four fun, vodka-soaked years.
When I came back to the UK in 2007, I decided to research CBT. I went to New York to interview the psychologist who’d invented it, Albert Ellis, and asked him where he’d got the idea for it. He told me he’d been directly inspired by ancient Greek philosophy, particularly by a line from the Stoic philosopher Epictetus: “Men are disturbed not by events but by their opinion about events.”
Ellis, like the Greeks, suggested that our emotions always involve beliefs or interpretations of the world. Our interpretations may often be inaccurate, irrational or self-destructive, and this will make us emotionally sick. In my case, I had a value system that put a huge emphasis on popularity and social performance (I went to one of those schools where popularity is practically a religion), and this flawed belief system had caused me to suffer.
We might not be conscious of how we interpret the world, because our beliefs are ingrained and habitual. Our beliefs are like a pair of glasses we have worn for so long, we forget we’re wearing them. But we can learn to bring our unconscious life philosophy to consciousness by asking ourselves questions. In CBT this is known as the “Socratic method”, from Socrates, who tried to teach his fellow Athenians the art of asking themselves questions. Then, if we decide our life philosophy is no good, we can choose to think differently.
That might sound incredibly simplistic and over-optimistic. Some philosophers, psychologists and neuroscientists would argue that our capacity to choose a path in life is severely constrained by our genes, our childhood, our circumstances. They might insist that we’re not the “captain of our soul” as the Stoics suggested – we’re helpless spectators.
The Stoics were aware of how little we control in life. None more so than Epictetus, a Stoic philosopher of the first century AD, who grew up a slave in the Roman Empire (his name means “acquired”). He divided all of life into two categories: the things we control and the things we don’t. We don’t control the economy, the weather, other people, our reputation, our own bodies. We can influence these things, but we don’t have complete control over them. The only thing we do have control over is our own thoughts and beliefs, if we choose to exercise control.
Epictetus suggested that emotional problems arise when we try to exert complete control over something external. When I had social anxiety, for example, I rested all my self-esteem on others’ judgments of me. This made me feel very helpless, anxious and paranoid. The antidote to this self-enslavement was to stop trying to manage others’ opinion of me (which is impossible), and instead to focus on controlling my own thoughts and beliefs (which is possible). Then I immediately felt stronger and more in control, and eventually people started responding to me differently.
Sounds easy, right? Unfortunately, it’s not quite that simple. The problem, as the Greeks well knew, is that we’re incredibly forgetful creatures. We sleepwalk through life, as Socrates put it. We might read a book or hear a lecture and have a light-bulb moment, but then a few days later we forget and go back to our old way of seeing things. We are creatures of habits. Aristotle wrote: “It makes no small difference, then, whether we form habits of one kind or of another from our very youth; it makes a very great difference.”
The good news is that we can change our habits. Epictetus said “there is nothing more malleable than the psyche”, and contemporary neuroscience agrees. Every day, we have a choice to either reinforce a habit, or challenge it. The Greeks understood the importance of habits to the good life – their word “ethics” comes from “ethos”, meaning habit – and they developed some great techniques for habit-formation.
One technique is the maxim, which is the condensation of an idea into a short, memorisable phrase, like “everything in moderation”, “know thyself”, or “the robber of your free will does not exist”. Greek philosophy was designed to be memorised. Students would repeat these maxims over and over, even sing them, until they became neural habits. They’d also write maxims into little handbooks (enchiridia), which they carried around so they were always armed against their old bad habits.
CBT uses a similar technique. In the social anxiety audio course, we would read out handouts for half-an-hour every day for 10 weeks, and listen to them on tapes. I also had a little handbook with useful maxims in it – if I was having a bad day at work, I’d retreat to a nearby park and repeat some of its phrases to myself.
Another technique the Greeks used was keeping a journal. This is an important way to track your progress in strengthening moral habits. Epictetus recommended that, if you want to improve your temper, “count the days when you were not angry”. CBT also recommends using journals to keep track of unconscious habits and follow your progress.
Philosophy needs to be more than theory, it needs to be practice too. Epictetus warned: “We may be fluent in the lecture-room, but miserably shipwrecked when it comes to practice”. I couldn’t get over social anxiety purely by challenging my thoughts in the safety of my bedroom. I also needed to go out and practise, and make myself go to parties even when I was nervous. Every situation we’re in can be an opportunity to practise philosophy. Seneca, the Stoic philosopher and politician, wrote: “The Stoic sees all adversity as training.”
Today, CBT is available free on the NHS. It has brought some of the Greeks’ ideas to millions of people. Many people have used it to learn to “take care of their souls”, as Socrates put it – which is where the word “psychotherapy” comes from. I hope some of them might go back to the original source in philosophy, because CBT leaves a lot out – Greek philosophy wasn’t just a feel-good therapy, it was also a road map for the good life, and the good society.
I now live in London, and help to run the London Philosophy Club, which is the biggest in the world with more than 3,000 members. My book, Philosophy for Life, is being published in 19 countries, and I have taught in universities in the US and South Korea.
For someone who used to have crippling social phobia, I do a lot of talking – this summer I’m talking at Camp Bestival, at the School of Life in London, and at a “festival of happiness” in Holland. In November, some other Stoics and I are organising a week of events around the world, called “Live Like A Stoic Week”.
I’ve realised that philosophy can heal suffering and save lives. But it’s not necessarily the last word. Now, after 10 years of practising philosophy, I wonder if it leaves something out, if it’s too rational, self-controlled and unemotional.
I work at the University of London, at a place called the Centre for the History of Emotions, where this year I have started researching ecstatic experience, and how people can achieve euphoria through music, dancing, drugs or the passionate love of God. As a friend put it recently: “Back on ecstasy, eh?”
Five coping techiques from Stoic philosophy
1 Accept the limit of your control over externals
The Stoic philosopher Epictetus wrote: “Some things are up to us, others are not”. We don’t have complete control over externals, despite our best efforts, but we do have control over our thoughts and beliefs – so concentrate your energy there without driving yourself crazy over things you can’t immediately influence.
2 Focus on the present moment
Seneca, another Stoic, wrote: “What is the point of dragging up sufferings that are over, of being miserable now, because you were miserable then?” We can go through life walking backwards, constantly ruminating on past injuries or on how things were better in the past. Likewise we can worry endlessly about the future. Or we can simply choose to make the most of the present.
3 We are what we repeatedly do
It’s not enough to have occasional epiphanies. The key to the good life is good habits. We can create habits by memorising and repeating certain maxims, and by seeing every situation as an opportunity for training.
4 Contemplate the universe
If ancient philosophers were feeling particularly stressed by everyday concerns, they would find a quiet place and imagine the vast expanse of the universe. On such occasions the Stoic philosopher and Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius told himself: “Many of the anxieties that harass you are superfluous… Expand into an ampler region, letting your thought sweep over the entire universe.”
5 Let love lift you up
We don’t always think of philosophers as great lovers, but Plato claimed that the secret to philosophy was learning to love. He believed that we could lift ourselves out of egotism by passionately loving other people, or beauty, or goodness, and through love we could even connect to God.
The revival of stoicism
Stoicism was invented around 300BC, but it’s enjoying a revival today. Here are some contemporary Stoics:
Albert Ellis, the inventor of cognitive behavioural therapy, was inspired by the Stoics’ therapeutic ideas.
Derren Brown, the magician, is a big fan of the Stoics. His TV series, Apocalypse, was inspired by the Stoic technique of imagining the worst that can happen to you.
Elle “the body” Macpherson named her son Aurelius, after her favourite book: Meditations by the Stoic and Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius.
The former prime minister of China, Wen Jiabao, claims to have read Meditations more than 100 times.
James Stockdale used Stoic philosophy to survive seven years in a Vietnam POW camp. He went on to become vice-admiral of the US Navy.
Tom Wolfe “converted” to Stoicism after reading about Stockdale. The hero of his 1998 novel, A Man In Full, discovers Stoicism in prison.
In November, you can take part in “Live Like A Stoic Week”
'Philosophy for Life: And Other Dangerous Situations' by Jules Evans (Rider) is available from Telegraph Books at £8.99 + £1.10 p&p. Call 0844 871 1514; books.telegraph.co.uk
Jules Evans will be speaking at Camp Bestival, Lulworth Castle, Dorset, August 2
Philosophy for LifePlease enable Javascript to watch this video
LENOX HILL, Manhattan — A woman was struck and killed by a yellow cab Wednesday, police say.
It happened near East 68th Street and Lexington Avenue just after 5 a.m.
The woman was a passenger inside a yellow cab. She opened the back door and fell onto the street as the cab approached East 68th street.
That's when a second yellow cab ran her over and kept going, according to police sources.
The victim was transported to the hospital where she was pronounced dead, police said.
Jonathan McKenzie, a witness who works at the nearby Hunter College, said he was walking in the area when he saw a cab "peeling off" and the woman "mangled up," lying on the roadway.
A Toyota Camry used as a yellow cab fled the scene, according to detectives.
Lexington Avenue was closed between East 69th and East 68th streets during the investigation.
Submit tips to police by calling Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477), visiting http://www.nypdcrimestoppers.com, or texting 274637 (CRIMES) then entering TIP577. Spanish-speaking callers are asked to dial 1-888-57-PISTA (74782).'Off The Charts' Super Typhoon Haiyan Hits Philippines
Classified as a super typhoon, the Pacific storm Haiyan has made landfall in the Philippines, bringing top sustained winds that were measured at more than 195 miles per hour before landfall. The measurement reflects the winds sustained by the storm for one minute; the storm was also producing gusts of 230 mph.
Updated at 10:40 p.m. ET: Storm Strength Could Be Historic
The strength of the massive super typhoon could be record-setting, weather experts were saying Thursday night.
At 9:45 p.m. ET, The Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang reported: "With estimated maximum sustained winds of 195 mph, it is thought to be the strongest storm to ever make landfall anywhere in the world in modern records." Those winds speeds would be 5 mph higher than the recorded maximum sustained winds of Hurricane Camille in 1969, Super Typhoon Tip in 1979 and Hurricane Allen in 1980.
Jeff Masters, meteorology director and founder of Weather Underground in Ann Arbor, Mich., told Bloomberg that the power of Haiyan is "off the charts."
Update at 6:15 p.m. ET: Aid And Communication Resources
As has happened in other large events, Google has published a crisis and relief map, showing the storm's path and the locations of evacuation centers and other resources.
The Philippine Red Cross is also posting updates and news on its Twitter feed.
Update at 5 p.m. ET: Typhoon Makes Landfall
"Typhoon 'Yolanda' has made landfall over Guiuan, Eastern Samar," according to the Philippines' PAGASA weather agency's most recent advisory, issued at 5 a.m. local time.
Local news site ANC/Yahoo reports, "Typhoon Yolanda made landfall in Guiuan, Eastern Samar at 4:40am."
"The situation is potentially very destructive to communities," the weather agency says, noting the chance that trees, agriculture, and buildings could be destroyed in the powerful storm.
The typhoon will not be clear of the Philippines territory until early Saturday morning, according to PAGASA.
Haiyan, also called Yolanda within the Philippines, achieved a rare mark earlier Thursday.
"Haiyan has achieved tropical cyclone perfection," Florida meteorologist Brian McNoldy tweeted earlier today. "It is now estimated at 165kts (190mph), with an 8.0 on the Dvorak scale... the highest possible value."
Update at 2:15 p.m. ET: Winds Strengthen Further
Haiyan's maximum sustained winds have grown to 170 knots (196 mph), according to the just-released update from the U.S. Joint Typhoon Warning Center in Hawaii. Wind gusts are being measured at more than 230 mph.
The storm "has tracked westward at 21 knots over the past six hours," according to the update. "Maximum significant wave height... is 50 feet."
Our original post continues:
Haiyan, which is dubbed Yolanda in the Philippines, is the most powerful typhoon so far of 2013. The name Haiyan comes from China, where the word means "petrel" (the seabird).
Thousands of people are fleeing the predicted path of the fearsome storm, which is expected to roar ashore early Friday morning, local time. (The Philippines are 13 hours ahead of EST, according to PAGASA, the country's weather service.)
Haiyan is expected to hit the region of Eastern Visayas. As of 11 a.m. EST, it was reported to be 130 miles from Guiuan, in the region's Eastern Samar province.
President Benigno S. Aquino III used a national TV address Thursday to warn residents that they face a "calamity" and urge them to follow evacuation orders and take other precautions.
"Let me repeat myself: This is a very real danger, and we can mitigate and lessen its effects if we use the information available to prepare," he said, according to CNN.
Fueled by warm water temperatures, the storm "has maintained a sharply defined eye with multiple concentric rings and a deep convective eyewall," the U.S. Joint Typhoon Warning Center in Hawaii says. It adds that the system is moving at around 22 knots.
"Due to the extremely favorable environmental conditions and recent intensification, the system is expected to remain at super typhoon intensity over the next 24 hours," even after making an initial landfall, the typhoon warning center says.
After plowing through the Philippines, Haiyan is expected to continue on a westerly track that will take it to central Vietnam.
A powerful storm that struck India last month brought winds measured at 120 mph.*For more cool stories, pictures, and videos of chemistry demonstrations, click here*
S N 2 lab today. Preparation of (2-methylphenoxy)acetic acid from o-cresol and sodium chloroacetate. NaOH deprotonates cresol. Add sodium chloroacetate and reflux. S N 2 reaction occurs. Acidify, collect the precipitate, and recrystallize from water. Unfortunately, today’s lab took a really long time. I’m not sure why, but it did.
Anyway, I looked around for cool S N 2 demos… and there really aren’t any. Sure, I can do the Finkelstein at different concentrations and show that one precipitates NaCl faster than another because it is more concentrated. Woo hoo. That’s not very exciting. So I ultimately decided that today’s lab just isn’t going to have anything to do with the S N 2 reaction.
I decided to do the upsidedown thunderstorm. That’s my name. I’ve seen ‘thunderstorm in a test tube,’ but that’s not a very flashy name, now is it?
Here’s the deal: Add a layer of con’c sulfuric acid to a test tube (use all proper precautions for handling con’c acid!). Slowly and carefully add ethanol down the side to create an ethanol/acid biphase (if you leave it sit too long, the acid and ethanol will mix, so don’t let that happen). Add a few crystals of finely-ground potassium permanganate. The reaction occurs, and evolves a gas. The gas bubbles through the ethanol layer and looks like upsidedown rain. After a few seconds, “lightning” appears at the phase boundary, and the sulfuric layer becomes cloudy and purple (the storm clouds…). The ‘storm’ continues for several minutes. Manganese waste should probably not be thrown down the drain, so if you do this, dispose of it according to local regulations.
There appears to be a few different processes leading to ‘lightning’ formation. Permanganate is converted to the exposive Mn(VII) oxide. Additionally, ozone is created. The ozone oxidizes the ethanol resulting in combustion of the organic material. Wikipedia explains:
Concentrated sulfuric acid reacts with KMnO 4 to give Mn 2 O 7, which can be explosive … Potassium permanganate and sulfuric acid react to produce some ozone, which has a high oxidizing power and rapidly oxidizes the alcohol, causing it to combust. As a similar reaction produces explosive Mn 2 O 7, this should only be attempted with great care. An approximate equation for the ozone formation is shown below. 6 KMnO 4 (aq) + 9 H 2 SO 4 (aq) → 6 MnSO 4 (aq) + 3 K 2 SO 4 (aq) + 9 H 2 O(l) + 5 O 3 (g)
When I was practicing the demo, I wanted to see if I could scale it up some to make it more visible than just in a test tube. I tried it with about 20 mL each of the acid and alcohol in a beaker. The detonations were sufficiently energetic (and perhaps the ethanol layer was not tall enough) that the ethanol caught fire. I had a cute little ‘sterno’ burner going. For the actual demo, I switched to an Erlenmeyer flask which helped. No fire this time.
Storm In A Test Tube!They beheaded him when their ransom demands were not met. This is all according to Islamic law. Here is a salient passage on this issue from a Shafi’i manual of Islamic law:
When an adult male is taken captive, the caliph considers the interests … (of Islam and the Muslims) and decides between the prisoner’s death, slavery, release without paying anything, or ransoming himself in exchange for money or for a Muslim captive held by the enemy. (Umdat al-Salik (Reliance of the Traveller) o9.14)
A revered Islamic jurist, Al-Mawardi, agrees with Reliance of the Traveller:
As for the captives, the amir has the choice of taking the most beneficial action of four possibilities: the first, to put them to death by cutting their necks; the second, to enslave them and apply the laws of slavery regarding their sale or manumission; the third, to ransom them in exchange for goods or prisoners; and fourth, to show favor to them and pardon them. (Al-Ahkam As-Sultaniyyah (The Laws of Islamic Governance), 4.5)
“‘Vicious and brutal’: A second Canadian man is beheaded by Islamist militants in the Philippines,” by Ben Guarino, Washington Post, June 14, 2016:Chelsea's Ramires is closing in on a £25m move to Chinese side Jiangsu Suning.
But why would a 28-year-old Brazil international choose to leave champions Chelsea for a side who finished ninth in China's top tier in 2015?
The midfielder, signed from Benfica for around £17m in 2010, has only started seven Premier League games this season.
And opportunities under interim manager Guus Hiddink have been increasingly hard to come by.
But why China?
Well, there's the link Jiangsu have with his current club Chelsea for starters.
They are managed by former Blues defender Dan Petrescu.
On top of that, some of the Brazilian's international team-mates have been plying their trade in China for some time.
The Brazilian connection
Among the most famous is former Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Paulinho.
He signed for champions Guangzhou Evergrande in June 2015 on a four-year deal and for a fee of £9.9m.
The world-renowned former Real Madrid, Manchester City and AC Milan striker Robinho also played for Guangzhou last season.
He appeared in a side that featured several Brazilians and which continues to be managed by Brazil's former World Cup-winning coach Luiz Felipe Scolari.
International flavour
Scolari succeeded another World Cup winner in charge of Guangzhou - Italian Fabio Cannavaro - who replaced ANOTHER World Cup winner, former Italy boss Marcello Lippi.
And then there's the familiar face of Sven-Goran Eriksson.
He's in charge of Shanghai SIPG, has been working in China since 2013 and even recently claimed he'd like Manchester United and England Captain Wayne Rooney to join him.
Talking about life in China, the Swede was glowing in his praise.
"This is a fantastic country to live in. I live in Shanghai, and if you asked me to compare it to London, I honestly couldn't say which was better.
"Football is becoming huge here and they have very big ambitions for the Chinese Super League.
"We already have famous players, like Asamoah Gyan and Demba Ba, and they have brought something special.
"Football has become much, much bigger even in the time I have been here. I think in the years to come it will be huge and a player like Wayne Rooney could only help that development."
The money
Whether Rooney would ever decide to leave for the far east is debatable, but there's little doubt the pay is pretty good.
Though the only British players to move to China thus far are Maurice Ross in 2010, Derek Riordan in 2011 and Akpo Sodje in 2012.
However one of Eriksson's stars at Shanghai, the aforementioned former Sunderland striker Gyan, will be happy he upped sticks.
He supposedly became one of the highest paid players in world football last July.
The 29-year-old Ghanaian forward, who spent just one full season in the Premier League, is reported to earn around $350,000 per week (£247,000).
That is a weekly amount only bettered by a handful of football's finest - think Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
Growth
With money like that, the number of recognisable names setting foot on football fields in the Far East is only likely to grow.
Attendances are up, wages are definitely up, and so are sponsorship revenues.
Wealth and population increases in China have already turned sport into a multimillion-pound business, and clearly the Chinese Super League is on an upward curve too - just ask Ramires.
Listen: Chinese clubs have'massive plans and intentions'.
For more stories like this one you can now download the BBC Newsbeat app straight to your device. For iPhone go here. For Android go here.MARILYN MANSON 'Will Be Back In Action Soon,' Says Tyler Bates
Marilyn Manson "will be back in action soon" following an incident Saturday night when he was injured after a stage prop fell on him while he was playing in New York City.
The accident happened about forty-five minutes into Manson's set at Hammerstein Ballroom as tried to climb the prop — consisting of two enormous fake pistols — which was almost double his height. The huge prop toppled and knocked Manson to the stage.
A spokesman for Manson confirmed the singer was hurt and was being treated at a local hospital.
Manson's bandmate, producer and film composer Tyler Bates, who plays guitar and keyboards in Marilyn's group, offered an update on the singer's condition in an Instagram post early Sunday morning. He wrote: "Well, the Marilyn Manson 'Heaven Upside Down' tour is on pause for a minute. Heading home. Manson will be back in action soon. 'Heaven Upside Down' is released October 6th, with an insane video to stoke the fire. See you soon!"
Marilyn's North American tour kicked off on September 27 in Silver Spring, Maryland.
His new album, "Heaven Upside Down", sees him reunited with Bates following an epic collaboration on Manson's critically acclaimed 2015 release, "The Pale Emperor".Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn resigns amid Russia scandal
He's out. Trump national security adviser Michael T. Flynn resigned Monday night after revelations he misled VP Mike Pence and other senior White House officials about his conversations with Russia's ambassador to the United States.
National Security Adviser
Michael T. Flynn, Sashay Away. pic.twitter.com/7fsj0SRAqM — RuPaul (@RuPaul) February 14, 2017
Before his resignation letter was released, the Washington Post reported that the administration had been warned for weeks that Flynn was considered a potential Russia blackmail risk.
The White House says tonight that the acting national security adviser (in other words, not his replacement, but a temporary person to fill the post) will be retired Lt. General Joseph Keith Kellogg, Jr., a Vietnam War veteran.
Change in Headline pic.twitter.com/lTtxMHE4zW — Editing TheGrayLady (@nyt_diff) February 14, 2017
From the New York Times report tonight:
Mr. Flynn, who served in the job for less than a month, said he had given “incomplete information” to about a telephone call he had with the ambassador in late December about American sanctions against Russia, weeks before Mr. Trump’s inauguration. Mr. Flynn previously had denied that he had any substantive conversations with Ambassador Sergey I. Kislyak, and Mr. Pence repeated that claim in television as recently as earlier this month. But on Monday, a former administration official said the Justice Department last month warned the White House that Mr. Flynn had not been fully forthright about his conversations with the ambassador. As a result, the Justice Department feared that Mr. Flynn could be vulnerable to blackmail by Moscow. In his resignation letter, which the White House emailed to reporters, Mr. Flynn said he had held numerous calls with foreign officials during the transition. “Unfortunately, because of the fast pace of events, I inadvertently briefed the Vice President Elect and others with incomplete information regarding my phone calls with the Russian Ambassador,” he wrote. “I have sincerely apologized to the President and the Vice President, and they have accepted my apology.”
Andrea @mitchellreports gets to the heart of the matter: Did Flynn talk sanctions w/Russia on the order or approval of Trump—or anyone else? pic.twitter.com/y8b2bQDTJZ — Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) February 14, 2017
Worth noting that Gen. Flynn now leaves two administrations, from both political parties, in disgrace. — Brian Taff (@briantaff6abc) February 14, 2017
You can imagine North Korea is all "We launched a missile, and the US National Security Advisor resigned! SAY WHAT?" — James Ledbetter (@jledbetter) February 14, 2017
Worth reminding: #MikeFlynn saying 1.7 billion Muslims have a cancer & needs to be “excised”, didn’t prevent him from becoming NSA to #Trump — Bahman Kalbasi (@BahmanKalbasi) February 14, 2017
Not credible that Trump didn't know that Flynn had spoken about sanctions with the Russian Amb; as if Flynn could free lance on this alone.. — Nouriel Roubini (@Nouriel) February 14, 2017
.@MajorCBS says Petraeus meeting at WH will be later this week. https://t.co/UnNq9I3Bxv — margaret brennan (@margbrennan) February 14, 2017
Flynn out. Lt. Gen. Keith Kellog named "acting" National Security Adviser. Kellog was part of transition and well-known to @POTUS — Major Garrett (@MajorCBS) February 14, 2017
Mandy, Season 1 of the West Wing https://t.co/5P8GBApcs3 — Sopan Deb (@SopanDeb) February 14, 2017
Very interesting— K.T. McFarland, the Deputy Nat'l Security Adviser, was *not* named Acting NSA tonight. — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 14, 2017
Now we know that there is 1 person in America to whom WH officials are not allowed to lie: Mike Flynn. The other 320 mln are not so lucky — masha gessen (@mashagessen) February 14, 2017
Lol oh sure “to end the controversy.” https://t.co/IsYS6X9pl3 — Ana Marie Cox (@anamariecox) February 14, 2017
Sen Schumer said earlier today Flynn's security clearance should be withdrawn until an "independent investigation" was completed on him --> pic.twitter.com/zsVQDEVCEY — Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) February 14, 2017
Somehow I feel like rewatching "The Manchurian Candidate" & "From Russia With Love". — Clyde Haberman (@ClydeHaberman) February 14, 2017
.@MikePenceVP -- the quiet/nice one -- has now played a central role in the 2 biggest ousters of Trump, post-election: Christie and Flynn. — Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) February 14, 2017A much longer intermission so you have time to check everything you want to check
A button to skip the intermission if you want and go straight to matchmaking (Fireteam leader would override teammates)
"Is it long enough to do what you want between matches? Like, look at packs and / or read through the PGCR?We see people back out and re-search instead of waiting for it to finish. Is that because the intermission is too long?Would you prefer this:Or do you like it fine as it is, backing out and re-searching is fine, so a “skip” button would be redundant?"With increased search times I think the intermission timer is sufficient because you can buy req packs or change settings/armor during the search. Also, the work around of backing and researching is so easy I don't think its necessary to fix at this point.A small change will go in, probably later this week, that makes it so this doesn't work anymore. Playing with low ranked players will result in very little progress. The only way to Rank up effectively will be to party with people around your skill.The best players may eventually hit a wall where they are getting +1 win, -30 for a loss. This is just poor messaging that means, "Your performance these last few games has been the same, so no need to increase your CSR." Basically, their CSR has been found, so it doesn't need to go up any farther unless they start displaying significantly improved performances.This may rank lock the champ in the scenario of a champ/gold searching in doubles but it doesn't fix the issue of a silver/gold/plat matching a champ/gold combo. I think the majority of smurf accounts that do this do so to play against low ranks because its fun to just own lower level players. While a smurf account does continue to rank up they can just purposely derank and place silver/gold each season.Smurfing undermines the matchmaking system and gives lower skilled players a bad experience.If my understanding is correct you currently average each teams skill (Gold/Champ) and end up with a diamond average that faces diamond averages or lower.What can be done to fix the smurfing problem? You could just use the rank of the highest party member for searching, but that would lean towards unenjoyable games for the lower ranking party members. You could prevent a gold from searching with an onyx but this stops friends from playing together (Not sure how often this happens anyways aside from smurfing teams).Maybe there is another option to prevent this from happening that we haven't thought of.What kind of economy is consistent with living inside a living being? This question is being answered in experiments across the globe, from community forests in Mexico to "industrial symbiosis" in Denmark.
“What kind of economy is consistent with living inside a living being?” This was a question posed under a leafy canopy, deep in the woods of southern England, not far from Schumacher College where I’d come as a teacher. I stood listening with a group of students as resident ecologist Stephan Harding asked what for me would become a pivotal question – the only question there is, really, as we negotiate the turn from the industrial age into a new age of civilization.
I’d come to Schumacher to share my learnings from four years as cofounder of Corporation 20/20 at Tellus Institute in Boston, where I’d helped lead hundreds of experts in business, law, government, labor, and civil society to explore a critical question: How could corporations be redesigned to incorporate social and ecological aims as deeply as financial aims? Over 20 years as co-founder and publisher of Business Ethics magazine, I’d seen how corporations and financial markets had come to be the dominant institutions of society, how their profit-maximizing operating system had become the operating system of the planet. That design lay at the root of many major ills facing our society. But Stephan’s talk helped me understand why redesigning corporations did not quite hit the mark as the solution: You don’t start with the corporation and ask how to redesign it. You start with life, with human life and the life of the planet, and ask, how do we generate the conditions for life’s flourishing?
If you stand inside a large corporation and ask how to make a sustainable economy, the conversation has to fit itself into the frame of profit maximization. (“Here’s how you can make more money through sustainability practices.”) Asking corporations to change their fundamental frame is like asking a bear to change its DNA and become a swan.
A better place to start – as the founding generation of America did – is by articulating truths we hold to be self-evident. That’s what Stephan did in the forest, saying simply: “A thing is right when it enhances the stability and beauty of the total ecosystem. It is wrong when it damages it.”[i] The sustainability of the larger system comes first. Everything else must fit itself within that frame.
From maximizing profits to sustaining life
Central to the mandate of profit maximization is the imperative to grow – and that growth imperative threatens the earth. What keeps that mandate in overdrive is the Wall Street demand for rising profits and stock price. Corporations, and the capital markets where their ownership shares trade, are the internal combustion engine of the capitalist economy. These organizational systems have become the main driving force of ecological systems.
In the short run, profit-maximizing companies can help in a rapid transition to a greener economy. But that transition might represent a brief moment in time. If civilization and planetary ecosystems are still functioning well 50 years from now (not a small if), what about the next 50 years? And the next 100 or 1,000 years beyond that? What kind of economy will be suited for ongoing life inside the living earth? Will it be an economy dominated by massive corporations intent on earnings growth? That doesn’t seem likely. In the long view, the question turns itself about: Can we sustain a low-growth or no-growth economy indefinitely without changing dominant ownership designs?
That seems unlikely. Probably impossible. How do we make the turn? What are the alternatives to extractive design, that seeking of endless extraction of financial wealth? Can we design economic architectures that are self-organized around serving the needs of life?
Democratic ownership
After my time in England, this question set me on a quest, and I was heartened to find democratic ownership alternatives emerging in unsung, disconnected experiments across the globe. I studied employee ownership, tribal ownership, municipal ownership, commons ownership, social enterprise, community land trusts, and other models. If industrial-age ownership represents a monoculture model, emerging designs are rich in biodiversity. Yet they embody a coherent school of design – a common form of organization that brings the living concerns of the human and ecological communities into the world of property rights and economic power. These various models represent a single family of democratic forms of ownership, with living purposes at their core. Together, they potentially form the foundation for a gener |
said the Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, dean of Marsh Chapel. Hill said he opened the chapel as soon as the explosions hit and around 120 people came in to pray, talk or simply find a space to rest or use the bathroom. A university service of healing is scheduled for Wednesday evening.
“Students and faculty responded with real heart and real care,” Hill said.
Jerry Meng, 25, a graduate student in computer science, did not know Lu. He heard Tuesday morning that people in the Chinese community were trying to locate her and learned of her death Tuesday afternoon from news reports. “I feel sad about this whole thing,” he said. “It’s not just China, it’s every community.”
“What else can we say?” Meng said. “Just rest in peace.”The Seahawks are expected to sign tight end/receiver Morrell Presley, a street free agent out of Cal PA that tried out with the team at their rookie minicamp, Jayson Jenks reports. At his pro day in 2013, he was listed at 6'3, 225 pounds, ran a 40 in 4.69, broad jumped 9'11, with a 34.5" vert, a 4.46 short shuttle and 7.25 3-cone.
Out of high school in Los Angeles in 2008, then Pete Carroll's recruiting back-yard, Presley was rated the #1 tight end in the nation by Scout (five star) and was a four-star recruit by Rivals when he de-committed from Carroll's USC and signed with Rick Neuheisal's UCLA as a big-time recruit.
He played two years at UCLA with limited production before leaving the school after a string of off-field issues. He ended up at Cal (PA) and back on Pete Carroll's radar. He was with the Seahawks' for their rookie mini-camp tryout but didn't get a deal. He has one now.
The Seahawks have listed Presley as a receiver so I would lump him into the group of bigger guys that features Ricardo Lockette, Kevin Norwood, and most closely, Chris Matthews. He's the 13th receiver now on the 90-man roster so obviously the odds are stacked against him making the roster, but his size does give him an advantage because it's something most of the other guys don't have.Ben Kaufman founded Quirky in 2009, to “reinvent the invention of inventions.” On Friday afternoon, the company announced on its blog that Kaufman would be stepping away from the CEO role.
What transpired during the six years between is a cautionary tale fit for the Silicon era.
As of this writing, the lights are still on at Quirky. But with its financing depleted, its charismatic leader banished, a sizeable chunk of its workforce pink-slipped, and its mission statement whittled down to a nub, it's gone into cockroach mode. Of course, most startups fail. But the Quirky story is exceptional in both the quantity and quality of its failure.
Kaufman –in the role of the brash, anti-establishment founder/CEO who wears the same thing every day – seemed to be doing all the right things by the standards of the brash, anti-establishment conventional wisdom of Silicon Valley. No doubt this is what allowed him to burn through almost $185 million from blue chip Valley investors before giving up the ghost (of Steve Jobs).
If there are established rules in startupland, Kaufman seemed determined to follow them. As sources tell Pando, that was a big part of the problem.
Rule #1: Listen to your gut
By all accounts, Kaufman was as obstinate as he was charismatic when it came to realizing his broad vision. Sources intimately familiar with the company’s books, who wish to remain anonymous, told Pando that Kaufman refused to acknowledge the company’s troubling financials until it was far too late. This may account for why the company went through CFOs almost as fast as it did VC money, seeing four come and go in about as many years before Ed Kremer took the position.
Kremer has now stepped into the vacated CEO role. Kaufman was advised that the deals he was making with big box retailers were disadvantageous. He knew that the company’s quality assurance procedures were insufficient, that the savings from manufacturing in China were wiped out by his practice of rush air-freighting the finished products stateside to meet inflexible and unrealistic deadlines. He knew it, but he didn’t want to. He had a vision.
The vision was all about speed. “Design cool shit faster,” was the company motto back in 2010. Kaufman’s dream was to accelerate the product development cycle so as to go from napkin sketch to retail shelf in a matter of days and weeks rather than the typical months or years.
Rule #2: Fresh, young eyes, surrounded by trusted advisors
Kaufman founded Quirky when he was just 22. He’d recently sold his previous company, Mophie, which produced a popular iPhone case, and embarked on a larger goal – to upend the way inventions reach the marketplace. Quirky crowdsourced its inventions (a pivoting powerstrip, the smart egg tray, a garbage bin that dispenses pet food…) from a community that this year reached the million-user mark. From that point it put its own capital towards bringing the best ideas rapidly to market, with community input along the way. It secured distribution deals with big retailers including Home Depot, Target and Bed Bath and Beyond, which put the Quirky products on the shelf. It all happened in record time.
Kaufman wasn’t alone in executing this vision. Kleiner Perkin’s Mary Meeker and partners from Andreessen Horowitz, Norwest Venture Partners, and RRE Ventures filled out the company board. Chris Sacca’s Lowercase Capital was an investor and the company lists Sacca as an advisor. Quirky also has a partnership with General Electric, and GE’s venture investment arm contributed to its funding.
One former employee familiar with past board meetings said that Kaufman was able to distract these notables from the troubling financials by ensuring they were buried deep within a 400 page report.
Rule #3: Raise money while you can; buy yourself more time
Quirky has raised (and mostly spent) $185 million to date, making it the 12th most-funded VC-backed startup in New York City, according to CB Insights.
Much of that went into its one-of-a-kind product development pipeline, but Quirky didn’t skimp on the extras. With its headquarters in Chelsea, its customer service center in Schenectady, SoHo offices for subsidiary Wink, and splashy new offices in San Francisco, sources told Pando the company had committed to $30 million in lease agreements over ten years.
When a new condo complex opened near its Manhattan headquarters, Quirky snapped up three apartments there, two of them penthouses. A hundred grand was spent to remodel the Chelsea office’s kitchen space, including taps for wine and beer. In April, Kaufman told viewers of one of his regular Q&A broadcasts that the office went through two kegs of each every week. Meanwhile, inventory amounting to some $30 million moldered in a warehouse. Another $8 to $10 million in inventory was made obsolete during a rebrand, which ushered in expensive new packaging a la Apple.
Then there were the international operations, requiring different versions of that same expensive packaging for different countries. All while the company bled money stateside and had a long way to go to prove its business model here.
One source told Pando that in 2014 the Quirky burn rate hit $10 million per month. That is a significantly larger number than the average New York Series A.
Rule #4: Fuck it, ship it. Then iterate
As the venture capital flowed, Quirky moved fast and sold broken things.
The company cut deals with the big box retailers which essentially allowed them to take Quirky inventory on consignment with full return. Of the $10 million in smart products shipped last fall, sources say, $9 million’s worth came back.
And then there were the product recalls and the customer-service nightmares, chalked up to a slim-to-none QA program. Quirky promised speed. It built its Aros line of smart air-conditioners (a collaboration with GE) from scratch in just 100 days.
One early Aros customer in Texas required two replacement units and hours of technician’s time (the technician sent from NY on Quirky’s dime) before getting the thing to work.
Rule #5: Timing is everything
Quirky, and subsequently spun-out Wink, were both right on time. Quirky launched its crowdsourced inventing platform the month before Kickstarter debuted, and Wink – an internet of things/smart-home platform born in 2013 – was early to the party. Yet impeccable timing alone couldn’t save the company from itself.
The moral of the story
Aesop or Hans Christian Anderson have more to say on that than I do.
The Quirky story has yet to reach its end. Both the parent company and Wink are still hobbling along and they both have a modest brand, big-name partnerships, impressive user-bases and supportive “communities” to ease their hard-won pivots towards financial rectitude. The founding idea still holds charm, if not enough to separate VC firms from their LP's money.
Kaufman is still young, and bright and charismatic. Late last month, he made a somewhat sheepish appearance at Fortune’s Brainstorming Tech conference, in which he went part of the way towards owning up to his profligate spending, though stopping short he tried to pin the blame on the inflexible big box retailers who took Quirky for a ride. Still, it was a rare display of pathos for a brash young thing set on disrupting untold industries with the might of Sand Hill Road behind him.
In the age of the hagiography of Steve Jobs, the wisdom of crowds, and the profit-driven founder cults, we should hoist Kaufman on our shoulders and shout: Silicon Valley conventional wisdom ain’t always worth the paper it’s printed on.He might not be the Heisman favorite, but Oklahoma wide receiver Dede Westbrook deserves to be in New York for the finalist ceremony. His quarterback, Baker Mayfield, ain't too shabby, either.
Together, they connected for the best touchdown pass of Week 11 -- and maybe of the year.
Already leading Baylor 21-10 in the third quarter, Mayfield tossed a 40-yard bomb to Westbrook, who high-pointed the ball for a touchdown.
WATCH: Baker Mayfield and Dede Westbrook do it again. #Soonerspic.twitter.com/O1CDwzrVPf — Sooner Gridiron (@soonergridiron) November 12, 2016
It's an incredible individual effort by Westbrook, who was well-covered, but Mayfield's pocket awareness and "jump pass" are underrated parts of this play.
The touchdown gave Westbrook his 14th receiving score of the season -- all since the start of October. It's his fifth multi-touchdown game of the year. As Tom Fornelli will vouch, they don't call him TeDe Westbrook for nothing.
The Sooners might be out of the playoff conversation for all intents and purposes, but you'd be hard-pressed to find many teams playing better than they are at the moment.Likability. Shmikability. From the very beginning we’ve heard stories from people who don’t like Ted Cruz about how “unlikable” he is. No one has ever come up with an measure of this other than, after an election, political consultants sitting around, knocking back expensive scotch, and saying, “damn, I would have won but my candidate just wasn’t likable.” I’ve never believed it. I still don’t believe it (Nixon was more likable than Humphrey? Gore — who won the popular vote — was more likable than anyone?). But, be that as it may, some have told me, well, all you do is look at the favorables and unfavorables and that tells you if the candidate is likable. Silly, right? But I can show you that precise conversation here on RedState.
Anyway, to the story.
Gallup released a poll showing that Jeb Bush was very unpopular with Republicans. He is THE ONLY GOP candidate who has a negative favorability rating. In short, there is no identifiable group that will vote for Jeb Bush so long as the dog of any other candidate is still alive.
What struck me as most interesting was this table:
If you look at the earlier Gallup poll on the same subject you see:
Both Cruz and Rubio have increased favorability as the campaign has progressed, though Cruz now leads Rubio by a 10 points after trailing him in October and November. This implies that both men are in a great position to win the nomination though Cruz is becoming the consensus candidate in the GOP.
The other factoid would seem to be Donald Trump’s ability to shift the Overton Window on any subject. We’ve joked here that Trump has succeeded in making any solution for dealing with illegal immigration that doesn’t involve rounding up 11 million people and frog marching them across the border seem sane and reasonable. Note that Trump has gone from a -3 favorability to a +24 (leading Christie, Kasich, and Bush) over the course of three months.Coinprism, the colored coin startup that created the Open Assets protocol as experimented with by NASDAQ and Overstock, has announced Openchain.
Openchain is an open-source distributed permissioned ledger with optional “anchors” into the Bitcoin blockchain. It is designed to solve Bitcoin's scalability and compliance issues as encountered by financial institutions, while still enabling several of the use cases offered by the Bitcoin blockchain.
While Bitcoin's blockchain currently offers a trustless public ledger, and is secured by a record amount of hashing power, existing financial institutions are often unable to make use of these properties. Most importantly, Bitcoin has proved to be a challange from a regulatory perspective, as regulators often require financial institutions to offer a level of accountability that Bitcoin cannot give them.
“Public ledgers like Bitcoin have been problematic for financial institutions as transaction validation is delegated to a group of potentially unknown parties – the miners – while financial institutions are often legally required to vet every transaction going through them,” Coinprism founder and CEO Flavien Charlon said in a statement. “Openchain has been designed with these requirements in mind, and offers full control on transaction validation.”
Openchain allows each company or institution to deploy its own version of Openchain, for internal use. Within these companies or institutions, each level of the organization can transact on the corresponding level of their Openchain, using their unique digital signatures.
As such, higher levels within the organization have access to higher levels of the ledger, and are able to set permissions for lower levels. These lower levels, in turn, have access only to the lower levels of the ledger.
This, in effect, replicates the existing structure of an organization onto a blockchain-like system, while incorporating some of the advantages of blockchain technology such as transparency and auditability.
Additionally, Openchain allows different organizations to transact conceptually similar to how financial institutions currently conduct business. Essentially, several companies or institutions can set up mutual gateways through an API, connecting their Openchain ledgers.
This allows these organizations to create an account on the other Openchain, acting as a mutual liability. Once a transaction is validated by both parties, the accounts on both Openchain ledgers are adjusted simultaneously.
“Openchain features a powerful hierarchical account system, a hybrid between a file system and a double-entry accounting system,” Charlon said. “This lets the administrator of an Openchain instance define their business rules, such as anti-money laundering and know your customer regulation, by setting various permissions on accounts, with different levels of granularity.”
Because the distributed permissioned ledger uses a simplified and trust-based consensus mechanism, it exceeds Bitcoin's capabilities on a technical level. While Bitcoin is currently limited to a handful of transactions per second, Openchain offers several orders of magnitude more transactions than that. On top of that, Openchain's transaction validation is virtually instant.
Meanwhile, Openchain offers immutability by publishing “anchors” into the main Bitcoin blockchain at regular intervals. It can then benefit from the security and irreversibility of Bitcoin while keeping transaction costs to a minimum.
“While proof of work is central to building a fully autonomous, decentralized currency such as Bitcoin, it actually becomes a burden when you start tokenizing assets,” Charlon explained. “With Openchain, we have taken all the key characteristics of a Blockchain like immutability, auditability and programmability, but removed the legacy of proof of work. This allowed us to build an extremely efficient and scalable platform with no compromise.”
Openchain open source and is now available on
GitHub
Coinprism offers a test wallet at
wallet.openchain.org
for developers and curious users to start experimenting with it.WASHINGTON –
In recent months there have been secret contacts between the Iranian government and the leadership of al-Qaeda, top officials in the White House, the Pentagon and the intelligence community said Thursday.
Iranian Threat US: Strong reasons to suspect Iran was working covertly to build atomic bomb AFP Western diplomat says IAEA 'alarmed' that Islamic Republic in possession of document describing process of machining uranium metal into two hemispheres of the kind used in nuclear warheads. Iran's ambassador to UN atomic watchdog says intelligence 'lousy, fake' US: Strong reasons to suspect Iran was working covertly to build atomic bomb
Iran will allow these operatives to go free, but said they don't know Iran's motivation for initiating the talks.
"Iran likely sees these individuals as major bargaining chips," one official said. "How and when they're going to use those chips or whether they are going to keep them in the bank is part of an ongoing strategic discussion they are having internally."
Shortly after the US invaded Afghanistan in late 2001, al-Qaeda's central leadership broke into two groups. US intelligence believes that one group, headed by Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri, fled to the east to find safe haven in Pakistan's tribal areas.
The second group went west to Iran, and intelligence analysts postulate that this group includes al-Qaeda's management council, or "shura," which numbers about two dozen militants, including Adel, al-Qaeda spokesman Suliman abu Ghaith and some of Bin Laden's relatives, including two of his sons, Saad and Hamza.
These militants are considered to be among the most dangerous terrorists in the world. Adel is on the FBI list of Most Wanted Terrorists and is a suspect in the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The State Department has put a $5 million bounty on his head.
Iranian authorities detained these militants in 2003, and they have been under what one US official called "loose house arrest" in Iran ever since. The US government quietly sent messages to Iran through the Swiss government, requesting that the al-Qaeda figures be turned over to their native countries for interrogation and trial. Iran has refused.
US intelligence analysts have several theories as to why al-Qaeda and Tehran have recently renewed contact. According to one theory, Iran initiated the talks as a threat to the United States; so that if the US takes hostile action against Iran, these captives could be released, and set free to plot attacks against the West.The decision to move a world-famous photography collection in Bradford to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London has been condemned as “an appalling act of cultural vandalism”.
The move will see 400,000 objects from the Royal Photographic Society collection at Bradford’s National Media Museum transferred to London to create an “international photography resource centre”.
Focus of Bradford photo archive shifts south to the V&A | Letters Read more
The decision, lauded by both museums, has angered local politicians and art enthusiasts who described it as a paring down of Bradford’s resources “by stealth” and a step towards closing the National Media Museum.
Why must a Bradford museum lose its treasures to London? | Sam Jordison Read more
Simon Cooke, the leader of the Conservatives on Bradford council, described the move as an “act of cultural rape on my city” and called for the deal to be reviewed.
He said: “I know London is a big, grand and fantastic city but to denude my city of these photographs reminds us that you – all the V&A’s trustees are based in London, many will never have visited Bradford – care not one jot for our heritage and history.
“I know you are incredibly excited by all this but, trust me, you could – had you had the guts and vision – have based this new resource centre in the north, in Bradford, where they would have been loved and cherished in a way you in London can never understand. We don’t have much up here and it fills me with a kind of sad rage that you felt able to visit this act of cultural rape on my city.
“I don’t expect anything to happen. You’ll make some sort of gesture, will utter a few banal platitudes and punch the air because the collection is where you and your pals can pop round, can show off to visiting dignitaries. A plague on you and your metropolitan cultural fascism.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The move has reignited fears over the long-term future of the National Media Museum, which sailed close to closure in 2013. Photograph: Alamy
The collection, dating from 1827 to 2016, has been based in Bradford’s National Media Museum since 2003.
Among the treasures moving to the V&A are works by the British photography pioneers William Henry Fox Talbot, who invented the negative/positive process for producing photographs, and Julia Margaret Cameron, known for her pre-Raphaelite-inspired portrait photography.
In a statement announcing the move, the Royal Photographic Society said it had serious reservations about moving the collection from a single national museum dedicated to the history of photography.
It said that while the move would prove beneficial in “opening up access to the RPS collection” the society “is concerned that the absence of a single institution with the curatorial expertise to collect and interpret all aspects of photography beyond its art will lead to a selective and narrow appreciation of photography that existed before the formation of the National Media Museum in 1983 when the V&A and Science Museum worked independently”.
Michael Pritchard, the director general of the Royal Photographic Society, said the move was disappointing but that there were serious practical considerations behind it. He said it would increase the collection’s accessibility “in both a geographical sense and through the resources that the V&A is able to bring ensure public and research access”.
Pritchard added: “The media museum has suffered declining staff and funding cuts over recent years which has impacted on public access to the collection, despite the very best efforts of the curatorial staff.”
Imran Hussain, the Labour MP for Bradford East, said the move smacked of “absolute metropolitanism” and that he would be writing to the culture minister to demand an explanation.
“It’s a real blow to Bradford,” he said. “We have just spent the last few years progressing in the right direction and now this. It’s going to have a major impact... culturally and on education, because there’s children who will not get to see this collection.”
The decision is “in direct contravention” to the government’s northern powerhouse rhetoric, he said, and had been made without the consultation of local MPs. “What are the reasons? Is it because it’s easier for various people to visit it in London? Is Bradford not good enough? It will mean that many people will not now come to Bradford.”
The move has reignited fears over the long-term future of the National Media Museum, which sailed perilously close to closure in 2013.
Judith Cummins, the Bradford South MP, said: “It was just over three months ago that I received assurances from the government about keeping the museum here in Bradford and, importantly, keeping the entry free.
“Visitor numbers have been rising, so to learn an important collection – which is 10% of the collection as a whole – is to be shipped off to London starts alarm bells ringing.”
Colin Ford, the first director of the museum, added: “This looks as if it may be a step towards closing the museum. This doesn’t fit in any way with the government’s avowed intention to create a ‘northern powerhouse’. Quite the opposite. What we’ve found is that metropolitanism is triumphing again.”
Councillor Susan Hinchcliffe, the portfolio holder for culture on Bradford council, said she “profoundly regrets” the loss of the collection.
But, she said, the government must bear responsibility for the cuts in funding to the National Media Museum. “Let’s not forget that the National Media Museum was under threat of closure not so long ago and while the council has provided financial support, the only support they’ve had from government has been a loan for the new Imax projector,” she said.
“We have a strong history of photography in the city and if there’s investment going into the V&A in London then why don’t we see the same investment opportunity in Bradford?
“It’s yet another example of the government not supporting investment in Bradford and shows up their much-vaunted northern powerhouse for what it is – empty rhetoric.”
A spokesman for the National Media Museum said: “We are not closing. Quite the contrary. We have ambitious plans for the future and strong support both within the Science Museum Group and among key local stakeholders such as the council.”
In 2013, the National Media Museum was said to contribute more than £24m a year to the Bradford economy in purchases made by museum visitors in local cafes and shops across the city. It provides about 100 jobs that add an extra £3.7m to the city’s economy.
Jo Quinton-Tulloch, director of the National Media Museum, said the move would sharpen the museum’s focus on science and technology and add value to Bradford. The museum’s new focus is to be heralded by a new £1.5m interactive light and sound gallery, due to open in March 2017.
The culture secretary, John Whittingdale, warned on Monday of a “danger” of too much arts funding being focused on the capital.
“I do think there is a danger that too much is spent in London and obviously what we want to do is demonstrate that the UK has fantastic cultural offerings right across the country and not just in London,” he said.
Whittingdale said culture and tourism had a “very significant” part to play in the government’s economic vision for the north of England.
The Yorkshire Post has previously revealed the huge geographic differences in funding from Arts Council England. Last year, Yorkshire received £11.46 per person compared to £33.77 in the capital.Dealing with some lingering autumn heat can put a damper on the desire for spicy foods, but whether served before the meal as a nibble or as part of a larger assortment of noteworthy noshes, these popper-style lightly fried cauliflower florets will sideline your practicality and dazzle your tastebuds.
Serves 4
1/2 cup flour 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon cayenne 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin 1/4 teaspoon ground coriander 1/8 teaspoon baking soda 1/8 teaspoon baking powder 2/3 cup water, plus more as needed 1/4 cup canola oil, for frying 3 cups cauliflower florets, steamed Plain non-dairy yogurt Chaat masala (optional) Mint or tamarind chutney (optional)
3. Arrange florets on a plate and drizzle with yogurt. Sprinkle with chaat masala, top with a spoonful of chutney, and serve immediately.
2. In a skillet over medium-high heat, heat oil. Dip florets in batter individually, and add to skillet and cook until crisp on both sides, turning once. Repeat until all florets are cooked.
1. In a medium bowl, combine flour, salt, cayenne, cumin, coriander, baking soda, and baking powder. Stir in water to make a thin batter.
Want more of today’s best plant-based news, recipes, and lifestyle?
Get our award-winning magazine!Just in case you're thinking of taking up a second language soon, language-learning website Voxy put together this handy infographic breaking down which languages are hardest for English speakers to learn.
Compiled using information from multiple sources, including the Foreign Service Institute of the US Department of State, the infographic breaks down the amount of time it generally takes English speakers to pick up foreign languages.
You can see a bigger version here.
According to the data, most western European languages are classified as easy to learn - with English speakers estimated to achieve proficiency in around 600 class hours (or 24 weeks).
Russian, Hindi, Thai, Polish and Greek, on the other hand, take around 44 weeks to learn, while the hardest languages, which include Japanese, Korean, Chinese and Arabic, can take more than a year and a half to reach proficiency in.
But even though it can be hard work, science has shown that learning a second language at any age slows down mental decline, and scientists have also worked out exactly how it changes your brain.
What are you waiting for?
An earlier version of this article was published December 2017.Tycho Brahe spotted a supernova in 1572, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Almost 450 years later, Tycho's supernova is still offering insight into how stars explode.
Astrophysicist Hiroya Yamaguchi has mapped the leading edge of a "reverse shock wave" inside Tycho's supernova. As the shock wave pushes back from the supernova's edge toward the center, it heats detritus of the still-expanding supernova.
"The temperature cooled from billions of degrees (during the initial explosion) to a thousand degrees or less, and now we're seeing it get back up to temperatures between 1 million and 10 million degrees," says Randall Smith, who works with Dr. Yamaguchi at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) and is a co-author on the paper in an upcoming issue of Astrophysical Journal.
When a star explodes as a supernova, it's bright and hot for a few months – this one was briefly brighter than Venus – but the visible light quickly fades away, as the star's remaining material cools. But almost 500 years after the explosion of Tycho's supernova, the remnants are still emitting X-rays, visible to specialized telescopes. Why?
To answer the question, Yamaguchi looked at the heavier metals inside the supernova remnant, like iron, chromium, and manganese. And then he found something he didn't expect: Cold iron, in a place where the models predicted something else.
"He was my post-doc at the time," recalls Smith. "He came to me and said, 'This shouldn't be here. According to all of our models that we use to fit all the rest of the data, the iron should be much more evolved than this.... We're seeing something unusual, and everybody else that looked at this missed it.' I looked at it and said, 'You're absolutely right!' "
By mapping the locations of the colder and hotter iron, Yamaguchi's team discovered that the cold iron inside a supernova remnant gets flash-heated by the leading edge of the "reverse shock wave," which moves back toward the center of the supernova at about 9 million miles per hour. That's about a thousand times faster than sound could travel through the remnant material, so the researchers described the speed as "Mach 1000" in a press release.
As the leading edge of the shock wave passes through the cold iron inside Tycho's supernova, the extraordinary amount of energy in the screaming-fast shock wave heats the iron from a few hundred degrees to over a million degrees, causing it to emit X-ray light. "We wouldn't be able to study ancient supernova remnants without a reverse shock to light them up," says Yamaguchi.
So what's a "reverse shock"?
"In the supernova remnant there are two shocks, the forward shock and the reverse shock," explains Nancy Brickhouse, another co-author on the paper. When the exploding star slammed into surrounding interstellar gas, it created both shock waves: The forward shock wave is still billowing outward into space, while the reverse shock wave, like cosmic whiplash, is whipping backward, three times faster.
A tale of two telescopes
To locate the reverse shock wave, Yamaguchi used data from two X-ray telescopes, Chandra and Suzaku.
Chandra has the "best imaging performance of any X-ray telescope in the world," says Smith, but Suzaku is more sensitive to faint emissions at the energies of these X-rays, so Suzaku is actually better equipped to detect heavy metals that have already gone dark inside the explosion. The two telescopes combined to tell a surprising story, Smith says. "Chandra made a beautiful map of where the hotter iron is, but it couldn't see the colder stuff. But with a telescope that's 100 times worse in terms of blurriness, we can measure (the colder iron) now, and we can prove that it's inside the hot stuff."
"The heat of the initial explosion is immense, measured in billions of degrees," says Dr. Smith. "That drops off almost immediately," within a few months. And then comes the reverse shock wave, propagating inward over the centuries, and temperatures begin to rise again.
"We're seeing cold iron that has been less than a thousand degrees, and it's now sitting in an electron bath of 10 million degrees," says Smith. "We're catching it in the middle of the wave, just as it's passed through the reverse shock wave 'front' and is now rapidly heating up."
Hopefully, better understanding the shock waves and the internal temperature structure of the supernova remnants will help resolve some fundamental questions about these kind of explosions, called Type Ia supernovae, Smith adds.
Get the Monitor Stories you care about delivered to your inbox. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy
"To give you an idea of the level of our lack of understanding: We do not know (whether) these come from two white dwarf stars that collide with each other, or one white dwarf star that... sucks material from a regular star. Those are two very different models for how these kind of stars explode, and we don't know which one's right. We don't even know if those are the only two options." By better understanding the interior workings of Tycho's supernova, scientists are one step closer to resolving that question, known as the degenerate dwarf or double-degenerate debate.
The supernova has a few more surprises in store for astronomers. "In another few hundred years, the reverse shock wave will have reached the center, and all the gas will be hot," says Smith. It's anybody's guess what happens next.on •
THE GUERRILLA ANGEL REPORT — That’s right, it’s news to me, too. In the late 1950s when General Charles de Gaulle ruled France, police arrested and beat trans women for being ‘men dressed as women outside the period of carnival’.
That didn’t stop Christer Strömholm from coming to Paris to photograph and document trans women struggling with the oppressive living conditions of the era and their making money for sex change surgery in dehumanizing ways — something still common to many trans people today.
An exhibition of Strömholm’s photographs will be run from May 18th through Sept, 2012 in New York City.
From the International Center of Photography:
Christer Strömholm (1918–2002) was one of the great photographers of the 20th century, but he is little known outside of his native Sweden. This exhibition presents his most powerful and acclaimed body of work: Les Amies de Place Blanche, a documentation of transsexual “ladies of the night” in Paris in the 1960s. Arriving in Paris in the late 1950s, Strömholm settled in Place Blanche in the heart of the city’s red-light district. There, he befriended and photographed young transsexuals struggling to live as women and to raise money for sex-change operations. Strömholm’s surprisingly intimate portraits and lush Brassaï-like night scenes form a magnificent, dark, and at times quite moving photo album, a vibrant tribute to these girls, the “girlfriends of Place Blanche.”
via Christer Strömholm: Les Amies de Place Blanche | International Center of Photography.
International Center of Photography website: http://www.icp.org/visit
————
You’re welcome to share this entire article!
Follow this topic and others on Lexie Cannes’ Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/lexiecannes
Get the transgender-themed feature film “Lexie Cannes“ here:
http://www.LexieCannes.com
Share this: Twitter
Facebook
Reddit
LinkedIn
Tumblr
Google
Print
Pocket
Email
Pinterest
Like this: Like Loading...
Categories: Transgender, Transsexual, TransAutism is a mysterious developmental disease because it often leaves complex abilities intact while impairing seemingly elementary ones. For example, it is well documented that autistic children often have difficulty correctly using pronouns, sometimes referring to themselves as "you" instead of "I."
A new brain imaging study published in the journal Brain by scientists at Carnegie Mellon University provides an explanation as to why autistic individuals' use of the wrong pronoun is more than simply a word choice problem. Marcel Just, Akiki Mizuno and their collaborators at CMU's Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging (CCBI) found that errors in choosing a self-referring pronoun reflect a disordered neural representation of the self, a function processed by at least two brain areas -- one frontal and one posterior.
"The psychology of self -- the thought of one's own identity -- is especially important in social interaction, a facet of behavior that is usually disrupted in autism," said Just, a leading cognitive neuroscientist and the D.O. Hebb Professor of Psychology at CMU who directs the CCBI. "Most children don't need to receive any instruction in which pronoun to use. It just comes naturally, unless a child has autism."
For the study, the research team used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to compare the brain activation pattern and the synchronization of activation across brain areas in young adults with high-functioning autism with control participants during a language task that required rapid pronoun comprehension.
The results revealed a significantly diminished synchronization in autism between a frontal area (the right anterior insula) and a posterior area (precuneus) during pronoun use in the autism group. The participants with autism also were slower and less accurate in their behavioral processing of the pronouns. In particular, the synchronization was lower in autistic participants' brains between the right anterior insula and precuneus when answering a question that contained the pronoun "you," querying something about the participant's view.
"Shifting from one pronoun to another, depending on who the speaker is, constitutes a challenge not just for children with autism but also for adults with high |
U.S. and Europe. Russian government photos from the meeting—American photographers were barred from the event—portrayed what seemed to be a friendly, even lighthearted, meeting between the president and Russia’s top diplomats.
A Wednesday report from the New York Times detailed concerns both within and outside of the administration that Trump and Putin might emerge looking like allies and friends, a sentiment that officials also relayed to The Daily Beast.
“Yeah, it’s a concern,” a third White House official, citing fallout over Trump’s May meeting, said of those potential pitfalls. “After Lavrov, it’s always a concern.”
Part of the concern stems from Trump’s tendency to shoot from the hip in tweets and public statements that frequently contradict statements from his own aides. That habit ensnared National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and his deputy Dina Powell in the aftermath of the Lavrov meeting, when they all-but-denied that Trump had divulged sensitive intelligence to the Russians, only to have the president tacitly confirm that he did hours later.
McMaster and Powell were both in the room for that meeting. And senior aides are pushing for Powell to join Hill during the president’s Putin pow-wow as well, according to administration sources. As of Wednesday, the list for those participating in the meeting had not yet been finalized.
But aides have been pushing to stack the meeting with officials who might help nudge Trump in the right direction—or at least present a more politically palatable front.
“The idea is to get as many adults in the room as humanly possible,” one senior administration official said.
—with additional reporting by Spencer AckermanIs man on the threshold of a new world or merely stuck on a circular treadmill repeating the doomed lessons from history which he never seems to learn? A growing number of scholars believe the world’s macabre fascination with nuclear war is just the latest repeat in a series of blunders human technology seems obsessed with repeating.
a single projectile charged with all the power of the Universe. An incandescent column of smoke and flame As bright as the thousand suns Rose in all its splendour… a perpendicular explosion with its billowing smoke clouds… …the cloud of smoke rising after its first explosion formed into expanding round circles like the opening of giant parasols…..it was an unknown weapon, an iron thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death, which reduced to ashes The entire race of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas. …The corpses were so burned as to be unrecognizable. The hair and nails fell out; Pottery broke without apparent cause, And the birds turned white. After a few hours All foodstuffs were infected… …to escape from this fire, the soldiers threw themselves in streams to wash themselves and their equipment.Anthony Sadler, (center) who along with two friends stopped a possible massacre aboard a European train last week in France, is joined by Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, (right) and his father Tony Sadler, (left) during a press conference in his honor at City Hall in Sacramento, Calif. on Wed. August 26, 2015. less Anthony Sadler, (center) who along with two friends stopped a possible massacre aboard a European train last week in France, is joined by Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, (right) and his father Tony Sadler,... more Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 7 Caption Close 1st of 3 train attack heroes comes home to exuberant welcome 1 / 7 Back to Gallery
— One of the three Northern California men hailed as heroes for attacking and subduing a gunman on a French train made his first public appearance since returning home, earning accolades and a standing ovation from local officials and fans.
Anthony Sadler, a 23-year-old Cal State Sacramento student who once lived in Pittsburg, spoke briefly at a news conference Wednesday in Sacramento, expressing gratitude and bewilderment before leaving the stage, where his father and Mayor Kevin Johnson fielded questions.
“It feels great to be back on American soil and especially Sacramento,” the younger Sadler said. “It’s kind of overwhelming for me. I didn’t expect this to happen. I’m just glad to be back home.”
Sadler, along with two friends from the Sacramento area who were on a European sightseeing trip, Alek Skarlatos and Spencer Stone, averted a possible massacre Friday by tackling a man with an AK-47 rifle, Ayoub El Khazzani, aboard a train traveling from Amsterdam to Paris, officials said.
The three, along with British businessman Chris Norman, received France’s highest decoration, the Legion of Honour, for their bravery. “They gave us an example of what is possible to do in these kinds of situations,” French President Francois Hollande said.
On Wednesday, more than 100 people came to see Sadler speak at Sacramento City Hall. The crowd erupted when the college student walked out on the stage with the mayor, who said Sadler and his friends represented the people and core values of Sacramento.
“It’s not lost on me as a mayor that the story we are celebrating today could be different without the bravery of Alex, Spencer and Anthony,” Johnson said. “All of us felt an incredible sense of pride when we found out those three heroes were from Sacramento.”
Sadler’s dad said he learned of what happened while sitting in a barber chair, his son texting him so he would answer the phone. “He began by saying, ‘Dad, I’m all right. We’re all right, but something happened,’” the elder Sadler said at the news conference.
The relieved father said he would let the young men tell their own story in the coming days. In the meantime, Sacramento is planning to hold a parade for the three friends when they all return to the area.
“At the appropriate time, we’re going to throw a parade that’s fit for some kings,” Johnson said.
Stone serves in the U.S. Air Force and Skarlatos is a National Guardsman who lives in Oregon. Sadler, a senior at Cal State Sacramento, arrived home Tuesday evening.
The three friends, who have known each other since middle school, jumped into action when they saw a man enter their train compartment with a gun. “One said, ‘Go,’ and they knew that the other would have their back,” the mayor said.
Read Full ArticleChurches were closed due to clashes that erupted from extremists (AFP/File)
The Coptic Archbishopric of Upper Egypt’s governorate of Minya released a statement on Sunday in which it said that four churches were closed during October and expressed condemnation towards the government for total inattention.
According to the statement, churches, located in different villages inside the governorate, were closed by security officials or due to clashes that erupted following assaults from extremists.
“In only two weeks, four churches were closed, the churches’ people were subjected to assaults from extremists, and all this took place as if praying in churches is considered a ‘crime,’” the statement read.
On a regular basis, the government takes action in the wake of any assaults from extremists against Copts in Minya. This action is an attempt at ‘reconciliation’. However, this action is aggressive to Copts based there, the statement noted.
Moreover, the government is not only using this ‘reconciliation’ as a mean to end any assaults from extremists against Copts and Coptic facilities but also resorts to the closure of these facilities to put end to the ongoing assaults against Copts, the statement added.
This article has been adapted from its original source.According to an RT.com article dated 8 July 2014, nationalist party MP Roman Khudyakovof has urged Банк России (Bank of Russia) to change the design of the 100-ruble note because it depicts the penis of the Greek god Apollo, in violation of Russia's 2010 law designed to protect children from "information that could be harmful to their health and development."The note depicts a statute of Apollo riding a chariot above the pediment of Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre. During renovations of the Bolshoi, a fig leaf was added to the statue, covering Apollo's genitals, so Khudyakovof argues that not only is the note pornographic, it's no longer an accurate representation of the statue as it currently exists.The image first appeared on the 100,000-ruble note dated 1995 (CBR B14) and is now seen on the current note dated 2004 (CBR B24).According to an article in The Telegraph dated 22 August 2014, the central bank has refused the appeal to withdraw or revise the note, claiming it is not pornographic and the image is too small to be offensive.RCMP are investigating the second sudden death of a young woman in the same apartment this month in Moncton.
The Codiac Regional RCMP were notified of the sudden death of a 22-year-old woman at an apartment on Gordon Street just before 1 p.m. Wednesday.
A 40-year-old man was detained shortly after by Codiac RCMP at the apartment. He is facing a mischief charge unrelated to the death.
On July 2, 2014, police were called to the same apartment regarding the sudden death of a 25-year-old woman.
While foul play is not suspected in that case, police are awaiting the results of an autopsy.
In the case of the death of the 22-year-woman, no cause of death has yet been established.
An autopsy is being conducted to assist police. No names are being released at this time.
Police say the investigation is continuing.Sheriff David Clarke oversees the Milwaukee County Jail. David Clarke (Flickr) Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, who recently said he has accepted a position as an assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, plagiarized at least 47 parts of his master's thesis, CNN's KFile reported on Saturday.
Clarke, a controversial figure and prominent surrogate of President Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign, received his master's degree in security studies from the Naval Postgraduate School in California.
Clarke currently oversees the Milwaukee County Jail, where one newborn baby and three inmates have died since April 2016. The deaths are being investigated, and prosecutors say one of the inmates died from dehydration after jail staff cut off water access to his cell.
In each of the 47 instances, Clarke appears to have attributed sources in footnotes but failed to use quotation marks around language that was lifted verbatim or partially verbatim.
According to the Naval Postgraduate School's academic integrity policy, quotation marks are required for language that has been taken verbatim from a source:
"Whenever you make use of another person's distinctive ideas, information, or words, you must give credit. If a passage is quoted verbatim, it must be set off with quotation marks (or, if it is a longer passage, presented as indented text), and followed by a properly formulated citation. The length of the phrase does not matter. If someone else's words are sufficiently significant to be worth quoting, then accurate quotation followed by a correct citation is essential, even if only a few words are involved."
Clarke's thesis, "Making US security and privacy rights compatible," appears to have been removed from the Naval Postgraduate School's website, but is still available via online databases.
Clarke took to Twitter on Saturday before CNN had published its story, calling reporter Andrew Kaczynski a "hack" and a "sleaze bag."Get the biggest daily stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
Karl Sheppard is not afraid to set the bar high at Cork City as he enters the 'last chance saloon'.
The striker insists anything less than a 20-25 goal haul in 2015 will represent a disappointing campaign.
And considering he managed just one in the league all last season, it is going to be quite the ask.
But in fairness to Sheppard he didn't get much of a look in at Shamrock Rovers last year and was out of favour under former boss Trevor Croly.
He only got going when Pat Fenlon took over in August yet even at that he only started six Premier Division games all year.
But Cork City boss John Caulfield sensed his frustration and swooped for the striker who is determined to do well, not least because he wants one last stab at the UK.
(Image: ©INPHO/Ryan Byrne)
Having been at Everton as a youth and then snapped up from his previous Rovers spell by Reading, you might think that by now he was burnt by the cross channel experience.
Not Sheppard, who is determined to make it third time lucky if all goes to plan on his new Leeside adventure.
He told Mirror Sport: "I think this is my last opportunity to go back over, the last chance saloon if you like.
"I'm not turned off the idea of going back, I still want it - any player here would if they're being honest.
"I'll be 24 when the season starts and you don't hear of many 25-year-olds going over but I believe I can smash it this season.
"I believe I can score 20-odd goals for Cork and if I do, I'll see what happens. 20-25 is my target, anything less won't be a successful season for me."
British football is Sheppard's long-term goal but the here and now is all about Cork City.
And while the Rebels were labelled 'physical and direct' last year - something Caulfield bristles at - Sheppard reckons that is tailor made for his game.
"At Rovers, Trevor wanted strikers coming towards the ball and holding it up," he said.
"Maybe that's why you didn't see the best of the strikers at Rovers.
(Image: ©INPHO/Ryan Byrne)
"Going side to side is slow, it's easy for defenders to get across. I like space to get in behind and get more touches on the ball.
"John Caulfield knows I like to run in behind and create chances and try score goals. I wouldn't care if I won the league with 20 goals playing for any team dubbed the most direct in the world."
Sheppard was part of the Hoops 2011 Europa League adventure and added: "The first year there was unbelievable.
"But the last two seasons were dragged out. Sitting on the bench last year, not coming on, was very frustrating.
"It was eating at me every day. Footballers in Ireland are not doing it for the money. You get a good enough wage but not one that makes it enjoyable to sit and not play.
"It affected my confidence and the season dragged on. Halfway through I knew I needed a new challenge as I wasn't getting the best out of myself."
Sheppard added: "I'm thrilled to be at Cork and want to work hard in pre-season and try get in the team. I've one year left to get back across the water and I'm very focused."When Aereo was arguing the case it ultimately lost before the Supreme Court, it went to great pains to argue it wasn't a cable company. The Court, for its part, wasn't having it. In its decision, it called the video streamer "substantially similar" to a cable company, said the service bears an "overwhelming likeness" to one, and was "for all practical purposes" the same kind of business. That rationale was critical in handing Aereo a defeat, but also left the company an opening courtesy of the very law used to bludgeon it: the 1976 Copyright Act. Under the Act, a cable system is entitled to seek a "compulsory license" to broadcast content and Aereo plans on doing just that.
What's fascinating about this twist is that it represents a legal 180 for all involved, first and foremost. Aereo had carefully avoided classifying itself as a cable system in part because an earlier case WPIX v. ivi had suggested that services repurposing broadcast television for internet streaming weren't cable systems. Though the Court didn't explicitly say so, it appears to have overturned that precedent in the Aereo case. Furthermore, in going the route of seeking a compulsory license, Aereo is likely to find itself allied with another streaming service, FilmOn, which had decided in the immediate aftermath of the Court's decision to do just that. Apparently, Aereo's legal and business strategists -- with some time to deliberate -- believe what FilmOn concluded: This might be the lowest resistance, lowest cost path to gain access to the content in question.
Finally, in what might be the strangest coincidence of all, there are faint echoes of the decision that declared the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, legal back in 2012. In that case, the majority opinion concluded that the "penalty" for not having insurance was a tax -- arguing against the Administration's position that it wasn't. But in doing so, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, the ACA was legal. Here, the Court hasn't gone quiet as far yet in declaring Aereo's business legal. But by essentially declaring it a cable system -- again arguing against the company -- it may have created the only path to legality Aereo needs.
As Justice Sonia Sotomayor put it during the hearings on the case: "I mean, I read it and I say, why aren’t they a cable company?... Do we have to go to all of those other questions if we find that they’re a cable company? We say they’re a capable company, they get the compulsory license."
Aereo's case was sent back to U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan and it asked for immediate clarification that it's eligible for that license under Section 111 of the Copyright Act. Alki David, the CEO of FilmOn, has been making that argument for the past 4 years. Back then, he was trying to transmit local stations over his service but the networks stopped him. "Our argument in 2010 was we’re a cable system," he said. "Judge [Naomi] Buchwald didn’t understand U-verse and Fios was the same essential technology."
David's argument is that his service was taking content and turning it into data packets just like AT&T and Verizon were with their TV offerings. "If you have over 50 subscribers and have cables and wires, you are a cable system," he said. FilmOn, for its part, serves more than 45 million customers across the U.S. and Europe, mostly showing them video-on-demand content as well as some cable channels it has licenses for. But until the Aereo decision, it's been shut out of the broadcast channels that Judge Buchwald didn't believe it was entitled to back in 2010.
The case is now in the same U.S. District Court albeit in the hands of Judge Nathan. While FilmOn isn't a party to Aereo's case, it's clear David hopes the outcome will be different this time. "It’s the fundamental right of everybody in america to have local TV made available to them," he said.
David and his legal advisors believe that with the Aereo decision in hand, they have a strong argument to push for a compulsory license. In that respect, they are now aligned with Aereo, though it's likely the two companies will end up as competitors should this tactic prove successful.
But for that to happen, either the Courts will have to direct the U.S. Copyright Office to take action or the office will need to do so on its own. The timing for either scenario is uncertain. In the meantime, this could all theoretically be preempted by the broadcast networks coming to an agreement with Aereo, FilmOn and anyone else who wishes to take free, over-the-air broadcasts and sell them over the internet.
Why might they want to do that? Because the balance of power could shift if the compulsory license is granted. CBS, NBC, ABC, and Fox receive on the order of $5 per month in the New York area for each cable subscriber in exchange for their content. They get those fees as part of a negotiation that's enabled by a different law: the 1992 Cable Act. The cable companies essentially have to agree to pay more for broadcast content because those networks all are part of larger companies that own numerous channels essential to keeping subscribers happy. But for Aereo, it might be enough -- at least for the time being -- to just get the networks it lost back on the air. And under a compulsory license, they would almost certainly pay substantially less than $5 per customer (the formula is complex, but it's based on a percentage of revenues).
Aereo had argued that without a favorable Supreme Court ruling, it had no future. But by looking farther into the past, it's now seeing things differently. Yet the company again finds itself hoping for a favorable outcome at the hands of a federal court. As Yogi Berra once said, "Its like deja vu all over again."My friend Tracey recently posted a video on Facebook titled "So Apparently, We've Been Eating Apples All Wrong." I was intrigued, so I clicked on it. In the video, Foodbeast's Elie Ayrouth first demonstrates the way most of us eat an apple — by eating around the core. Then, he does something that freaks out just about everyone who watches the video, which you can see above.
He makes the crazy move of rotating his next apple a little bit and biting the bottom of the apple first! As he eats it from the bottom up, do you know what happens? The core basically disappears.
Tracey and I decided to try it. She started from the bottom up. I started from the top down. I ate the entire apple — seeds and all. My apple was small and the seeds were very tiny. (Yes, I know that the seeds contain trace amounts of cyanide and might be dangerous if crushed and eaten in very large amounts.)
Tracey said she made it about 3/4 of the way through before she got to a large section with seeds, then she started eating around them. She then turned it to the top and ate her way down to the seeds. Although she didn't eat the whole thing, she ate significantly more of the apple than she normally would have eaten.
I shared the video and the fact that I had tried it and it worked on my Facebook feed, and I asked friends to comment. Many of them were amazed. They made comments like "that blew my mind," "that changed my life," "so incredible," and many commented that they'd be eating apples like that from now on.
One asked, "Why does this freak me out? It really shouldn't. Why does it?"
I don't have the answer to that question. It freaked me out, too. I'm sure it has something to do with having such a basic belief about such an ingrained habit destroyed so quickly. All our lives we've believed that apples have cores and you have to eat around the core. "If this isn't true," we wonder, "What else isn’t true?"
I was also surprised by how many people said they knew someone who ate apples this way. MNN Lifestyle blogger Starre commented that her grandmother ate apples the "right" way and gave her a hard time about it her entire childhood.
"Having lived through the Great Depression, she knew about not wasting food!" she said, "And she told me everyone used to eat apples 'her' way. Wonder how it changed?"
If you're wondering just how much we actually waste by eating around the core, Ayrouth did the math.
The traditional method of eating around 'the core' seemed to create a sizable amount of waste. In fact, after doing a mass and volume test, we concluded we were seemingly throwing away anywhere from 15 to 30 percent of every apple. If you live by the 'apple a day' motto, then apples priced at $1.30/lb. will set you back $137 year, with a waste of $42.
How do you feel about this revelation? Are you freaked out? And, are you heading to your refrigerator right now to grab an apple and test it out?
Amazing way to eat an apple makes core disappear
Prepare to be a little freaked out and then rush to your refrigerator to try this method of eating an apple for yourself.76 Pages Posted: 7 Dec 2012 Last revised: 17 Dec 2012
Date Written: October 1, 2012
Abstract
One of the most notable examples of U.S. tax exceptionalism is the taxation of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents (LPRs) on their worldwide income, regardless of residence. The United States also imposes broad and increasingly onerous tax and financial reporting obligations on its citizens and LPRs. Worldwide taxation of U.S. expatriates dates to the Civil War. Although it may have been justified in the past, it is very difficult to justify and increasingly dysfunctional today. It is difficult to justify on economic or equity grounds, it is difficult if not impossible to enforce against many expatriates, and it sends the wrong message regarding the value of U.S. citizenship.
The United States should eliminate the worldwide taxation of expatriate citizens and LPRs and replace the exit tax on those renouncing U.S. citizenship or relinquishing LPR status with a departure tax regime that would apply to all changes of tax residence. The proposed new tax regime would be more equitable and more enforceable. It would also be more consistent with international tax norms and with the purposes of U.S. nationality and immigration law.England
Wilkinson to retire from rugby
ESPN Staff
Jonny Wilkinson will play two more matches for Toulon and then retire © Getty Images Enlarge
Jonny Wilkinson has confirmed he will retire at the end of the season as he prepares to bring down the curtain on an incredible 17-year career.
Toulon still have two matches left in the season with the Heineken Cup final against Saracens on Saturday and then the Top 14 finale versus Castres on May 31. Wilkinson said, in a brief statement, he will retire at the end of the current campaign but he will leave various tributes and further comments until after their Top 14 match.
Jonny Wilkinson's international statistics England caps: 91
British and Irish Lions caps: 6
World Cup finals: 2
World Cup wins: 1
Test victories: 67
Total Test points: 1,246
Test tries: 7
Test conversions: 169
Test penalties: 255
Test drop goals: 36
Six Nations titles: 4 (2000, 2001, 2003, 2011)
Grand Slams: 1 (2003)
"I would like to take this opportunity to formally announce my retirement from playing rugby," Wilkinson said in a statement on Toulon's website. "It goes without saying that I have an enormous number of people to thank for their support from all around the world but especially here in France and in England.
"This however is not at all the time to be concentrating on this as I would like to focus all my attention and energy on the team and these final two games of the season. I sincerely thank you all for everything you have given me and for making these last seventeen years something I will never forget."
The announcement brings to an end a remarkable career and one which saw him slot the World Cup-winning drop-goal in 2003. In total, Wilkinson made 91 appearances for England and played in four World Cups. He also travelled with the British & Irish Lions in 2001 and 2005, making six Test appearances in the process.
At club level he played for 12 years at Newcastle Falcons and then moved to Toulon in 2009. At Toulon he helped guide the club to the Heineken Cup title in 2013 and will go for two more trophies at the end of the current season.
Rugby won't be the same without @JonnyWilkinson Changed the game. Changed way kids tackle! You will be missed. Pleasure to play with you. — Tom May (@TomMay1) May 19, 2014
Wilkinson will now embark on the next stage in his career and he is widely expected to head into coaching. "My role is developing," Wilkinson said back in February. "I now spend most of the week in training, helping my team-mates approach the game differently. I've accepted that for a long time, but that doesn't change the fact that, deep down, I cannot stop competing."
© ESPN Sports Media LtdThe man who was responsible for the ice during part of Edmonton Oilers' glory days will oversee ice-making at the new Rogers Place arena.
Dan Craig, the NHL's senior facility operations director, will work with the team in Edmonton to get the ice ready for next month's opening.
The Oilers play their first preseason game at Rogers Place on Sept. 26.
Craig expects the large space may pose some challenges for the Edmonton ice-making team, which has to consider air temperature and humidity levels.
"There will be a couple of little hiccups along the way, but I think they're going to get it under control," Craig said Wednesday on CBC's Edmonton AM.
"That's always been the goal from (the initial) design of that facility, that it will be the best in the league."
Craig started his career making ice at what was then the Edmonton Coliseum. He spent 11 seasons with the Oilers before moving to the NHL in 1997.
Craig credits Glen Sather, then the Oiler's president and general manager, for getting him the job with the NHL. Sather was fed up with how ice quality varied from rink to rink, Craig said.
"When you have a skilled team that's built on speed and on passing, and all of a sudden you have to really second-guess where you're passing the puck or what you're doing, it really hurts the flow of the game."
Craig said it usually takes 48 to 72 hours to make ice. The ideal humidity levels are below 50 per cent.It seems that a single man can deceive the authorities and even the FBI! This is the case with a man from Tennessee, David C. Garrett Jr. and his will to expose how alarmingly easy it can be for the FBI to initiate rumours and other media to spread them, without confirming their validity.
A few days back, there was a rumour as to CNN being under threat of hacking. This rumour was based on a paper that the FBI released. Allegedly, the Sony hackers named “Guardians of Peace” sent over proof to the FBI with their information on the hacking that would be completed soon.
Without even trying to cross check the Pastebin post that was supposed to come from the hackers, the FBI released a bulletin about the threat that the media was under. In this bulletin, Sony was referred to as USPER 1 and the news organization that would be hacked was referred to as USPER 2. Along with these two different threats, there was clear statement that it was more than possible for more threats to emerge in the near future.
The truth, though, is miles away and David C. Garrett Jr. from Tennessee revealed what was the case. More particularly, David posted the proof online about the lack of trustworthiness that should alarm everyone regarding Pastebin posts.
The hoax that he had launched was the most eloquent proof of the fact that nobody investigates and validates anything before publishing. What he did was to replace the reference of the initial so-called reliable Pastebin post about FBI (which the CNN used) with CNN and then add the name of Wolf Blitzer. The latter was added, in order to make the threat more substantial and believable. This is it! Nobody verified the truth behind the threats or even tried to locate the sender of the messages.
Garrett commented on both Twitter and Facebook about the overall impact that his prank had: “It was a joke… I had no idea it would be taken seriously.” Nevertheless, besides the surprise, it is evident that more attention should be drawn to things prior to their release to the public. Especially by news organizations, such as CNN, with credibility and influence to people everywhere in the world, this should be made a top priority, according to David C. Garrett Jr.
Ali Qamar is a Cyber Security Researcher, Follow him on Twitter @AliQammar57It’s been well-documented that a pair of ex-Bruins – Anthony Barr and Eric Kendricks – have worked together to help anchor the Minnesota Vikings’ defense throughout the team’s playoff run. But the same can be said of Minnesota’s special teams unit, which features former UCLA roommates Jeff Locke and Kevin McDermott.
Locke, an economics major whose contributions to a scientific study and a popular documentary have helped advance the discussion about paying college athletes, has been the Vikings punter since being drafted in the fifth round of the 2013 draft.
McDermott did not join him until this offseason, when he was brought in to compete with veteran Cullen Loeffler after previous one-year stints with the San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Ravens.
Daily Bruin Sports spoke to both of them about the Vikings’ success, their careers and their thoughts on the state of the UCLA football program.
Daily Bruin: What’s the atmosphere like around the team, as you guys head towards the playoffs?
Jeff Locke: It’s been a lot different than my first two years here because I don’t think we had many wins so it’s just not as good an atmosphere. You know what I mean, you’re just kind of going through the season. But I think winning all those games really helps the team and it helps you go week to week.
DB: What’s it been like working with Kevin McDermott, who you roomed with in college?
JL: It’s been great, I think people kind of thought we were joking when that ended up happening this offseason, him getting a chance to compete for the job here. But it’s been awesome, he and I got along really well in college and we’ve stayed in touch ever since college, seen each other in the offseasons, and to have him here is just a really cool experience.
DB: Were you involved at all with him being brought into the Vikings?
JL: No, coach (Mike) Priefer, our special teams coach, talked to me about it and he just pretty much asked me about his character – if he was a good person – and I said yes.
Everything else, other than that, in terms of how good of a snapper he is and stuff like that, that’s all coach Priefer and the personnel guys, the GM’s decision. So they definitely didn’t want me involved in that process – it was just mainly if he was a good guy or not.
DB: Because you would have been biased in terms of bringing him in?
JL: Yeah, it just puts me in a weird spot and puts him in a weird spot if he’s in here competing with someone else. We want to make sure we judge them on how they snap and everything, not anything else.
DB: I saw you contributed to a study called “The Price of Poverty in Big-Time College Sport.” What types of things did you learn in that process and what are your thoughts on college players being paid?
JL: Pretty loaded question there.
DB: Fair.
JL: Yeah, that and also “Schooled” – (a) documentary I did when I was (at UCLA) – was a big component in helping out players to get more benefits and more rights.
I do think that in the big-time conferences that there is the money to help players get a little bit more, to obviously cover the cost of attendance and then even be able to send some money home to the families of some of these players that don’t have as much as others.
DB: I read that you spoke to the rest of the (UCLA) team about how to manage money. Can you talk a bit more about that?
JL: Yeah, that was an interesting process because one of the ways that we get paid is through paychecks every month that help us pay our rent and stuff.
But each of those paychecks comes in different amounts. Especially during the summers, you get a lot less money in the paycheck. So a lot of that talk I had with the players was just showing them how to budget how much they’re going to get each month.
It kind of turned into a “red light, yellow light, green light” presentation in terms of when you get the most amount of money, when you’re going to get the least amount of money and which months you need to be saving extra to get by in the lesser months. So I think it was kind of an eye-opening experience for some of our players to actually see the numbers and be able to budget for the future.
DB: How do you think it’s different having that message come from another fellow player, rather than maybe a financial adviser coming in and talking to the team?
JL: I think it’s huge because it removes the bias. You never know when you bring someone else in from the outside what their other motives might be.
But when I’m doing it, all I care about is my teammates getting the information that they can use. I’m just trying to look out for them and make sure they have the tools they need and the information they need to get by and do their thing. So I think it’s huge when it comes from a source within the group rather than outside the group.
DB: There was an article in The New York Times about (California quarterback) Jared Goff taking a class on finances for athletes. Is that something that you could see should maybe be mandated for football players?
JL: I think at the college level, yes. All these major-conference college teams should have mandatory financial education for their players – especially, some of these players have never gotten a paycheck before in their life.
And when I say paycheck, I mean the stipend they’re getting from the college – they need to understand what this money is to be used for. The Department of Education defines exactly how much of that check should go towards each specific line item expense in that month and those are adjusted for each school.
So you need to sit players down and tell them, ‘This is what the money is supposed to go towards,’ so players aren’t out there buying things they shouldn’t be buying with money that’s meant for other things.
DB: What’s been the most surprising thing about your time in the NFL so far?
JL: Most surprising … I think the hardest adjustment to the NFL has been the length of the season because we start training camp and stuff before college does and then we’ve got an additional five, six games – if you count preseason, we’re playing up to 20, 21 games in the year and each game’s very important. So I think it’s really just the length of time.
DB: At this point in the season – I hate to say ‘even for a punter,’ but even for a punter – is your body feeling it, feeling the effects of the full season?
JL: You start to feel it a little bit. I think definitely talking to my other teammates, their bodies are completely feeling it at this point. … But I think by the third season, you kind of get how to prepare each week and get your body right. I’m very fortunate to be a punter |
holding company discount. The market abhors complexity, and firms that utilize extensive crossholdings and joint ventures are penalized by investors who can’t or won’t take the time to dig deep into the financial statements.
In addition to being a holding company, WWHG is a controlled company. Three Wilhelmsen siblings control 60% of voting power, giving them unassailable control. Some investors shy away from controlled companies, but I look at the situation differently. In my view, the Wilhelmsens could not be more highly incentivized to manage the company well. Their reputations and the fate of a 150 year family legacy depend on it, as does the lions share of their personal wealth.
The track record of both Wilhelmsen companies speaks in their favor. WWHG has returned over 15% annually for the last decade, while WWASA has more than doubled since its 2010 IPO. Both companies are well-positioned, reaping profits from the strong car carrier market and investing in logistics and maritime services that will help them weather the ups and downs of the deeply cyclical shipping market. Neither firm employs excessive leverage, and both firms pay regular dividends.
Investors in both companies will likely do extremely well as the world’s population and economy expand. The expansion of the global middle class will require more vehicles than ever before, and the Wilhelmsen companies will be there to ship them.
No positions, plan to buy shares in each company soon as I can transfer funds to a broker that allows trading on the Oslo Exchange.The following is a combined position paper and call-to-action for a project that many of us have been working on behind the scenes for a long time now, especially Andrew Mulholland who’s taken over the operation of the Raspberry Jam programme.
Andrew and I collaborated on this document to put forward our plans for a school outreach programme built on the experience we’ve gained from running the Jam programme in Belfast for the past two years, including a collaboration between Farset Labs, Digital Circle and W5 that brought teachers together from across the province to share best practice for ICT education, as well as receiving our ‘wisdom’ from running CoderDojo and Jam-like programmes. This programme was assessed DCAL and was very well received but due to personnel changes in some relevant organisations, has not been directly carried on as a full pilot programme.
We hope to change that, and thanks in part to Andrew’s recent successes at the TalkTalk Digital Hero awards, as well as working over the summer with the Raspberry Pi Foundation, we’ve secured match funding up to £4,000 to support the proposed programme.
But we need your help to drum up the rest of our estimated £8,000 programme costs, and hopefully this document will help. Have a read at our thoughts, and Andrew and I are more than happy to answer any questions, concerns or ideas about the proposed programme.
EDIT:
We’re happy to announce that The CultureTech Festival have pledged £1,000 towards this programme, as well as inviting us to participate in three events in the North West.We can't fix Penn Station or update the subway's signal systems. But we can give voice to your frustration, hold those in charge accountable and find creative ways to make commuting more pleasant. Patch is partnering with WNYC and Gothamist to do just that. Join "We the Commuters" and you'll receive tips, inspiration and a megaphone for your voice this summer.
NEW YORK CITY, NY – MTA boss Joe Lhota said the long-suffering commuter is partly responsible for wrecking the subway.
Just days after he wrote a memo telling his staff they needed to do better, he blamed a track fire in Harlem Monday that injured nine people, crippled trains and left platforms dangerously crowded on passengers dropping trash.
And he said the solution could be barring people bringing food onto the platform.
"There have been a lot of recommendations about what foods are appropriate and what foods are not," Lhota told reporters at Penn Station on Tuesday. "So there's a debate going on."
Asked if the MTA would ban food from stations, he said "wait for the 30-day waiting period," an apparent reference to a review the authority is currently undergoing.
On Monday morning, trash on tracks between 135th and 145th Streets caught fire, sending plumes of smoke through the system and shutting down the A, B, C and D lines in Harlem.
A 30-foot long heap of trash had piled up on tracks near 145th Street, according to the Daily News.
Lhota said MTA officials discussed Monday what to do about food waste while talking about cleanliness on subway cars, trains and stations.
He suggested some types of food – like styrofoam boxes brimming with takeout – might be banned, while other kinds would be permitted.
"Early in the morning, if you're a smart student, you may live in Queens, you may live in Brooklyn and you're so smart you're able to get into the Bronx High School of Science and you want to take a protein bar in the morning on the way in," Lhota said.
It's unclear why he separated students at the elite school from the rest of the traveling populace.
"We need to think about this from the point of view of what works."
Earlier this year, the MTA ended a program testing out the removal of trash cans at some stations, an unsuccessful attempt to deal with waste.
Throughout Tuesday's press conference, Lhota sought to cast the MTA as a shared responsibility between commuters and authorities.
"I want to believe that the MTA – it's our MTA. We all have to band together," he said.
"Anything that anybody can do to make sure that the trash doesn't get down on the tracks would be very, very helpful. These fires all start with trash being thrown down there."
Lhota also noted the MTA recently acquired two new vacuum devices that clean trash and has ordered 12 more.
He said track fires are down more than 90 percent compared to 1981, when there were some 5,800 fires.
Lead image of Joe Lhota speaking Tuesday at Penn Station by Shant Shahrigian/Patch.
Patch is partnering with WNYC to get your voice heard. Sign up for the We The Commuters project here.Facing justice, riot rat pack: Suspects accused of four of the week's most infamous crimes are all behind bars
Four of the most notorious faces of the riots were behind bars last night in a victory for the law-abiding majority.
Detectives suspect they are responsible for violent and brazen crimes that shocked the nation during four days of mayhem.
Among them is the suspected leader of a rampaging mob who was arrested over the murder of a ‘hero’ of the London riots.
Ealing murder: A policeman and a passer by kneel by the prone figure of Richard Mannington Bowes (circled) after he was attacked by thugs
The 22-year-old man had been caught on camera in Ealing, West London, close to the stricken body of 68-year-old Richard Mannington Bowes, who was beaten by looters after he challenged them.
In East London a man has been charged with robbing a Malaysian student whose ordeal was caught on camera.
Ashraf Rossli, 20, was rushed to hospital with a broken jaw on Monday after being set upon during London's riots less than a month after arriving in Britain.
Today, a Metropolitan Police spokesman said Reece Donovan, of Milton Court, Cross Road, Chadwell Heath, Romford, Essex, had been charged with robbing the student.
Donovan, who police said is either 21 or 23 years old, will appear at City of Westminster Magistrates' Court today.
Defendants have ranged from repentant and sobbing, to defiant and remorseless.
This handcuffed yob flicked his middle fingers after being sent to youth custody for four months after admitting a public order offence.
Renaldo Tekle Giorgies, 18, has a nine-day-old baby daughter, but will miss out on her first few weeks after he was identified after threatening police officers.
A remorseless Renaldo Tekl-Giorgies, 18, leaves Westminster Magistrates Court in custody for his crime
And a grinning teenager who posted a photo of himself on Facebook posing with hundreds of pounds of electronic goods, DVDs and computer games looted from HMV in Enfield was also identified and arrested.
The 19-year-old was held in Tottenham after the shocking image was circulated worldwide and became a symbol of the greedy orgy of looting.
Facebook bragger: A man of 19 was arrested after this photo of a looter and his haul appeared online
Meanwhile the young mother who was filmed calmly trying on a pair of trainers she had apparently just looted from a sports shop in Tottenham was remanded in custody.
Shereka Leigh, 22, was warned she could be jailed for more than a year after police discovered the bins outside her council flat were stuffed with empty electronics boxes.
In London, a team of more than 60 detectives are working around the clock to examine thousands of hours of CCTV footage.
Scotland Yard chiefs are quietly confident that the number of people arrested in the capital, currently just over 1,100, could double within a week.
They have modelled their operation on the successful manhunts that followed rioting at student tuition fees demonstrations last year.
Chief constables in other cities struck by rioting, including Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham, have set up similar investigation teams.
Bad Samaritan: An injured student is mugged by 'helpers'
Police are displaying images of looters on a mobile screen in central Birmingham, while Manchester residents are being urged to ‘shop a looter’.
Richard Mannington Bowes at his sister's wedding shortly some 30 years ago
In London, Mr Mannington Bowes died when his life support machine was turned off in hospital after police traced his family.
Police believe their suspect was responsible for leading up to 50 rioting youths rampaging around Ealing Broadway.
The well-built man, pictured with sunglasses on top of his head, was being questioned last night on suspicion of murder, rioting and raiding three shops.
The victim spent three days on a life support machine after suffering terrible head injuries when he was set on by thugs as he tried to stamp out a fire on Monday night.
It took several days for police to identify him because the rioters stole his wallet and other valuables while he lay unconscious on the pavement.
Residents described Mr Mannington Bowes as a civic-minded man of old-fashioned values whose determination to stand up against wrongdoing cost him his life.
London Mayor Boris Johnson called him a ‘hero’ and said he was ‘desperately sorry’ for his death as council leaders said they may name a street after him.
'Shoe looter': Shereka Leigh (centre) was filmed trying on trainers at a looted shop
Detective Chief Inspector John McFarlane, who is investigating the murder, said it was a ‘brutal incident’ and a ‘senseless killing’.
In an unusual move, the officer appealed to other members of the mob to hand over mobile phone footage of the attack.
TEENAGER APPEARS IN COURT OVER FIRE AT MISS SELFRIDGE
Thousands of people around the world viewed YouTube footage of a youth in a hooded top apparently reaching through the window of a looted shop and setting light to a red dress on a mannequin. It led to flames engulfing Miss Selfridge in Manchester’s city centre. Yesterday Dane Williamson, 18, appeared in court accused of the arson.
He was arrested soon after Tuesday night’s blaze, which caused £319,000 of damage to stock, but he has claimed he is a victim of mistaken identity. The teenager is accused of criminal damage and recklessly endangering life, a charge which carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, Manchester magistrates were told. Gareth Brandon, prosecuting, said: ‘This was an opportunistic offence in the context of the widespread disorder at the time. ‘Quite a lot of people have seen the footage on YouTube which has been repeated in national newspapers. ‘An item of clothing on display was set on fire, the windows having already been smashed and the shutters down.’ The estimated costs relate solely to the clothing inside the store, and do not include damage to the building. When interviewed, Williamson admitted he had been in the vicinity earlier that day, but claimed he had left by the time of the incident and was on a bus to his brother’s house when the fire was started. His solicitor said it was ‘a case of mistaken identity’.
Williamson, of Salford, was remanded in custody to appear at Manchester Crown Court next week.
Mr Mannington Bowes’s sister, mother-of-three Anne Wilderspin, 73, who lost contact with him 30 years ago, said she was proud of his brave actions.
In an interview with ITV News yesterday, she added: ‘I feel sad that all these rioters haven’t found another purpose in life rather than just destructive violence.’
Patrick Kennedy, 68, who lives near the scene of the tragedy, said the victim was a ‘very kind man with old English values’. He added: ‘He set out a moral way of life.’
In Barking, East London, young Malaysian student Mr Rossli was taken to hospital with a broken jaw after being beaten up and robbed of his mobile phone, wallet and portable games console.
Mobile phone footage, showing a pack of youths robbing the bleeding victim of his wallet and phone as they pretended to help him, shocked the country. Among the hooded and masked group, who were armed with knives, were several primary school pupils.
Well-wishers have pledged more than £12,000 after Prime Minister David Cameron said that the attack had left him ‘disgusted’.
The money raised will be used to fly Mr Rossli’s parents to the UK, fix his broken teeth and replace his bicycle and valuables.
In a separate development, the 19-year-old man who became an internet sensation after posing for a photograph with an astonishing haul of loot was arrested at his home yesterday morning.
In a sign that he realised police were closing in, the suspect deleted the photograph – but not before it was spread around the world through social networking sites.
Suspected burglar Shereka Leigh pleaded not guilty when she appeared at City of Westminster magistrates’ court yesterday.
She was filmed trying on a pair of shoes in JD Sports after looters trashed a retail park in Tottenham Hale, North London. She is also accused of stealing a £429 Samsung notebook from Argos and hair straighteners and computer equipment from Comet.If Almonds Bring You Joy, Enjoy More For Fewer Calories
Enlarge this image toggle caption iStockphoto.com iStockphoto.com
Scientists are starting to discover that the standard way of measuring calories, established more than 100 years ago, may not be terribly accurate when it comes to higher fat, high-fiber foods like nuts. But when it comes to almonds, the count may be off by a whole lot.
Food scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture recently published a new study that finds almonds have about 20 percent fewer calories than previously documented.
That's off by a lot more than an earlier British study showing pistachios have about 5 percent fewer calories than we thought, says USDA researcher David Baer, who worked on both studies.
"We were surprised," he says.
Baer and his colleagues compared the feces (poop, if you prefer) of people eating a controlled diet with almonds to ones who were eating a diet without any nuts. What they found was that "when people are consuming nuts, the amount of fat in the feces goes up," Bear says. "And that suggests that we're not absorbing all the fat or calories that's in the nut."
In essence, the fat in the feces shows there's a disconnect between the gross energy found in an almond and the energy our bodies actually absorb.
So what does this mean for the almond lovers among us? It's not a license to overindulge. But perhaps this energy dense, satiating snack will be more appealing to people scared off by the calorie count.
And, here's another tip. How you eat a nut, it seems, can make a difference. One important factor is chewing.
Baer explains that lots of the the nutrients are trapped inside the plant's cell walls. "So by chewing you can fracture the cell wall and get access to the fat that's stored inside the cell."
Needless to say, the Almond Board of California is pretty excited about the calorie study. It has not directly petitioned the federal government to adjust the official USDA calorie database, but the group is talking informally with federal officials, Almond Board's Chief Scientific Officer Karen Lapsley tells The Salt.
"If we can improve the information that's on a food label, I think everybody is better off," Lapsley says.
So, is it just almonds that may need a new calorie count? Or are all nuts up for a calorie review? Stay tuned to this space. Next month I'll be taking a trip to David Baer's lab, where we will burn some nuts — and maybe some chocolate — in his Bomb Calorimeter to learn more.Twitter 25
Twitter 25: Our Editors Choose the Best in Wine
If you tweet into the Twittersphere, but no one follows, does it make a sound?
Social media reaches anyone with a pulse these days. People look to it for everything from daily news breaks to comprehensive conversations about common interests. Of all of the social channels, Twitter is best for multi-way communications and mutual engagement. Facebook might be great for branding and getting like-minded messages out, and Instagram has a knack for opening up discourse with simple yet powerful images. But Twitter is the channel with the potential to disrupt the discourse via very public dialogue.
As wine slowly (but surely) moves into the digital age, the dialogue about wine online matters even more. With that in mind, we've put together our list of the Twitter 25, a group of progressive oenophiles we feel have most successfully taken their wine personas online into Twitter.
Our criteria? They're not merely telling you what they're swirling and sipping, they're sharing an experience. They're not just aggregating, they're curating. And they're not just tweeting out, they're tweeting back. They may have a big following or speak with a smaller audience, but if you care about wine and want to learn from passionate experts, follow—and engage with—our Twitter 25.
And be sure to follow the Grape Collective team! Keep up with them as well as our contributors:
Alia Akkam - @aliaakkam
Katherine Cole - @kcoleuncorked
Barbara Fairchild - @fairchildonfood
Dorothy J. Gaiter - @winecouple
Anthony Giglio - @WineWiseGuy
Meg Houston Maker - @megmaker
Zachary Sussman - @ZacharySussmanThis summer, the University of Reading Archaeology Field School excavated one of the most extraordinary sites we have ever had the pleasure of investigating.
The site is an Early Neolithic long barrow known as “Cat’s Brain” and is likely to date to around 3,800BC. It lies in the heart of the lush Vale of Pewsey in Wiltshire, UK, halfway between the iconic monuments of Stonehenge and Avebury.
It has long been assumed that Neolithic long barrows are funerary monuments; often described as “houses of the dead” due to their similarity in shape to long houses. But the limited evidence for human remains from many of these monuments calls this interpretation into question, and suggests that there is still much to be learnt about them.
In fact, by referring to them as long barrows we may well be missing the main point. To illustrate this, our excavations at Cat’s Brain failed to find any human remains, and instead of a tomb they revealed a timber hall, suggesting that it was very much a “house for the living”. This provides an interesting opportunity to rethink these famous monuments.
The timber hall at Cat’s Brain was surprisingly large, measuring almost 20 metres long and ten metres wide at the front. It was built using posts and beamslots, and some of these timbers were colossal with deep cut foundation trenches, so that it’s general appearance is of a robust building with space for considerable numbers of people. The beamslots along the front of the building are substantially deeper than the others, suggesting that its frontage may have been impressively large, monumental in fact, and a break halfway along this line indicates the entrance way.
An ancient ‘House Lannister’?
Timber halls such as these are an aspect of the earliest stages of the Neolithic period in Britain, and there seems little doubt that they were created by early pioneer Neolithic people. Frequently, they appear to have lasted only two or three generations before being deliberately destroyed or abandoned. These houses need not be dwellings, however, and given their size could have acted as large communal gathering places.
It is worth briefly pausing here and thinking of the image of a house – for the word “house” is often used as a metaphor for a wider social group (think of the House of York or Windsor, or – if you’re a Game of Thrones fan like me – House Lannister or House Tyrell).
In this sense, these large timber halls could symbolise a collective identity, and their construction a mechanism through which the pioneering community first established that identity. We may imagine a variety of functions for this building, too, none of which are mutually exclusive: ceremonial houses or dwellings for the ancestors, for example, or storehouses for sacred heirlooms.
From this perspective, it is not a huge leap of the imagination to see them as containing, among other things, human remains. This does not make them funerary monuments, any more than churches represent funerary monuments to our community. They were not set apart and divided from buildings for the living, but represented a combination of the two – houses of the living in a world saturated with, and inseparable from, the ancestors.
These houses would have been replete with symbolism and meaning, and charged with spiritual energy; even the process of building them is likely to have taken on profound significance. In this light, then, it is interesting to note that towards the end of our excavations this summer, just as we were winding up, we uncovered two decorated chalk blocks that had been deposited into a posthole during the construction of the timber hall.
The decoration on these blocks comprises deliberately created depressions and incised lines, which have wider parallels at other early Neolithic sites, such as the flint mines of Sussex.
Controversy often surrounds decorated chalk pieces; chalk is soft and easily marked and some people suggest that they are “decorated” with nothing more than the scratchings of badgers. But there is no doubt that the Cat’s Brain marks are human workmanship and the discovery should spark a fresh investigation into decorated chalk plaques more widely.
Imbued with power
For the moment, the original purpose of the carvings remains obscure, but clearly they were of significance. They will have had meaning and potency to the people that created them, and by depositing them in a posthole the building itself may have been imbued with that power, as well as marking it with individual or community identity. The discovery adds to the way we understand these monuments and weight to the argument that these buildings represent more than just “houses of the dead”.
Over time, deep ditches were dug either side of the timber hall at Cat’s Brain and the quarried chalk may have been piled over the crumbling building after it had gone out of use, closing it down and transforming the house from a wooden structure into a permanent earthen monument; the shape and symbolism of which will have been known to all who saw it. With this transformation, the identity of this early Neolithic group was finally and permanently inscribed upon the landscape.
Now, with this investigation, we have been granted a glimpse of the lives and beliefs of our ancestors nearly 6,000 years ago.
Written by Jim Leary
Director of Archaeology Field School, University of Reading
The Conversation
Header Image Credit : Markus MilliganPhoto
Senator Bernie Sanders received praise for his views on gun control on Monday from a group that he would probably like some distance from: the National Rifle Association.
Mr. Sanders got into a dispute with Hillary Clinton during the Democratic presidential debate on Sunday night about whether gun manufacturers should be held responsible for the actions of people who buy weapons legally and go on to commit crimes. Mrs. Clinton supports such liability, while Mr. Sanders argues that it would mean the end of the gun industry.
As they debated the point, Mrs. Clinton said, “That is like the N.R.A. position.”
The lobbying group for the gunmakers does agree with Mr. Sanders, and took to Twitter on Monday to declare his position “spot on.”
It also praised the Vermont senator for pushing back against Mrs. Clinton’s “lies.”
The praise puts Mr. Sanders, who has been viewed by some as weak on gun control, in an awkward position of having the backing of a group that many Democrats loathe.
The Clinton campaign seized on the N.R.A.’s endorsement of Mr. Sanders’s position as evidence that he is out of touch with Democrats when it comes to guns.
“While the N.R.A. defends Bernie Sanders it attacks Hillary Clinton,” said Ian Sams, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton. “What more do we need to know?”ROAD ACCIDENTS during the Songkran holidays rose in number this year but proved less deadly due to safety precautions.
The death toll from road accidents during the so-called seven dangerous days of 2017 Songkran stood at 390 – down from 442 during the same period a year earlier.
The decline occurred despite 3,690 road accidents between April 11 and April 17 this year – up by 7 per cent from the 2016 Songkran holidays.
Grisada Boonrach, deputy chairman of the Road Safety Directing Centre, attributed the lower death toll to stricter enforcement of traffic laws and safety measures. Ahead of the Songkran Festival, authorities warned travellers against sitting in the beds of pickups and passengers in rear seats were told to wear seat belts.
“Such safety precautions lowered the number of deaths,” Grisada said.
However, he said he was disappointed that the number of road accidents went up as did the number of injured people. As many as 3,808 people were injured in road accidents this year. The figure marked a 4-per-cent hike from 2016.
Drink driving was again the biggest cause of accidents, accounting for 43 per cent of all road accidents.
Other common causes were speeding and abrupt overtaking, accounting for 28 per cent and nearly 15 per cent of road accidents respectively.
In a separate interview, Dr Thanapong Jinvong of the Road Safety Policy Foundation agreed that the percentage of deaths in road accidents had been significantly reduced during the 2017 |holidays because of stricter law enforcement and heightened |safety precautions.
He called on authorities to strictly enforce traffic laws beyond the Songkran period to reduce the road death toll in the country.
Thanapong also urged other organisations and the public to help promote road safety.
Year-long moves planned
“State organisations, for example, may deny services to people if they come in on motorcycles without a helmet on,” he said.
Thanapong said the Excise Department should be cautious about granting permits for organisers of entertainment events where alcoholic drinks are served, because alcohol consumption was a major cause of road accidents.
He said if police recorded the cause of deaths from road accidents throughout the year, and not just during long holidays, it would become clearer how drink driving and the failure to comply with basic laws such as wearing seat belts claimed so many lives.
Thanapong said he expected the public to step up social pressure on traffic-law offenders so that road safety in the country could improve.
Grisada said the government planned to campaign against drunk driving and promote safety precautions throughout the year, in collaboration with various |agencies.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha instructed relevant authorities to take legal action against women who performed erotic dances and bared their breasts during the Songkran celebrations.
“How can they have no shame and no fear? Our society can’t go on with this,” he said.The Spider-Man of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is the Spider-Man of Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, and John Romita’s wildest fantasies (and, frankly, mine). He’s as nimble as an acrobat and as strong as a powerlifter, and frequently both simultaneously; he’ll swoop through Times Square, flip himself onto the roof of a police car in mid-air, and then land gracefully on the ground, balancing the sedan over his head like he’s palming a basketball. Director Marc Webb’s imagery is kinetic, fluid, and gorgeous. He’s made the best-looking Spider-Man movie ever, full-stop. But it’s very likely no one will notice.
Certainly The Amazing Spider-Man 2 will make a lot of money. And audiences will no doubt enjoy the film’s impressive visuals while they’re watching them. But will they dwell on them for even a second after they leave the theater? A year from now, will they be able to distinguish between Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Amazing Spider-Man 1, or even the old Spider-Man series by Sam Raimi? Will they have any kind of impact on anyone at all? Probably not.
These were the thoughts I had as I left a press screening of Amazing Spider-Man 2 a few weeks ago. As a devout Spider-Man obsessive who spent decades reading and dreaming about the character, I’m sort of an easy lay for displays of his powers and abilities. And the ones in Amazing Spider-Man 2 are fantastic. Other critics I’ve spoken with, however, are far less impressed. “Sure, the movie looks good,’ one said to me. “So what? There have been four good-looking Spider-Mans before this one. It needs to do more than just look good.”
Even as a Spidey apologist, it was hard to argue. Amazing Spider-Man 2 might be the most beautiful Spider-Man, but it also stands a good chance of being completely forgotten, because it looks incredible, but not special. Even if it wasn’t the fifth major Spider-Man film in less than 15 years, it would still be the second massive superhero extravaganza in a month (after Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which crashed a flying aircraft carrier into Washington D.C. ) and one of four coming this summer, including X-Men Days Of Future Past (starring mutant-hunting future robots) and Guardians Of The Galaxy (featuring talking raccoons and sentient trees). There are also blockbusters about giant fighting dinosaurs, a Greek demigod, mutant ninja turtles, and armies of apes. These days, once-in-a-lifetime visuals are more like once-a-week occurrences, and it seems like Hollywood produces more “extraordinary” movies than ordinary ones.
In a column at HitFix earlier this week, Drew McWeeny echoed a lot of my feelings about The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and the summer movie season in general in a piece about what he dubs “the age of casual magic.” Hollywood has gotten so good at bringing the impossible to life onscreen, he says, that they’ve devalued their most important (and often only) selling point: spectacle.
“There is nothing more dangerous to storytellers than the idea of an audience that is incapable of awe anymore, and yet that's what our studio system seems determined to create. It's like putting someone on an all ice cream diet. If you forced someone to eat ice cream breakfast, lunch, and dinner without any interruption, that person would eventually learn to detest ice cream. The thought of it would make them physically ill. You would destroy it for them.”
“The age of casual magic” might also be described as “the age of not-so-magical sameness.” More and more films, even the most expensive ones, look almost identical to one another. In the case of Marvel Studios’ Cinematic Universe, that’s actually by design; though different directors are brought in to handle the day-to-day duties on set, a team of producers and writers, led by Marvel President Kevin Feige, oversee their work, and ensure that each disparate Marvel movie fits with the others. Like so much else from Marvel’s movie playbook, this is something that comes from the way it makes comics. In the heyday of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, Marvel had a “house style”—if Kirby himself couldn’t draw something, odds were someone was being paid to draw it like him. But Kirby’s artwork was dynamic, a word that rarely applies to the visuals of Marvel movies.
The companies that don’t make movies the Marvel way are now trying to; Fox, Sony, and Warner Bros. all have plans to start their own universes. Each one of those mega-franchises will have its own homogeneous house style and plenty of high-end visual effects. It’s as if Hollywood is now run by Syndrome, the villain from Pixar’s The Incredibles, who threatens to sell his inventions to the world so that everyone can become a superhero. When everyone’s super, he declares, no one is.
What Hollywood really needs to do is to step back from special effects as a selling point and start using it as a storytelling tool. A few days after I saw Amazing Spider-Man 2 I rewatched Under The Skin. Though it was made for a fraction of the cost, Jonathan Glazer’s movie about an alien hunting hitchhikers across Scotland has its own share of powerful visuals: Ambiguous voids of white and black, humans slowly disintegrating in pools of inky liquid, aliens hidden beneath human flesh.
Early sequences follow Scarlett Johansson’s character as she searches for victims in a white van. To enhance the authenticity of these scenes, Glazer hid cameras in the van’s dashboard, and had Johansson interact with real men she found on the street; she would size up a target, pull over, and try to sweet-talk them into her car while Glazer secretly recorded the results. The technology to achieve such a feat—and to make it look relatively seamless with the rest of a conventionally-shot movie—didn’t exist before Under The Skin. Glazer and a team of experts actually developed new kinds of hidden cameras in order to make the scenes work.
But these sequences are so subtle that some audiences barely notice them (about half the people I’ve spoken with say they had no idea the early scenes were shot with hidden cameras). Glazer didn’t help invent an entire camera system just for a couple of “cool” visuals; he did it because he wanted to show how this alien’s method of capturing men would work in practice, to see actual guys react to the physical presence of Scarlet Johansson, and to achieve the most naturalistic performances possible. The cameras and the special effects were a means to an end, not the ends in and of themselves. The modern blockbuster, on the other hand, has nothing under the skin.
McWeeny concludes his essay by imploring Hollywood to “make the stakes more personal” while “telling good stories that also happen to be amazing to look at.” That would certainly be a good step in the right direction, and there are are a few other directors who have already taken this message to heart (David Fincher springs to mind). Naturally, it looks like Hollywood is instead going to double-down on spectacle and invest even less in storytelling. The next frontier in the race to be cinematically bigger, faster, and stronger than the competition is something called 4-D movie theaters, where the action onscreen is “enhanced” by physical effects like water, wind, motion, mist, and scents. The first one opens in Los Angeles in late June or early July. In the future, when an enormous blockbuster stinks, it will literally stink.Next week, we are going to be starting the fourth tournament, but the first one using a 4p FFA format.
Rules:
- Reveal Map, Majority Buyout, Destroy Buyout, Masquerade all turned ON.
- Each matchup will continue until one player has won two games.
- To signup, please reply below and specify which day(s) you are available to play:
Monday, Sept 28th, @ 9pm EDT
Tuesday, Sept 29th, @ 10am EDT
Wednesday, Sept 30th, @ 4pm EDT
Thursday, Oct 1st, @ 10am EDT
- 16 slots are available
1. Soren Johnson
2. PBHead
3. Cubit
4. Blackmagic (Thurs)
5. Blues
6. nate_the_great_10 (Wed)
7. Gameslayer (prefer Tues, Wed)
8. Kingmorgan (Tues, prefer Wed, Thurs)
9. GalacticWino (Wed)
10. Mr Cubez (Tues, Wed, Thurs)
11. Zuzani (Mon, Tues)
12. SabermanGaming (Wed)
13. SteelStiletto (Mon)
14. Tozar (Mon)
15. Drklight (Mon)
16. Hydroponos (Mon, Wed, Thurs)
Waiting list:
InSync0 of 30
Rocky Widner/Getty Images
Nothing generates NBA optimism like the post-free-agency haze.
This is when everyone thinks their team's starters are terrific, sure to be better than last year because of new additions or a clean slate and increased familiarity.
That's not how it works, though. There'll be great first units and terrible ones. A league with 30 teams means somebody's starters will rank 30th. There's no getting around it.
We'll order them here, using data from last year when applicable and speculating on teams with new personnel who haven't played together before. And yes, for now, we're still using five traditional spots, even as positionless roles become the norm.
Benches matter in the grand scheme, but we don't care about those at the moment. As rosters get settled following free agency, here's how all 30 first units stack up.In the last three years, more than 300 Kazakhs have sent gene samples to be tested at a US lab and thousands of contenders lobbied to be included in last year’s book Chingizids, which detailed Genghis’s Kazakh heirs.
Arman Akhmukhanov, a 39-year-old horse trader from Almaty, recently sent a sample to FamilytreeDNA, a company in Houston, after being encouraged to do so by Chingizids’ author Gizat Tabuldin.
“He said ‘If you want to be respected, and you want to know that you are really chingizid [a Genghis-Khan descendant], then you have to have real proof,’” said Mr Amerkulov.
Genghis Khan’s conquest of a vast swathe of Eurasia has made his name synonymous with destruction and brutality in Europe and the Middle East, but in Kazakhstan and Mongolia he is a hero.
Since Kazakhstan ’s independence in 1991, the government of President Nursultan Nazarbayev, has actively promoted Kazakh history and heritage, and Mr Tabuldin |
lot of pretty huge fibs. So euphemisms to the rescue. The transcript …
Blitzer: So there he is, the republican vice presidential nominee and his beautiful family there. His mom is up there. This is exactly what this crowd of republicans here certainly republicans all across the country were hoping for. He delivered a powerful speech. Erin, a powerful speech. Although I marked at least seven or eight points I’m sure the fact checkers will have some opportunities to dispute if they want to go forward, I’m sure they will. As far as mitt romney’s campaign is concerned, paul ryan on this night delivered.
Burnett: That’s right. Certainly so. We were jotting down points. There will be issues with some of the facts. But it motivated people. He’s a man who says I care deeply about every single word. I want to do a good job. And he delivered on that. Precise, clear, and passionate.I was just as surprised as anyone when some of the SEC coaches had candid images leak. Some of the images you can’t un-see, so tread lightly as you scroll through the article.
Bret Bielema: It’s unclear whether he was leaving these pics undeveloped for a special someone, but they were developed, and I have some questions about this sordid little affair. The timeless art of seduction.
Steve Spurrier: Now we are getting a clearer picture as to why he kept suspending Stephen Garcia- Garcia was interfering with the OBC’s game at the club. Talk about Fun n’ Gun.
Derek Mason: It appears that Mason is trying his hand at some modeling in his free time, which makes sense because Vandy didn’t look like they had any idea what was happening on the football field. Anchor down, blue steel.
Will Muschamp: Coach Boom has always been known for his intensity, so we’re glad he’s taking some time to turn that heat down to a simmer with a relaxing massage. Though Boom may want to look elsewhere for his masseuse, Urban apparently was a little too stressed himself to stay in the SEC.
Mark Richt: It’s no secret that a good many Georgia fans like to hit up Frat Beach before the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail party, but it is a bit surprising that Coach Richt would take time to build sandcastles with the student body.
Les Miles: I don’t really think anyone is surprised by this at all.
Nicholas Saban and Lane Kiffin: The marriage is sure to get a little contentious, and since Lane can’t voice any concerns publicly during the season, he’ll no doubt look back at all the happy times he and Saban had together. I’ve never seen Saban happier than he is in this moment, totally free.
* Obviously, these are photoshopped images. Considering the slate of games this week, we thought we’d have some fun with current events.I reckon that if you took all the phones of everybody involved in football, 90% of them would contain emails or text messages displaying homophobia, sexism, racism and everything in between.
Not that I’m defending the former Cardiff manager Malky Mackay and the club’s former head of recruitment, Iain Moody, after the dawn raid on Moody’s south London home, at which investigators allegedly recovered text messages containing similarly distasteful exchanges between the pair. It’s just a gut feeling that I have, coupled with my experience of people within the game shoving similar filth under my nose for the past dozen years or so.
If you want the truth, I’m desensitised to a lot of this stuff, which is a worry, but I remain fully aware of what constitutes a racist, homophobic or sexist message, even if often it appears my contemporaries do not.
But the reported messages are full-on. One reads: “Fkn chinkys. Fk it. There’s enough dogs in Cardiff for us all to go around”, and was supposedly sent after the arrival of South Korean international Kim Bo-Kyung. Among footballers, that would probably get a couple of laughs and a few winces on the coach to a game. Another message, relating to a player’s female agent, reads: “I hope she’s looking after your needs, I bet you’d love a bounce on her falsies.” I can guarantee you that message would have received a generous round of laughter.
Before I wander down the road to hypocrisy, let me say that I have taken measures to distance myself from this behaviour. Not because I am on some crusade towards the moral high ground, but because I’m terrified of either losing my phone or having it stolen. I have a friend who was put on the front page of the News of the World after losing his phone on a night out. The person who found it didn’t hand it in to the police, he went through it and then sold some pictures to that newspaper.
I don’t have any incriminating pictures of myself on my phone – at least, not any more – but in the past I have been bombarded with both vulgar pictures and messages from others. In this world of hanging people in the public eye out to dry, whether they’ve done anything wrong or not, I don’t want to run the risk of compromising myself for something as ridiculous as association with known felons. And before you ask, I fully expect that last sentence to bite me on the arse one day. But calling up those people and telling them to leave me out of the round robin texts that I know are being sent to most of their phonebook was easier than I thought. And it made me think that most of the crap they are sending out is sent because they think it’s what others want to see, rather than because of any genuine animosity towards the person it relates to.
It isn’t just the messages that Mackay and Moody have to contend with. The pair are at the centre of allegations by Cardiff owner Vincent Tan that the club paid way over market value for eight players during their single ill-fated season in the Premier League. It has been claimed that one £600,000 transfer had an additional payment of £600,000 to an agent. I don’t need to tell you that commissions of 100% are something of a rarity in football.
But it appears that Tan may have known about these messages and used them to solicit an apology from Mackay after the Scot dropped a claim against the club for unfair dismissal. Time and again, Tan attempted to oust the pair who, as he saw it, were costing him millions of pounds unnecessarily. In October 2013, Tan replaced Moody with a 23-year-old Kazakh called Alisher Apsalyamov and in December, possibly after uncovering the evidence he needed, Tan emailed Mackay telling him to either resign or be sacked. A week later, Mackay left the club.
What this unsavoury incident may yet show is that Tan may have had a number of grounds upon which he based his controversial handling of Mackay’s exit from the club. Perhaps he could be forgiven for standing in his executive box at the next home game with the faint appearance of a man wearing a slightly smug “I told you so” grin on his face. He might even be due a few apologies, particularly from those fans who demonstrated outside the Cardiff City stadium last season at Tan’s perceived handling of the club. But football doesn’t work like that.
Whatever happens now, Mackay will struggle to get back into football any time soon; the claims against him and Moody have already cost him a shot at the Crystal Palace job, for which Mackay was the favourite.
But one day Mackay will get back in. The pages of today’s story will have long ago been used as chip paper and somebody, somewhere will afford him the opportunity to start again. Like so often in football, progress happens one funeral at a time.
Tales from the Secret Footballer is out this week in paperback and ebook. To buy your copy for £5.99 (RRP £7.99) visit guardianbookshop.co.uk or call 0330 333 6846Introduction
This site gives some insight to the features of the tanda player and its applications.
Please feel free to browse this site or simply email me at tangotandaplayer@gmail.com with your Tanda Player related questions and for more information on pricing.
Click here for a description of the main features
Example view from the live player showing auto generated Tandas.
A Tanda Player - Illustration from HiFiBerry's site.
The Tanda Player is a fairly cheap hardware and software solution for DJs who play Argentine Tango music at milongas and currently costing less than 150 UK pounds including Postage. Use the menus above to explore more.
The Tanda Player itself weighs just over 220g and measures approximately 10 x 7 x 4 cm.
The DJ software / Application suite only works with the Tanda Player and is not available as a download.
The recommendation is to use the applications via Google's Chrome web browser (or Safari on some platforms such as iPads) on a laptop but some slightly restricted capabilities are available via a mobile phone for example. The phone or laptop simply has to connect to the Tanda Player generated wifi hotspot/network. This means that the DJ does not have to be physically near the sound system / amplifiers. The Tanda Player can sit on top of the amplifiers and be controlled remotely.
The Tanda Player hardware starts up in under a minute. It can be powered from high power 5v battery although a standard 5v 2.5 Amp or better mains power supply is preferred.
At the most basic level, the DJ just needs the Tanda Player and a sound system and they can provide hours of music at a practica. With a phone, tablet or laptop, the DJ can interact with the playlist swapping tandas or listening to upcoming songs. At the most comprehensive level, the DJ can fully manage the evening's music as any normal DJ would expect plus they can have a HDMI connected projector display current song and tanda information with photographs or abstract images to the dancers whilst using some DMX controlled lights to adjust light levels and colours between perhaps the darker periods during the tandas and the brighter period of the cortina allowing dancers to more clearly see each other and also provide a reinforcement of the change in tandas. Additional units can be connected to the Tanda Player's wifi network allowing more projectors or lighting to be controlled in more remote locations without the need for long trailing cables.
Unlike most other DJ software, the Tanda Player is designed around the core requirements of a Milonga DJ:-
It helps the DJ classify the music as they hear it,
It helps the DJ find similar music to help build and compile Tandas and
It makes the playing of a Tanda based playlist simple because you work in whole tandas and not individual songs - although some single songs can be added or removed when needed. This means Playlists are modified a whole tanda at a time.
The DJ's own classifications and musical properties are used in searches and are done with colour coded musical properties and/or textual searches and match to tracks within the tandas as well as to names and notes attached to the tandas themselves.
It helps the DJ search through their tandas and songs by: following the DJ's tanda music style sequence, i.e. if a tanda of Milongas is required next, the search will already be set to find these Using searching techniques that allow the user to mis-spell words and still find matches listing songs by an artist together even when the artist's name has other words included within it such as "TIPICA" and "ORCHESTRA" Using the musical properties the DJ wants to play (such as a tanda with a strong rhythm) and finding similar songs and tandas
It undestands the purpose of cortinas and allows them to be added or removed from the playing of a playlist and even swap one set of cortinas for another.
It can operate industry standard DMX lighting to provide visible transitions between tandas and cortinas.
It can also provide outputs to projectors or large TVs via HDMI to show the dancers what's playing and what's next.
Some DJ applications allow the DJ to switch to an automatic mode. The Tanda Player goes one step further - the system has an Auto-DJ:$4.00 Per Gallon Gas By Spring? Bye Bye Economic Recovery?
Higher gas prices in the spring could have an impact on the economy, and the election.
Doug Mataconis · · 58 comments
Seemingly out of nowhere, there appears to be a fairly massive spike in the price of gasoline headed our way later this year:
Maybe you’ll want to start salting away money for 2012 fuel costs now. Get ready to see $4-a-gallon gasoline in various parts of the U.S. sometime this spring, according to one prediction. Another prediction says that some of the nation’s biggest cities — such as Chicago, Los Angeles and New York — will see record Memorial Day averages of $4.55 to $4.95 for a gallon of regular gasoline. The predictions come from two sources. One is the Oil Price Information Service in New Jersey, which provides the daily averages for the AAA Fuel Gauge Report, using retail receipts from more than 100,000 retail outlets across the U.S. The other is the annual price outlook from GasBuddy.com, where 300,000 to 400,000 member motorists a day report and post online and through phone apps the highest and lowest local prices they see. There are more than 250 price-posting GasBuddy websites devoted to various towns and cities across the U.S. and Canada. Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst for the Oil Price Information Service, is predicting a national average of $4.05 a gallon this spring, which would be just short of the Energy Department’s all-time inflation-adjusted record of $4.114 reached in the summer of 2008. California’s average would be higher, he said, adding that he didn’t expect it to hit the state’s record of $4.588 a gallon. One reason, Kloza said, was that those prices will be built on oil that is significantly more expensive than the commodities trading benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude that is reported every day on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX). The NYMEX on Friday, for example had West Texas crude trading at $98.61 a barrel, down 49 cents. But much of the oil the U.S. imports is based on Brent North Sea crude, which was trading at $110.38 per barrel in London. Other sources of U.S. crude are also more expensive, Kloza said. “The Alaska North Slope oil you rely on in California has been trading at about $10.40 a barrel more than West Texas. Louisiana crude from the Gulf of Mexico has been trading $11 a barrel higher.”
There’s further talk from these sources that gas prices could be near $5.00 per gallon heading into the summer, a prospect that would obviously cause major concerns for the summer driving season. For the economy as a whole, the impact of higher fuel prices are rather apparent and impact not just the pocketbooks of American drivers, but also the costs of transportation at nearly every level of the economy. If it costs more to ship the vegetables from California to your grocery store, then you’re going to end up spending more for those vegetables, not to mention pretty much every other level of the economy. If consumers and business are forced to spend more on transportation expenses, then that leaves them with less money for other expenditures, which in turn hurts the economy as a whole. Several analysts, for example, blame the rather obvious economic slowdown at the start of last year at the spike in fuel prices that we experienced at the time. If it happens again, it could put yet another damper on an already feeble recovery.
Politically, the impact of higher fuel prices is also fairly apparent. When gas prices started to rise early last year, President Obama’s job approval numbers felt the effect. They’ve recovered at least a little bit since then, but that was more than a year before the election. A gas price “crisis” over the spring and summer is likely to be bad news for the President, and would quite obviously become an issue in the 2012 elections. Much of it is likely to take the form of the GOP’s “Drill, Baby, Drill” sloganeering of the 2008 election, but it’s also worth noting that upward pressure on energy prices, combined with the bleak jobs picture, is going to make it next to impossible for President Obama to block the Keystone XL pipeline, and a political minefield if he does.
Of course, Keystone XL wouldn’t have an impact on energy prices for years and, as I noted when all of this came up last year, there’s very little that Washington can do about gas prices given that the factors driving up prices are largely out of the control of any government:
It’s clear that the majority of the factors driving energy prices up are beyond the control of any government. In fact, the main reason that oil and gas prices are higher today than they were in 2009 is because the world economy is in far better shape now than it was then and demand has, consequentially, returned to pre-recession levels for the most part. Add this increased demand into the supply problems created by the fact that the majority of the world’s oil happens to be located in the most politically unstable part of the world and it’s easy to see why the prices of both these commodities has increased so significantly over the past two years. As we’ve found far too often over the past 40 years or so, there’s very little we can do to make the Middle East more politically stable. That may happen some day, but it wil happen because the people of the Middle East want it to happen not because of some “solution” imposed from the outside. So, we’re likely to have to deal with a politically unstable Middle East for the foreseeable future. Additionally, there’s not much that can be done in the short term to impact the demand side of the equation. Demand for energy has increased in China and India precisely because these nations are becoming more developed economically, meaning that they need more oil for electricity generation and gasoline. Economic progress in those countries is actually a good thing, though, since it means a wider market for American goods and, of course, a better life for the people of India and China. Back home, the demand for energy continues unabated and it’s now clear that even increases in the price of gasoline, whether naturally or through imposition of higher gas taxes, has very little impact on driving behavior. Finally, there’s not a lot we can do on the supply side of the equation either. In 2010, the U.S. Energy Information Administration, part of the Department of Energy issued a report that found that opening the entire outer continental shelf to offshore drilling would have very little impact on the price of gasoline.
Added into all of this, of course, is the unknown factor. A year ago at this time, few people suspected that Libya would end up having a six month long civil war that would cut off its delivery of oil to Europe, something which contributed greatly to the increased price of oil for much of the first half of 2011. This year, it’s entirely possible that the unknown factor could come from some 2,300 miles to the east of Libya in the Straits of Hormuz. As insane as it would be for either the United States or Iran to force a confrontation there, all it would take is one badly timed incident for things to spin out of control. And guess what happened the other day:
At a time of heightened tensions with Iran, U.S. military officials told CNN Friday that U.S. military and Coast Guard ships had two close encounters earlier this month with high-speed Iranian boats in the Strait of Hormuz and Persian Gulf that exhibited provocative behavior. The incidents occurred January 6, according to a senior U.S. military official. The USS New Orleans, an amphibious transport ship was sailing through the Strait of Hormuz into the Persian Gulf last Friday when three Iranian Navy speed boats rapidly approached within 500 yards of the ship, the official said. The Iranians did not respond to whistle signals or voice queries from the New Orleans. The lack of response disregards standard maritime protocols, the official said. The boats eventually broke away. On the same day, the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Adak was also harassed by high-speed Iranian Navy boats while operating 75 miles east of Kuwait City. Iranian personnel in the small boats appeared to be holding AK-47 rifles and at least one video camera, the official said. U.S. personnel on the cutter also reported seeing a forward gun that was manned on one of the Iranian boats, according to the official. Eventually, communications with a larger Iranian vessel in the area were established and the speed boats stopped their harassment. No shots were fired in either incident, both of which were videotaped. The Pentagon may release that footage later Friday. While the U.S. Navy has had routine encounters with Iranian naval forces for years, the Navy has reported seeing more aggressive action in recent weeks from Iranian-flagged vessels. Officials believe such aggressive action carries the potential for miscalculation. Typically, Iranian small boats are operated by forces of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps force and are considered to be more aggressive than regular Iranian forces.
There’s at least some speculation that the Iranian boats were testing the American vessels, seeing how close they could get before being turned away. All it takes is for one of those incidents to go badly, or for communications to break down, and we could end up with an incident that increases tensions in the area to a level unseen in decades. The direction which oil prices would take if that happens would seem to be rather obvious.
So, you’ve been warned. Gas prices look to be headed up in the spring. What happens after that is anyone’s guess.Share
At the end of next week, the United States Trade Representative (USTR) will host the 14th round of negotiations surrounding a multilateral trade treaty known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP). The negotiations will last 10 days, from September 6 through 15, in Leesburg, Virginia.
At present, 11 countries are involved in the TPP negotiations: Australia, Peru, Malaysia, Vietnam, New Zealand, Chile, Singapore, Brunei, Mexico, Canada, and the United States. Japan also plans to join the TPP. And countless “stakeholders” — corporations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), Members of Congress, and others — are also involved in the talks. The general public — those affected by implementation of the TPP — have not been invited.
How the TPP targets the Web
As with the contentious Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), which was largely shut down by the European Parliament on July 4, the TPP negotiations are highly secretive, and the exact text of the treaty is all but unknown. There have, however, been some leaks — most notably, that of the chapter on intellectual property (pdf) and its frightening article 16.
Last Friday, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) outlined the problems the TPP could cause for the Internet — problems distrubingly similar to those found in ACTA and the currently-defunct Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), like potential censorship of legitimate speech, innovation-hampering regulation of the Web, a mandate for Internet service providers (ISPs) and intermediaries (like Google, Facebook, and any other website) to monitor Web activity and block access to websites accused of copyright infringement or the facilitation of infringement, and the requirement that ISPs cut Internet access to users allegedly engaged in online piracy.
“Private ISP enforcement of copyright poses a serious threat to free speech on the Internet, because it makes offering open platforms for user-generated content economically untenable,” write Carolina Rossini and Kurt Opsahl of the EFF. “For example, on an ad-supported site, the costs of reviewing each post will generally exceed the pennies of revenue one might get from ads. Even obvious fair uses could become too risky to host, leading to an Internet with only cautious and conservative content.”
The problem of stifling free speech as a result of the TPP is a particularly potent one. The document’s “takedown requirements open the door to abuse,” say Rossini and Opsahl, which could result in copyright claims being used to “strike a serious blow to freedom of expression.”
The gloomy news continues. But rather than paraphrase any further, I suggest you just read the post.
The will to say ‘no’
The EFF’s notes of warning compose a ghastly tune we’ve heard all to often in recent years, and it is blaring crystal clear in the crescendoing outcry confronting the TPP. But for those of us who find meaning in this song of injustice, only one conclusion can be reached: the TPP must be stopped, just as we stopped SOPA, PIPA, and ACTA before it.
At first glance, it would seem as though a chorus of opposition has begun to gather. The EFF’s combative article explaining the potential problems inherit in the TPP repeatedly soared to the highly-trafficked front page of Reddit, the forehead of the Internet; if you can feel feverish indignation there, then a good chance exists that a sickness is brewing. Soon the antibodies of the Web will launch into action in an attempt to fight back against whatever cancer has begun to grow — right?
Perhaps — but I doubt the TPP opposition movement will establish meaningful forces in the U.S., despite the country’s leadership role in pushing the treaty and the effects it may have on our laws and our Web.
…and why we won’t
The secrecy of the TPP negotiations places the first hurdle: without the ability to view the document in its entirety, we lack the authority to fully address our concerns and outrage. This imposed ignorance has the tell-tale nature of a tactical maneuver by those hoping to tightly control the public conversation about a controversial action. Until the full document is exposed, those of us in the dark can be brushed aside for simply ‘not knowing what we’re talking about.’
This is a problem not just for the U.S. anti-TPP movement but for all nations involved. The real obstacle for U.S. Internet users is the TPP’s inherently international nature. About one-third of Americans (110 million people) currently hold passports — a significant jump from the 48 million who had one in 2000. And yet, we remain foolishly unconcerned with international issues (pdf) — at least those that don’t involve natural catastrophes or the dropping of U.S. bombs. The simple fact that discussions surrounding the TPP include the names of other countries will likely cause a good many Americans’ eyes to gloss over.
Another mitigating factor is that the TPP is a trade agreement — a confounding intergovernmental action few have bothered to grasp. During the buildup of opposition to ACTA, we witnessed a slew of misinformed comments, and even “reports,” that labeled that treaty a “bill” or a “law.” Like ACTA, the TPP is neither. I expect this confusion and ignorance to further muddle any chance at genuine, educated opposition to the TPP.
Now, this sweeping, pejorative characterization of my fellow countrymen is not meant to discount the guaranteed involvement of a good many Americans in opposing the TPP. A certain segment of U.S. Web users — the proud disestablishmentarians who click articles like this one for fun — are on the lookout for acts of violence against the Internet. And they will get involved in the tussle, no doubt. Similarly, those who oppose greater globalization will also naturally come out against the TPP — which is, incidentally, far more about increasing the ability for large corporations to make money than it is about stamping out free speech and online innovation. But these factions of activists hold little power against stakeholders of the TPP without the backing of the care-free masses.
Prove me wrong
I say all this after watching U.S. Web users gladly pass the baton of responsibility in opposing ACTA to our cohorts in Europe. Granted, that is where the action was happening. And the anti-ACTA efforts there worked. But as it stands now, there is no excuse for not telling Washington exactly what we think about the TPP. In fact, the responsibility to fight the TPP rests with us. After all, Hollywood movie studios and music labels, and U.S.-based pharmaceutical companies (the most rabid proponents of copyright protections) clearly have their grubby mitts all over the TPP. This makes it primarily our responsibility to reign in the overreach, to cut out the tumor.
So for any of you who have made it this far by sitting on a fence, think of the TPP this way: Your government is willing to unnecessarily sacrifice your rights and the Internet you love for the sake of making a buck. Don’t let them. Read, scream, tweet, post, black out websites, call your Congressmen and President Obama a hundred times. Don’t wait for Google, Facebook, or your geeky friend to stand up. Shed your insular shell right now, and lead the world in shutting this sucka down.Air Conditioning
Mark Chiusano
For a while there was only one air-conditioner in our house. It was in the living room, and we put it on during birthdays or the fourth of July. It covered the heat in the kitchen from my mother burning things, like the half-sausages, the hot ones, which had a black crust on the bottom from where they were touching the pan for too long.
The air-conditioner being in the living room was the reason that Lorris slept in my room during the summer, even though he had his own room, because mine had a ceiling fan. It had wooden slats with small holes at the edges so that in the winter we could hang our model planes and cars off the ends. After our mother had dusted the top of the slats, we would set the fan going on a low frequency and the planes and racecars would spin around, getting higher and higher with the centripetal acceleration, until the Lego ones started to break apart, and Lorris ran shouting from the room.
Our parents had been arguing in the living room with the air-conditioner masking the noise a little, and we were building Lego cars in my room, when finally I came and sat on the stairs and started reading a poem I’d written the week before about how cold the pancakes were that morning.
The pancakes, I said, were cold this morning. I was sitting with my knees together on the top step and Lorris was lying on his stomach clutching the two-by-two Lego piece I had asked him to find. I started over, The pancakes were cold this morning.
That’s enough of that, said my father.
I’m just trying to help, I said.
He’s just trying to help, said Lorris.
It’s none of your business, he said. This is an adult conversation. From downstairs we could hear
the kitchen cabinets being slammed shut. Conversation, he repeated.
One day my father came home carrying a second air-conditioner. He was carrying it the way
you carry Christmas packages, as if someone was about to stack more boxes on top. He had to put
the air-conditioner down to ring the doorbell, even though Lorris and I had seen him through the upstairs window, and our mother went to answer it, us behind her, her shoulder and neck cradling the portable phone. She put a hand over the receiver to say, I don’t even want to know.
My father was a driving instructor. He worked at the place on Kings Highway under the train tracks, where the storefronts grow on top of each other until one of them covers up the other. The office for the Kings Highway Driving School was on the second floor, and they were ignoring Department of Health requests to make it handicap accessible. They posted a sign that said, “For handicapped, please call up. Will come down and get you.” So far they’d never had to do it.
I was thirteen at the time, and taking any seconds in the car I could get. Technically I was too young, but if we went in the practice car and lit up the sign on top that said Student Driver, no one said anything. Everyone in our neighborhood was a cop, and they knew me and my father pretty well, so we always drove out to Gerritsen, by the Shit Factory where you could make the widest turns. Sometimes we let Lorris in the back, because he always begged to come, and he took his favorite HotWheel, the red one with the white stripe down the middle. It was always the fastest on our yellow racetrack. He held it in both hands, mimicking the turns and motions I made while I drove.
My mother didn’t like the idea of me driving, especially with my father, because she said thatsomeday we would get caught and it would go on my permanent transcript. That was the kind of thing she was always ragging about, things on my permanent school transcript. Even though I was about to graduate, and I was already in Midwood for high school. She thought that those kinds of things ride on your bumper forever, and maybe they do, but I try to ask as few questions as possible. She wasn’t around when we drove anyway, because she worked nine to seven as a school secretary.
My father lounged around most mornings, doing his shifts in the office three days a week, but other than that he stayed at home until four, when the first lessons were usually scheduled. Sometimes he’d paint the basement just for something to do, or sweep the stoop. I got off the cheese bus from school around three, which left almost an hour for driving. Some days if Lorris was late at after-school program we’d go pick him up. Our mother liked that the least. How could we explain ourselves picking a nine-year-old kid up at school and say this is still a lesson? She was mainly just unhappy because she thought that our father wasn’t a good driver, and that it was terrifying that it was him teaching the whole borough below Fulton Street. Technically she might have been better, but he was confident about it, and didn’t worry about hitting the brakes too hard or conserving gas. She was always stopping at yellows.
When he brought the second air-conditioner home it was April, but one of those hot Aprils that remind you what summer’s like, before it rains again. In Brooklyn that type of weather is always paired with thunderstorms, which is what we waited for. Once our father left for work and before our mother got home I’d get the key for the garage and open the heavy door slowly, hand over hand. Lorris would be drumming on the metal as it went up. We’d pull our bikes out, his fire-yellow, mine blue and white, and race down the sidestreets to Marine Park by the water. At that point in the afternoon you’d be able to feel the heat through the handlebars. We’d make it one lap around the oval,.89 miles, before we heard the first thunder, and then Lorris would yell and dart ahead even though he’d just gotten his training wheels off. The rain came down all at once then, and all of a sudden it would be cold, and this was the best part, when I pulled over by the water fountain and Lorris circled back to me. I pulled the two red and blue windbreakers out of my bike basket and we put them on, invincible against anything from above. We rode two more laps in the zig-zag storm until racing each other home.
Dad put the second air-conditioner in his and Mom’s room. It was just the bathroom and a
closet between their room and mine, and if we had the fan on low Lorris and I could hear the air- conditioning clearing its throat all night. That’s what it sounded like, like it was constantly hacking something up from deep down in its throat. Sometimes if I was awake after going to the bathroom in the early a.m., I could hear our mother wake up and walk over to it, and turn it down a few settings. It took them a long time to get the hang of how high they wanted it to be. It would be too warm when they went to bed, but then freezing by morning, unless Mom got up to fix it. We could tell when she hadn’t gotten up because when we went in before school to say goodbye to Dad, on the days he was sleeping there, he’d have the white sheets all wrapped around his head from the middle of the night.
A few weeks after we got the second air-conditioner it was so hot they started putting out weather advisories over Ten-Ten-WINS in the morning. Stay inside unless absolutely necessary. Mom took this to heart, and tried to get Lorris and me to do it too, but this was the best time for outdoor activities. School was winding down, especially for eighth-graders, so that we didn’t have homework anymore, even from Regents math. My math teacher, Mr. Perlson, had taken to sitting in the back of the classroom and spraying Lysol at anyone if they sneezed too close to him. This was in Independent Math, where we worked at our own pace. We took the tests when we got to the ends of chapters. At this point, everyone seemed to still have a few pages before being ready for their tests. Mr. Perlson didn’t mind. He was concentrating on staying ahead of the sickness wave which always happened the first time the weather changed like this.
It got so hot that the cheese buses broke down, and we had to walk home from school. Dad would have picked us up if we told him, and he did pick Lorris up, but I convinced him that we’d gotten some special buses shipped in from upstate, where the kids biked to school all the time because it was so safe. My friend Harold and I walked towards our neighborhood together, taking everything in.
One of those days, Harold told me that I couldn’t walk straight. I told him he was being ridiculous but it turned out he was right. I’d step with my left foot and fall two or three inches off my forward motion, and then readjust with my right foot, but four or five inches too far. Then I’d have to fix it with my left, but that came off the line a little too. I didn’t know it was happening. Somehow I got wherever I was going, but Harold showed me how, if he was standing pretty close to my shoulder, I kept knocking him, on every third or fourth step.
We were walking down 33rd, which comes off Kings Highway at a curve, and suddenly I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make it all the way home. The more I thought about my feet the more inches I diverged right and left. Harold held my right arm and tried to force me forward, but I started breathing heavy and told him I needed a break. That’s when the station wagon pulled by, slowed up, and someone rolled down the window.
It was a high school kid, with a Madison Football sweatshirt and the chinstrap beard that everyone who could was wearing that year. Harold was pretending that the white tuft on his chin counted. The driver also had a Madison sweatshirt on, and I saw him use his right hand to put the car into park.
“Don’t |
application UIs. Native application UIs tend to slice up the screen both horizontally and vertically into a nested set of panels, some of which may scroll/resize, others being docked against particular edges of their parent panes.
So, what’s the robust way, with HTML/CSS, to set up a nested collection of panes that exactly divide both the width and height of the browser window?
Hang on, didn’t we have this one solved back in 1999?
Hmm… this reminds me of something… I remember: the **
** tag from *HTML 4*. Yes, HTML frames do divide the browser window both horizontally and vertically, exactly consuming the available screen area. So why don’t we use them any more? There are loads of reasons, including:
What you’re building is logically one page, but technically each frame is a separate HTML document, which makes interactions between them so much more complex
It’s not really practical to support deep-linking to (i.e., bookmarking) particular UI states
Mobile devices and tablets have very limited support for HTML 4 frames. iOS in particular requires the user to use two-fingered scrolling within panes. This is UX death.
OK, so what’s the 21st century solution?
I’ve used lots of hacks and tricks over the years to get columns and panes into my web applications, often involving JavaScript, $(…).height(…), window.body.clientHeight, and the onresize event. Ugh. Fragile and messy. But at long last this week I learned there is actually an elegant and robust way to set up nested exact-height panes with pure CSS, and it works on all browsers back to IE 7, even on current mobile browsers that *don’t *support position:fixed.
You know that if you set position: absolute on an element, then you can make it appear at a specified distance from the top, left, right, or bottom from its parent element. Well, it turns out that you can specify both top **and **bottom, or both left and right, and then it will dock against both edges and always resize to match its parent’s dimensions.
Let’s define some generic CSS rules for panes:
/* Generic pane rules */ body { margin : }.row,.col { overflow : hidden ; position : absolute ; }.row { left : ; right : ; }.col { top : ; bottom : ; }.scroll-x { overflow-x : auto ; }.scroll-y { overflow-y : auto ; }
Now it’s easy to set up a fixed-height header, variable-height body, and fixed-height footer:
<body> <div class="header row"> <h2>My header</h2> </div> <div class="body row scroll-y"> The body </div> <div class="footer row"> My footer </div> </body>
Of course, you also have to configure the heights and positions of the three rows by using a bit more CSS:
.header.row { height : 75px ; top : ; }.body.row { top : 75px ; bottom : 50px ; }.footer.row { height : 50px ; bottom : ; }
The result? It’s the classic mobile phone app layout. Screenshot with some colours and content added for interest:
Try it in your desktop or mobile browser here. Works on IE7+.
More nesting (or, tablet-style layouts)
The reason for setting up the generic CSS rules in that way is that it makes it easy nest panes arbitrarily. For example, you could split the main viewport into two vertical columns:
<body> <div class="left col"> Left col here </div> <div class="right col"> Right col here </div> </body>
… and then subdivide the right column so it has a fixed header, variable-height body, and fixed footer, just by putting some more row divs inside it:
<div class="right col"> <div class="header row"> View or edit something </div> <div class="body row scroll-y"> Here’s some content that can scroll vertically </div> <div class="footer row"> Some status message here </div> </div>
Here’s the CSS to configure the widths/heights/positions of those panes:
.left.col { width : 250px ; }.right.col { left : 250px ; right : ; }.header.row { height : 75px ; line-height : 75px ; }.body.row { top : 75px ; bottom : 50px ; }.footer.row { height : 50px ; bottom : ; line-height : 50px ; }
Going further, in the right-hand pane’s body, you could also nest a horizontally-scrollable row:
<div class="body row scroll-y"> <p>Here's a horizontally-scrollable thing:</p> <div class="scroll-x"> Any content in here, if it's too wide, becomes independently scrollable </div> <p>That's enough - bye.</p> </div>
The result of all this? Well, it’s a structure like this:
… but that’s pretty boring to look at, so here’s a version where I threw in a rough effort of some iPad-like styling:
Here’s a live example. It still renders correctly on very small screens (like a WP7 or iPhone) but this 2-column layout really needs a wider screen to be usable.
Enabling touch scrolling
The scrolling looks and works fine on a desktop browser, but on a mobile browser it varies:
On WP7, you’ll see no scrollbars, but you’ll get one-finger touch scrolling, without the lovely inertia/momentum effect. This is kind-of OK, though imperfect.
On iOS, you’ll see no scrollbars, and it requires two-finger scrolling (which is horrible), and it won’t use the inertia/momentum effect either. Badness.
(which is horrible), and it won’t use the inertia/momentum effect either. Badness. There are similar problems on Android
With iOS 5, it will be possible to enable fluid, native touch-based momentum scrolling to our divs just by making a tiny tweak to the CSS, thanks to the new “touch scrolling” feature:
.scroll-x,.scroll-y { -webkit-overflow-scrolling : touch ; }
I really hope this catches on and becomes a standard.
But in the meantime, for visitors on other mobile OSes, and until iOS 5 becomes prevalent, you can use the open-source iScroll library that provides one-finger momentum scrolling for Webkit (iOS and Android) and Mozilla browsers.
Enabling momentum scrolling on any given element requires only one line of JavaScript (assuming you’ve referenced iScroll.js):
new iScroll ( theElementYouWantToEnableItFor ) ;
For my example, I used the following block of JavaScript, which enables touch scrolling on all the.scroll-x and.scroll-y elements:
<!-- Touch scrolling --> <!--[if!IE]><!--> <script src="script/iscroll.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> var xScrollers = document.getElementsByClassName("scroll-x"); for (var i = 0; i < xScrollers.length; i++) new iScroll(xScrollers[i], { vScroll: false }); var yScrollers = document.getElementsByClassName("scroll-y"); for (var i = 0; i < yScrollers.length; i++) new iScroll(yScrollers[i], { hScroll: false }); </script> <!--<![endif]-->
You could do this in fewer lines if you’re using a library like jQuery or XUI (which is a tiny implementation of a small part of the jQuery API surface, intended for mobiles). Here’s the resulting mobile-style scrollbar:
Of course, to see the momentum effect, you’ll need to run it in your Chrome/Safari/Firefox browser.
Credits: Thanks to Rob Swan and FellowshipTech for their articles and projects where I found the CSS positioning trick that underlies this approach to exact-height layout.Updated Oct. 1, at 2:00 A.M.
The Federal government headed into its first partial shutdown in 17 years as Congress failed to pass any federal spending bills for fiscal 2014, which began at 12:00 A.M., Tuesday, Oct. 1. The shutdown follows days of rancorous finger-pointing and legislative ping-ponging between the Republican-controlled House and Democratic-controlled Senate---a spectacle that has driven Congress’ overall approval rating down to a record low 10% and President Barack Obama’s approval down to 44%, according to a new CNN/ORC International Poll.
The main obstacle to keeping the government open has been the insistence of the most conservative House “Tea Party” Republicans that even a six week budget stopgap bill (known as a continuing resolution) include some provision defunding or delaying all or part of the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. ObamaCare), which they claim the vast majority of the public opposes. Obama and Senate Democrats, for their part, are adamant that no policy riders of any sort be attached to a temporary funding resolution and that ObamaCare is settled law--passed by Congress, upheld by the Supreme Court, and reaffirmed by Obama’s 2012 re-election. “One faction of one party, in one house of Congress, in one branch of government doesn’t get to shut down the entire government just to refight the results of an election,’’ Obama said during a visit to the White House briefing room Monday afternoon.
Shortly before midnight Monday, Office of Management & Budget Director Sylvia Burwell sent all department and agency heads a memo stating that since there was no "clear indication" that Congress would act in time for the President to sign a funding bill Tuesday, they "should now execute plans for an orderly shutdown."
Assuming no wee hours surprise, about 800,000 federal civilian workers will be sent home Tuesday on unpaid furlough; all national parks and monuments (everything from Yosemite to the Statue of Liberty to the Smithsonian) will be closed; the Bureau of Labor Statistics will stop issuing its closely watched jobs numbers; the Small Business Administration will stop guaranteeing most new loans; the Internal Revenue Service will stop auditing and answering its phones (but taxpayers still must pay what they owe); and the Securities & Exchange Commission will stop reviewing registrations, including for IPOs, delaying the keenly awaiting offering from Twitter, among others.
But 1.4 million uniformed members of the military will stay on the job and will be paid, thanks to a last-minute bill unanimously passed by both houses and signed by Obama on Monday night. Another 1.2 million civilian federal workers involved in operations deemed necessary to protect life and property-- air-traffic controllers, TSA airport inspectors, border control agents, FBI agents and prison guards, among others--will continue working, but won’t be paid until Congress passes FY 2014 funding.
The shutdown won’t affect Social Security and Medicare, which are "mandatory" programs funded outside the annual budget, or veterans health care, which is funded a year in advance. The Department of Veterans Affairs says October pension and disability payments to veterans will be made, but November checks could be endangered if the shutdown drags on. Ironically, the state individual insurance exchanges established under ObamaCare will open as scheduled on Oct. 1, although glitches can be expected regardless of what Congress does now.
It was unclear Monday night how long a shutdown might last or what impact it would have on the economy; stocks fell Monday, but not dramatically. Vanguard Group Chief Economist Joseph Davis estimated Monday that each week in which the government is shut down directly knocks one to two tenths of a percentage point off the economy's growth rate. But the bigger issue, he said, is how much the turmoil raises the "Uncertainty Tax" on the U.S. economy. Policy uncertainty, Davis argues, is already keeping U.S. economic growth down around 2%, when it could be 3% a year.
Moreover, Congress hasn’t even started debating an increase in the nation’s federal borrowing limit, something the Treasury says must be done by about Oct. 17th if the U.S. is to continue to pay all of its existing obligations--including foreign creditors and Social Security recipients--in full. Even a short-lived default on the nation's debt could prove far more harmful economically than a government shutdown. A summer 2011 debt limit standoff was resolved before the U.S. actually defaulted on paying its creditors, although the drama still led Standard & Poor’s to downgrade the U.S. credit rating for the first time in the nation’s history. Investors might interpret even a short shutdown this week as a harbinger of “a more contentious process” around raising the federal debt limit later this month, Davis observed. Already, House Republicans have compiled a wish list of policy changes--involving everything from tax reform to elimination of the Consumer Financial Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and more offshore drilling-- they want in return for a debt limit increase.
The budget debate has hardly been reassuring. Last Friday, after Tea Party favorite Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) staged a 21-hour talkathon against ObamaCare, the Senate voted 79 to 19 (with the majority of Republicans in support) to cut off debate on a House passed bill providing temporary funding to the government at current spending levels. That allowed Senate Democrats to strip out of the House bill a provision defunding ObamaCare and send a clean bill back to the House. But on Saturday, House Republicans added back a provision to delay ObamaCare for a year, which Senate Democrats rejected Monday afternoon.
Shortly before 9 P.M. Monday, House Republicans pushed through yet another anti- ObamaCare rider on a largely party-line 228 to 201 vote; this one would delay for a year ObamaCare’s requirement that everyone carry insurance or pay a penalty tax and would also deprive members of Congress and their staffs of the subsidy for health insurance other federal employees (and most employees of private companies) get. Instead, they would be forced to buy insurance on the individual exchanges, without any government subsidy. An hour later, the Senate voted to table (in effect reject) that version too, on a 54-46 party-line vote, putting the issue back in the House’s court.
As midnight passed, the House debated a new Republican effort to send a bill with the latest ObamaCare restrictions to a conference committee with the Senate. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev) had already made clear that he wouldn't negotiate over the budget until the ObamaCare provision was removed. "We will not go to conference with a gun to our heads,'' he said on the Senate floor before adjourning that body for the night. But House Republicans went ahead and passed their conference committee play anyway, allowing House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) to Tweet after 1 A.M. that "Senate Democrats chose to shut down the govt rather than discuss the failures of #Obamacare."
“The Democrats are not negotiating. They’re not compromising. I think Harry Reid wants a shutdown,’’ Cruz complained to CNN. “The leadership of the House is stuck between these fanatical right wingers and what they know is right for not only the country but the future of their party,’’ Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told MSNBC. “God forbid we shut down the government, there’s going to be such a huge reaction they'll have to back off in a few days'' he added. Surveys show a large majority of voters, whatever their qualms about ObamaCare, oppose shutting down the government in a bid to defund or change it.
How the budget standoff might be resolved is still unclear. Rep. Peter King (R-NY) told reporters Monday that as many as two dozen House Republican moderates were ready to vote with House Democrats to pass a clean continuing budget resolution---if given a chance to do so by Boehner. The last federal shutdown, when President Bill Clinton and then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA), locked horns, lasted for a total of 28 days over two acts---the first in November 1995 and the second from mid-December to early January of 1996.
Follow Janet Novack on TwitterIN 1662 a London haberdasher with an eye for numbers published the first quantitative account of death. John Graunt tallied causes such as “the King’s Evil”, a tubercular disease believed to be cured by the monarch’s touch. Others seem uncanny, even poetic. In 1632, 15 Londoners “made away themselves”, 11 died of “grief” and a pair fell to “lethargy”.
Graunt’s book is a glimpse of the suddenness and terror of death before modern medicine. It came early, too: until the 20th century the average human lived about as long as a chimpanzee. Today science and economic growth mean that no land mammal lives longer. Yet an unintended consequence has been to turn dying into a medical experience.
Get our daily newsletter Upgrade your inbox and get our Daily Dispatch and Editor's Picks.
How, when and where death happens has changed over the past century. As late as 1990 half of deaths worldwide were caused by chronic diseases; in 2015 the share was two-thirds. Most deaths in rich countries follow years of uneven deterioration. Roughly two-thirds happen in a hospital or nursing home. They often come after a crescendo of desperate treatment. Nearly a third of Americans who die after 65 will have spent time in an intensive-care unit in their final three months of life. Almost a fifth undergo surgery in their last month.
Such zealous intervention can be agonising for all concerned (see article). Cancer patients who die in hospital typically experience more pain, stress and depression than similar patients who die in a hospice or at home. Their families are more likely to argue with doctors and each other, to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and to feel prolonged grief.
What matters
Most important, these medicalised deaths do not seem to be what people want. Polls, including one carried out in four large countries by the Kaiser Family Foundation, an American think-tank, and The Economist, find that most people in good health hope that, when the time comes, they will die at home. And few, when asked about their hopes for their final days, say that their priority is to live as long as possible. Rather, they want to die free from pain, at peace, and surrounded by loved ones for whom they are not a burden.
Some deaths are unavoidably miserable. Not everyone will be in a condition to toast death’s imminence with champagne, as Anton Chekhov did. What people say they will want while they are well may change as the end nears (one reason why doctors are sceptical about the instructions set out in “living wills”). Dying at home is less appealing if all the medical kit is at the hospital. A treatment that is unbearable in the imagination can seem like the lesser of two evils when the alternative is death. Some patients will want to fight until all hope is lost.
But too often patients receive drastic treatment in spite of their dying wishes—by default, when doctors do “everything possible”, as they have been trained to, without talking through people’s preferences or ensuring that the prognosis is clearly understood. Just a third of American patients with terminal cancer are asked about their goals at the end of life, for example whether they wish to attend a special event, such as a grandchild’s wedding, even if that means leaving hospital and risking an earlier death. In many other countries, the share is even lower. Most oncologists, who see a lot of dying patients, say that they have never been taught how to talk to them.
This newspaper has called for the legalisation of doctor-assisted dying, so that mentally fit, terminally ill patients can be helped to end their lives if that is their wish. But the right to die is just one part of better care at the end of life. The evidence suggests that most people want this option, but that few would, in the end, choose to exercise it. To give people the death they say they want, medicine should take some simple steps.
More palliative care is needed. This neglected branch of medicine deals with the relief of pain and other symptoms, such as breathlessness, as well as counselling for the terminally ill. Until recently it was often dismissed as barely medicine at all: mere tea and sympathy when all hope has gone. Even in Britain, where the hospice movement began, access to palliative care is patchy. Recent studies have shown how wrongheaded that is. Providing it earlier in the course of advanced cancer alongside the usual treatments turns out not only to reduce suffering, but to prolong life, too.
Most doctors enter medicine to help people delay death, not to talk about its inevitability. But talk they must. A good start would be the wider use of the “Serious Illness Conversation Guide” drawn up by Atul Gawande, a surgeon and author. It is a short questionnaire designed to find out what terminally ill patients know about their condition and to understand what their goals are as the end nears. Early research suggests it encourages more, earlier conversations and reduces suffering.
These changes should be part of a broad shift in the way health-care systems deal with serious illness. Much care for the chronically ill needs to move out of hospitals altogether. That would mean some health-care funding being diverted to social support. The financial incentives for doctors and hospitals need to change, too. They are typically paid by insurers and governments to do things to patients, not to try to prevent disease or to make patients comfortable. Medicare, America’s public health scheme for the over-65s, has recently started paying doctors for in-depth conversations with terminally ill patients; other national health-care systems, and insurers, should follow. Cost is not an obstacle, since informed, engaged patients will be less likely to want pointless procedures. Fewer doctors may be sued, as poor communication is a common theme in malpractice claims.
One last thing before I go
Most people feel dread when they contemplate their mortality. As death has been hidden away in hospitals and nursing homes, it has become less familiar and harder to talk about. Politicians are scared to bring up end-of-life care in case they are accused of setting up “death panels”. But honest and open conversations with the dying should be as much a part of modern medicine as prescribing drugs or fixing broken bones. A better death means a better life, right until the end.The German banking industry association Bankenverband (BdB) recently said that it believes that blockchain technology may have a significant impact on financial markets.
In a new document, BdB’s Digital Agenda Committee responded to member questions on how it believes developments in the field of financial technology will impact the domestic banking industry, speculating that the blockchain could affect the stock market and payments sectors.
The comments come in response to a question that centered on whether large technology groups such as Amazon, Apple, Facebook or Google could leverage cryptographic financial systems as a way to disrupt banking. Of note for the inquirer was the recent decision by the European Court of Justice that bitcoin transactions in Germany would be exempt from value-added tax (VAT).
In its remarks, however, BdB was less than optimistic about the use of bitcoin by these companies saying that it remains to be seen if it will be used by consumers given that it is currently “impractical in everyday life”.
The organization continued:
“Much more relevant to the developments in the financial services industry is that which lies behind bitcoin, the blockchain technology. Blockchain technology has the potential to revolutionize the entire present-day settlement system in the securities sector.”
Still, the group cautioned that customer reactions to the technology “cannot be estimated today” and that commercial applications of blockchain technology may create “opportunities or risks”, making its assessment largely speculative.
BdB boasts more than 200 German banks as members, with more well-known members including Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank, institutions that are currently openly working on blockchain projects through a partnership with industry startup R3.
Mark Preuss contributed reporting.
German parliament image via ShutterstockImage caption Country singer Taylor Swift was among 2012's biggest sellers
Online music piracy across the world "declined significantly" in 2012, according to a new report.
The NPD Group said last year the number of users on peer-to-peer (P2P) illegally downloading music fell by 17% - down to 21 million worldwide.
The market research firm cited an increased use of legal streaming music sites as being behind the drop.
It comes as a separate report noted that global music revenues had risen for the first time since 1999.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) said that accelerating digital music sales had caused a 0.3% upturn in global revenues - a total of $16.5bn (£10.9bn). A small boost, but it is the first year of growth for well over a decade.
"It is hard to remember a year for the recording industry that has begun with such a palpable buzz in the air," said Frances Moore, chief executive of IFPI.
"These are hard-won successes for an industry that has innovated, battled and transformed itself over a decade.
"They show how the music industry has adapted to the internet world, learned how to meet the needs of consumers and monetised the digital marketplace."
Targeted campaign
The NPD Group's report, based on its annual study of music consumers, said that at P2P file sharing's peak, in 2005, as many as 33 million people used the services - one in five of all internet users aged 13 and older.
Global singles best sellers in 2012 Carly Rae Jepsen, Call Me Maybe, 12.5 million units Gotye, Somebody That I Used To Know, 11.8 million PSY, Gangnam Style, 9.7 million Fun, We Are Young, 9.6 million Maroon 5, Payphone, 9.1 million Michel Telo, Ai Se Eu Te Pego, 7.2 million Nicki Minaj, Starships, 7.2 million Maroon 5, One More Night, 6.9 million Flo Rida, Whistle, 6.6 million Flo Rida, Wild Ones, 6.5 million Source: IFPI
But in 2012 that number was measured as being down to 21 million people.
The report said as many as 40% of people who used illegal music services in 2011 stopped doing so in 2012.
Of those, 20% said this was due to the fact the illegal service they were using had been shut down, or had contained spyware and viruses.
More than half the users who stopped using illegal sites said they now preferred legal services such as the UK-headquartered Spotify.
The music industry has undertaken a sizable campaign over several years to see illegal sites and services put out of business.
In the UK, the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) took action to the courts, obtaining a court order to force internet service providers to block access to file-sharing site The Pirate Bay.
The Pirate Party UK - a political group that campaigns for an "open" internet - launched a proxy service to allow UK users to circumvent the block of The Pirate Bay, but that too was closed following legal threats from the BPI.
"In recent years, we've seen less P2P activity, because the music industry has successfully used litigation to shut down [P2P client] Limewire and other services," said Russ Crupnick, senior vice president of NPD.
"Many of those who continued to use P2P services reported poor experiences, due to rampant spyware and viruses on illegal P2P sites."
Removing barriers
Despite the seemingly good news, controversial measures to curb piracy further are still taking place.
On Tuesday, the "six strikes" campaign - where users engaging in piracy are given six warnings before action is taken - came into force in the US.
Special report Read the BBC's special report into piracy habits in the UK
The music industry has also started to refocus its efforts by targeting those who make profiting from illegal music possible, such as advertisers, as well as the piracy sites themselves.
Elsewhere, search engines like Google have been pressured to demote piracy websites in their search results.
More needs to be done on that front, IFPI said: "Searches for the names of popular artists followed by the term "mp3" still return a large number of results for illegal sources on the first page.
"In August 2012, Google announced it would take into account the number of valid copyright notices it receives when returning search results.
"That was a welcome step in principle but unfortunately has not been translated into results."The use of minorities as stock villains is something that has plagued entertainment media for years. Now that political correctness has gone thankfully mad, it has become less acceptable to lean on generic brown terrorists, effeminate criminal masterminds or scheming mandarins when finding adversaries for an action hero to plow through. Video games may have lagged behind somewhat but many developers do at least make some effort to to avoid stereotyping.
There is one notable exception, however. One beleaguered minority that seemingly has no voice in wider society. Nobody to stand up and say, "Enough. Leave these poor people alone, you MONSTERS."
I'm talking, of course, about Nazis.
Yes, the proud Aryans (and affiliates) of the Alt-Right are sick of being the go-to target for self-righteous good-guys. Why should they be treated as scum, fit only for vigorous fragging and expertly chained combos? Where is the respect? The simple human decency?
And what has triggered these snowflake stormtroopers? A vicious piece of anti-Nazi propaganda in the form of a trailer for Bethesda's latest game - Wolfenstein: The New Colossus.
A brief history of shooting Nazis in the face
There are many, many games that involve the punching, stabbing, shooting and general doing-in of members of the National Socialist party. From the Indiana Jones point-and-click adventures to the full-on assault of Medal of Honour, with plenty of oddities like the superhero antics of Freedom Force vs the Third Reich in between. The gold standard of Nazi-harm, however, is the Wolfenstein series.
Starting in 1981, with the 2D Castle Wolfenstein, the series put you in the shoes of all-American bruiser BJ Blazkowicz, deep behind enemy lines and on a largely stealth-based mission to infiltrate the titular, Nazi-occupied castle. By 1992, the series found its groove with Wolfenstein 3d - one of the earliest first-person shooters and the template for pretty much every game in that genre to this day.
After shooting your way through the primitively-rendered 3D castle, you would finally do battle with a cybernetically-enhanced MECHA-HITLER, thus cementing the franchise's reputation for cold-edged realism.
Later reboots gave us Return To Castle Wolfenstein and simply 'Wolfenstein', both of which featured multiplayer Nazi-duffing as well as a load of occult bits and bobs, because the Nazis were definitely into that, no matter what David Duke says. There was even a Wolfenstein role-playing game for (non-smart)phones, allowing turn-based Nazi foiling you could carry around in your pocket.
Which brings us to the most recent iterations of the Wolfenstein experience. 2014’s Wolfenstein: The New Order and this year’s entrant, Wolfenstein: The New Colossus. These games take place in an alternate reality, a 1960s in which the Nazis defeated the Allies and took over the world. Only you, a revived BJ Blazkowitz, can lead the fightback and kick the ascendant fascists right in the crease of their impeccable uniforms.
Why now?
I’m not here to debate the ethics of video game violence. You can see first-person shooters as a malign influence on our Pop Kids or as a harmless exhaust pipe for pent-up frustrations or as anything else you like. I’m easy. The recent outpouring of Alt-Right anger does raise one important question, though. Given the fact that we are now well into the fourth decade of digital Nazi slaughter, why is it only now that games like this have put the far right on the defensive?
Reactions to the New Colossus trailer have been mainly positive, with fans of The New Order relishing the chance to get back to that game’s formula of fast-paced action and light puzzle solving. The game resembles a glossier, Nazi-themed Half Life 2 sequel as much as anything.
Among the criticisms from the Alt-Right are accusations that the game is ‘racist’ to white people. The evidence for this seems to lie in a black woman character who at one point refers to our man BJ as ‘white boy’.
As YouTuber “Bob Ross” comments, “That black Afro whore calling that white man a white boy... More racist agenda against white people.”
An anonymous commenter to 4Chan has seen through the real agenda behind the game. “Bethesda jews are trying to destroy gaming industry with political correctness fagottry.”
Ultimately, as YouTube commenter Bobby Johnson puts it, “Why are people hating nazis? You should be hating muslims who are terrorizing, murduring, and raping europeans. And the jews”
Wise, if poorly spelled, words, I’m sure you will agree.
No, the real issue with Wolfenstein: The New Colossus isn’t that it strikes a markedly more critical tone against the would-be Master race. The explosions may get bigger and the guns louder with every new game but the Wolfenstein formula is the same as it ever was.
The problem is Trump’s brand of populist, easily consumed, fascism-lite. The problem is the dark corners of the net that put the Alt in Alt-Right. The problem is simply that, more than ever, there are now self-identifying Nazis who are willing to peer out from under their stones, hold up their hands at about 45 degrees and cry foul.President Donald Trump meets with, from left, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and other Congressional leaders in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2017, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House says President Donald Trump will have dinner on Wednesday night with Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi.
The dinner comes as the Republican president has sought to work more closely with the Democratic leaders in Congress to enact his legislative agenda.
Trump reached an agreement with Schumer and Pelosi last week — despite objections from Republicans — on a three-month agreement to raise the debt ceiling, keep the government running and speed hurricane relief to states.
The president has said he's simply doing "what the people of the United States want to see. They want to see some dialogue."
Trump met on Tuesday evening with Democratic Sens. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Joe Donnelly of Indiana.
The president is also expected to sit down with Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina to discuss the president's response to the violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va. Scott is the only African-American Republican currently serving in the Senate and criticized Trump's handling of the racial violence last month.
Sinclair Broadcast Group contributed to this story.via Futurepedia
The future is upon us—but if you asked Marty McFly, he’d tell you we’re already behind schedule.
When Back to the Future II’s time-traveling DeLorean blasted Marty McFly and Doc Brown to the future, they arrived on October 21, 2015. While the sci-fi comedy has already predicted some things about the future correctly (playing video games without hands, for example), other elements were rather off-track (phone booths and newspapers aren’t quite as prominent today as they were in the 1989 movie).
Director-producer Robert Zemeckis and writer-producer Bob Gale knew that much of their vision of the future would not become reality by 2015—they did not believe mass-produced flying cars were just around the corner, nor did they think Jaws would get its 18th sequel. Even though comedic tone was often prioritized over plausibility, Back to the Future II’s creative team did extensive research about developing technologies for the film. Gale tells us he wanted to avoid the dark, dystopian world depicted in films like Blade Runner and make the future look like a nice place to live. “We wanted people to look forward to the future because, when we were kids," he says, "we always looked forward to the future."
Consider Zemeckis and Gale successful on that account: Hoverboards captured the imaginations of movie-goers in 1989, and they still do today. So, should we put the soaring skateboard on our Christmas list for 2015? Let's investigate the likelihood of some of Back to the Future Part II's technologies making an appearance in the near future.
1. Biometric Thumbprint Scanner
via Futurepedia
This could be the most on-schedule of Back to the Future's predictions. A year from now, you’ll be able to pay an inflated cab fee with the touch of a finger or unlock your front door without digging through a mess of keys. Important to the progress of this technology is the iPhone, no matter how glitchy the first rollout of Touch ID was. Today, just a handful of airports have biometric scanners to speed up your trip through security, but there’s a good chance this tech will be near-ubiquitous by October 2015, “especially with an organization like Apple getting momentum behind it,” says Jim Carroll, an Ontario-based futurist.
2. Hoverboard
Gale recalls that, after Back to the Future Part II’s release, “we got so many letters from kids saying, ‘Please send me a hoverboard, but don’t send me a pink one.’” Sad news, hoverboard fans: The Pitbull won’t be on the market by 2015. Anti-gravity technology isn’t there yet, no matter what a Tony Hawk-starring viral hoax says. (Magnetic levitation is the next-best thing now.)
Even if the developers at Mattel had a breakthrough and got the hoverboard ready for stores, there would be another force to overcome: lawmakers who choose what’s street-legal. Remember the Segway and how revolutionary it was supposed to be? New York-based futurist Michael Rogers says the hoverboard would probably be in for the same fate as the failed personal transporter.
3. Rejuvenation Clinic
via SomethingAwful
Doc Brown's visit to a rejuvenation clinic saved the film's makeup department from doing old-age makeup on actor Christopher Lloyd throughout the production, but modern viewers can also see Doc's de-wrinkling as a reality-based nod to the growing popularity of plastic surgery—and Doc’s replacement spleen and colon could be a near-future trend, too. Rogers says that in 2015 there will be some synthetic organ replacement, but it will still be in the experimental stage. According to Seattle-based futurist Glen Hiemstra, by 2030 or 2040 we will be able to clone our own organs and grow ourselves a new |
) — Jeremy Cluff (@Jeremy_Cluff) February 21, 2018
Steve Nash: He's never been a head coach in the NBA, but he sure could play. He does have some NBA experience. He's been a consultant for the Golden State Warriors.
Dan Majerle: Many felt the Suns made a mistake not making Majerle the Suns head coach when they fired Alvin Gentry. Would the current GCU coach even listen if Suns called?
BICKLEY: Suns need to hire Dan Majerle as their next head coach
Mark Jackson: The former Warriors coach is an NBA commentator for NBA and is known for his knowlege of the game. He played in the NBA from 1987-2004.
Jason Kidd: The former Suns player went 183-190 in five season as an NBA coach before being fired by the Bucks earlier this season.
I think the Suns have great fans. They need to start mobilizing now to make sure Jason Kidd doesn’t talk his way into that Phoenix head coaching job. Between him and Sarver just set the next 4 years on fire. You know I’m right. Mobilize now. — Bill Simmons (@BillSimmons) January 25, 2018
Sean Miller: With the scandal surrounding his program in Tucson, could the Wildcats coach move to Phoenix and the NBA?
John Calipari: The Suns have several players on their team who played at Kentucky. Why not reach out to their college coach to coach them in the NBA?
Jerry Stackhouse: Stackhouse has made a name for himself in the G-league. It's only a matter of time until he gets a chance in the NBA.
David Fizdale: Fizdale went 50-51 with the Grizzlies before being fired earlier this season. He spent several years with the Heat as a assistant and then associate head coach.
Triano should be given the rest of the season to see how he does, but if David Fizdale is available and the #Suns don't AT LEAST interview him.... — Gerald Bourguet (@GeraldBourguet) November 27, 2017
Adrian Griffin: Griffin is an assistant for the Oklahoma City Thunder, but has never had a shot at coaching his own team.
Ime Udoka: Udoka is an assistant with the Spurs and could be in line for a head coaching opportunity.
Monty Williams: Williams, the Vice President of basketball operations for the Spurs. He went 394-173 in five seasons as an NBA head coach in New Orleans.
RELATED: Latest picks for the Phoenix Suns in NBA mock drafts
Bordow's take on the Suns' coaching search:
azcentral sports Suns beat reporter Scott Bordow gave an update on the Suns' coaching situation.
"I think (Jay Triano) will be a contender," he said in an azcentral sports' Shot Clock video, "but I think the Suns are going to interview different people. I mean, what they didn't do when they hired Earl Watson was go out and interview other candidates for the job. I think they will go outside, interview three, four, five candidates. Now, they may double back to Jay Triano and say you're the man for the job, but I think it is wise for them to go out and see who is out there because you want to see what they say about your organization."
Who would you like to see be the next Suns' head coach? Share your thoughts in the comments.
NEWSLETTERS Get the Sports Breaking News newsletter delivered to your inbox We're sorry, but something went wrong Can't wait to read sports news? Get crucial breaking sports news alerts to your inbox. Please try again soon, or contact Customer Service at 1-800-332-6733. Delivery: Varies Invalid email address Thank you! You're almost signed up for Sports Breaking News Keep an eye out for an email to confirm your newsletter registration. More newsletters
NBA DRAFT LOTTERY: Where will the Suns pick? | How many picks?
MORE: 2017-18 Suns promotional calendar | New food options
MOST VALUABLE NBA TEAMS: Suns gain worth in 2018 rankings
For more from The Heat Index, go to heatindex.azcentral.com.Phssthpok, a Pak Protector eating Tree-of-Life root in the Library on the Pak homeworld
Pak Breeders and Pak Protectors are two developmental stages of fictional life in Larry Niven's Known Space universe. The Pak first appeared in "The Adults," which appeared in Galaxy in 1967; this story was expanded into the novel Protector by Larry Niven (1973). The Pak also appear in several of Niven's later novels, notably those set in the Ringworld.
Destroyer of Worlds depicts a confrontation between the Pak and the Puppeteers.
Narrative purpose [ edit ]
Niven has written that he invented the Protectors as a thought experiment to explain the common effects of aging on humans and to create a fictional evolutionary explanation for humans' long lives after females have passed reproductive age.[1] Accordingly, most of the positive attributes of Protectors are based on negative human aging effects: swollen joints, decreased muscle-fat ratio, weakening heart, invariant diet, decreasing height, facial atrophy, leathery skin, hair loss, lack of sex drive, and tooth loss are all turned to advantage during the shift from Breeder to Protector.
The Pak species [ edit ]
In Protector, we learn that humans are descended from the Pak. Pak Children and Breeders appear in Earth's fossil record as Homo habilis; the few Pak Protectors to make it to Earth apparently are not found in the fossil record.
The Pak species goes through three stages of development: Child, Breeder and Protector.
Pak Child is analogous to a human child: sexually immature and dependent upon adults for survival.
Pak Breeder is analogous to a human adult: sexually mature, self-sufficient (in later writings) and provides immediate care for the children. To the Pak, the Breeder stage, though capable of space travel, is not deemed fully sentient; Breeders, to a large extent, rely on Protectors for long-term survival. Earlier Niven stories describe the breeder as "just intelligent enough to swing a club or throw a stone."
Pak Protector is not analogous to any human form. It is described as a 'fighting machine,' with armor-like skin, super-human strength and super-human intelligence. Niven's stories that focus on the Pak mostly concentrate on the unique Protector-stage.
Niven explained the evolution of the Pak as resulting from high radiation levels on their home world near the core of the galaxy. The high radiation near the star-dense core caused severe mutations that can destabilize the evolutionary process. As a result, the Pak evolved a mechanism to eliminate dangerous mutations from the population. That mechanism is the protector stage.
Protectors are highly sensitive to the smell of their close relatives and "weed out" those that smell wrong, which may indicate a potentially dangerous mutation. This weeding also suppressed positive mutations, essentially halting Pak evolution. Protectors are fully sentient, and are far more intelligent than ordinary humans. This "superior" intelligence, however, serves only a Pak Protector's instincts to protect its bloodline at any costs. The Pak have no drive toward the collection of "abstract knowledge," have no concept of "art," and do not even possess enough of an "artistic impulse" to understand the purpose of making sketches and paintings for reasons not directly useful.
The change from Breeder to Protector is the result of a peramorphic transformation brought about by the plant known as Tree-of-Life. As humans (and all primates) are descended from the Pak, Tree-of-Life can create a Protector-stage human.
See also tree of life for other meanings of the term.
Tree-of-Life is the mechanism by which a Breeder becomes a Protector. The term originally is used to refer to a specific plant which, when consumed, triggers the transformation. The term "Tree-of-Life virus" is used to describe the symbiotic virus which actually governs the transition.
Niven took the name Tree-of-Life from the Book of Genesis; specifically to the fruit of the "Tree of Life" that could make Adam and Eve immortal (Genesis 3:22-24), which is quoted as the foreword to the novel Protector, and also mentioned by Brennan within the novel.
Tree-of-Life (the plant) is a bush native to the Pak homeworld. When a Breeder reaches the proper age (early 40s for humans), the smell of the root becomes irresistible; the Breeder gorges on the Tree-of-Life root, infecting itself with the Tree-of-Life virus and transforming into a Protector. The age window for the metamorphosis is relatively narrow (between 42 and 50 Earth years). Tree-of-Life is common on the Pak world, so there is almost no risk of a Breeder living past this window without being exposed to the roots.
The transition from Breeder to Protector involves reconfiguration of the anatomy. Skin thickens, becoming similar to leather armor, strong enough to turn a copper knife. Joints swell until the creature becomes "a parody of the human form done in cantaloupes and coconuts". This increases leverage available to muscles by increasing the force of the moment arm, the result being that a protector can lift ten times its own weight. Genitalia and gonads vanish, and a second two-chambered heart forms in the groin at the fusion of the femoral veins. The arms lengthen. Fingernails turn into retractable claws. Teeth fall out and the lips and gums fuse, the mouth forming a horny beak (flat in protectors transformed from humans, non-flat in protectors transformed from Pak). All the breeder's hair falls out and the head acquires a bony ridge to protect the newly expanded cranium. The expanded skull allows the brain to grow to an enormous size; the resulting mind, even starting from something as "unintelligent" as a chimpanzee, becomes far more intelligent than a typical human. Pak Protectors also acquire an extended lifespan, and can live tens of thousands of Earth years (a common element in Niven's stories).
Once the transformation is complete, a Pak Protector must periodically consume more Tree-of-Life root to maintain the virus in its body. Without the virus, a Protector will weaken and die as its DNA is degraded; the virus supplies replacement DNA.
The Tree-of-Life crop on Earth failed due to there being insufficient thallium oxide in the Earth's soil; the plants grew but didn't support the virus. As a result, the Protectors that led the colony to Earth died of starvation when their store of roots ran out.
Protector behavior [ edit ]
Pak Protectors have an innate need to protect close relatives. When a Pak Protector has no bloodline to protect, it usually stops eating and starves; some childless Protectors can adopt the entire Pak race as their family.
Niven states that Protectors on the crowded Pak homeworld would constantly war against each other to gain advantage for their family and that alliances would last only until one ally sees advantage in betrayal. Human Protectors, and those on the Ringworld, seem to be less warlike and better able to work for the betterment of the entire species (or all of the Ringworld hominids) rather than just their bloodline, though this may simply be a function of how few protectors with families encounter each other.
Protectors typically die from starvation (from lack of will to live, e.g. if the Protector's bloodline has died out) or violence. Although Protectors have a vastly extended lifetime, it is not infinite; during the original half million year journey to Earth some protector colonists did die from old age.
Because of their enormous intelligence and instinctive need to protect their family (or their species, etc.), Protectors are efficient, ruthless and quite amoral. It is observed several times that this intelligence combined with instinct also compels action so completely that Protectors often have little "free will". Niven uses this trait as a plot device several times as characters set up circumstances where Protector characters will react in a specific manner. In Protector, Jack Brennan (a human turned into a Protector) commits genocide by exterminating the Martian race ("Aliens were dangerous, or might be, and Pak were not interested in anything but Pak") and also releases a genetically modified Tree-of-Life virus on the colony world Home, turning everyone middle aged into a Protector (and killing all other humans on the planet) in order to create an army of childless Protectors with which to fight the invading Pak fleet. It is indicated throughout Niven's works that humans (Homo sapiens) that have turned into protectors are far more intelligent than their Pak (Homo habilis) counterparts (in much the way that humans are more intelligent than the primates they evolved from).
Niven explains much of Protector behavior in his Future History, by revealing in Ringworld's Children that the ARM may be run by at least one Protector and that Boosterspice (which dramatically prolongs human lifespan) is derived from Tree-of-Life.
The Pak and Humanity [ edit ]
In Protector, Niven explains that humans (and all of Earth's primates) are descended from a colony of Pak breeders that were stranded on Earth 2.5 million years ago. The protectors that built the colony ship died when their Tree-of-Life crops failed. The original Pak Breeder population (known to us as Homo habilis) bred and mutated wildly, evolving into modern humans as well as all other Earth primates. All Terran primates would transform into the Protector stage if exposed to Tree-of-Life root (or, more accurately, the symbiotic virus it contains).
In The Ringworld Engineers, the characters find evidence that the Ringworld was built by Pak Protectors (confirmed by the statements of a character in Ringworld's Children who claims to be one of the original builders) and populated by Pak breeders. The Pak Protectors dwindled in numbers until they were no longer able to maintain the genetic purity of the breeder forms and the breeders eventually evolved into all the other hominids of the Ringworld that one sees in Larry Niven's novels.
In Destroyer of Worlds (co-written by Niven and Edward M. Lerner), a human world (and the Pierson's Puppeteers of the Fleet of Worlds) confronts a Pak Protector war fleet. The trailing edge of that Pak fleet, carrying the primary Pak Library, also figures prominently in Betrayer of Worlds, by the same authors.
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]He Pingping (Chinese: 何平平; pinyin: Hé Píngpíng; 13 July 1988 – 13 March 2010[2]) was a Chinese citizen and, according to the Guinness World Records, one time world's shortest mobile man.[3][4]
Early and personal life [ edit ]
He measured 74 cm (2 ft 5 in) tall,[1] and was the third child of a family in Huade county, in the city of Ulanqab in northern China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. He had two sisters, both of whom developed at normal rates. According to his father, He Yun, at birth he was small enough to fit in the palm of his parents' hands. When it became apparent the child was growing very slowly, doctors diagnosed the cause as the bone deformity osteogenesis imperfecta, which hinders normal bone growth and body height. He was a chain smoker.[5]
Recognition of size [ edit ]
In January 2007, He was invited to take part on a television program in Tokyo, Japan. His home of Inner Mongolia is also home to Bao Xishun, who at 2.36 metres tall was recognized by Guinness as the world's tallest man until September 2009.[6][7][8] Their televised meeting in July 2007 attracted global media attention.[9][10][11] In May 2008 he appeared in the British Channel 4 documentary called The World's Smallest Man and Me hosted by Mark Dolan. In the episode He and his family spent time with Mark who stayed over to celebrate Chinese New Year.[1] In September 2008 he appeared with the world's longest-legged woman, Svetlana Pankratova, in London's Trafalgar Square, to publicize the release of the 2009 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records.[4]
In 2006 Guinness World Records disallowed an application from a then fourteen-year-old Nepalese boy, Khagendra Thapa Magar, who measured 53 cm, but reviewed the case once he reached 18 years of age in October 2010, when he was measured at 67 cm.
Following his January 2007 appearance on television, in 2008 his status as the world's shortest man was verified by Guinness World Records.[3][12] His height was measured three times over the course of 10 hours before he received a certificate officially naming him as the world’s shortest man.[3][12]
In September 2008, he travelled to the U.S. to help launch the 2009 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records in New York City, which certified him as the world's smallest man.[3][12]
On 25 April 2010, He was featured in the tenth episode of the 16th season of the American reality show The Amazing Race, filmed earlier in Shanghai. The episode was dedicated in his memory.
Death [ edit ]
Pingping was admitted to a hospital on 3 March 2010 in Rome, after complaining of chest pains. He had been filming Lo show dei record.[13] He died on 13 March 2010 of heart complications at the age of 21.[14] The Guinness World Records editor-in-chief, Craig Glenday, said that he was "an inspiration to anyone considered different or unusual."[13]
See also [ edit ]Spruce Crowned The Disrupt SF 2013 Hackathon Grand Prize Winner, Cloudiverse And AdFree Take Second And Third
TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2013’s Hackathon wrapped up today, with a demo session that spanned around five hours, after a marathon 24 hour session of actually building hacks. We had a record 264 registered entrants this time around, crushing the previous record of 164 set at Disrupt NY. As a result the 60 second presentation time limit was pretty strictly enforced, but teams still had plenty of chance to wow the judges and the audience.
Here are the teams that took away the top prizes, starting with our grand prize winner.
Winner: Spruce
A dictation service for online reading, which tells people how long it takes to read content via its online platform. The purpose of the service is to improve reading comprehension and make students better readers.
Runner-Up #1: Cloudiverse
Cloudiverse does much more secure filesharing by breaking files into components and reassembling them after the fact via encryption. It’s the cloud-sharing service of the post-Snowden era.
Runner-Up #2: AdFree
AdFree allows people to use MapReduce as an alternative to advertising to make revenue from their websites. It uses visitors to power advanced problem-solving processing in order to make revenue.
The winners all get to present their hacks at Disrupt SF 2013 during the main conference, and the grand prize winner gets $5,000 to divide amongst themselves. Everyone wins out, however, with free tickets to Disrupt SF for all presenters and various prized provided by sponsors including Chevrolet, Clover, CrunchBase, Elance, Mashery, NewAer, Person, Pioneer Electronics, RadiumOne, SAP, ShopStyle by POPSUGAR, Twilio, WeatherUnderground, and Yammer.
Our judges this time around were PopVox CEO Marci Harris; Twitter Director of Product April Underwood; Pinterest Engineer and Evangelist Kent Brewster; StartupHouse and Startup Bus founder Elias Bizannes; and NEA partner Jon Sakoda.As far as one side picking units from the other side, how would they know what units they can pick? Charlie would be set up better than anyone else for that with his intelligence network and the dish, but I really doubt sides know the exact units of another side. GK/Parson knows CC has a city, a ruler, all sorts of archons and I think some golems that we've never seen. How would GK pick if they had the chance to?
Even if they could somehow do it, there would almost certainly have to be a delay while they decide. Perhaps the choices have to be made at the start of their turn, or something else. They could make up list before a breach occurs, but how would they be prepared for more than one breach, or even know how much is left in the other side's treasury? I found it curious that Charlie knew GK would be losing units on the next breach (if that was what he really meant by claiming Lilith on the next one), but I have my suspicions about that too. He has the dish as well, and maybe he knows all kinds of things like that, so I'm not gong to stress too much about it.
If they really can pick specific units, that could be exploitable in several ways. Find a group of a few dozen out in the field, select all the ones with leadership and some grunts, then just have them be auto-attacked by the other unled ones. Rinse and repeat with different variations until you have the whole side.
It gets even messier in a city. If you pick a city, but not enough units to keep it, the other side can retake it again. Or the reverse with picking leadership in the city as above, and then claiming the city as a bonus when the dust settles.
I'm not bothering to include high value targets, like rulers or the crew in the MK, since I also am wondering how a unit's value (or city for that matter) is calculated. We know things like upkeep, city production, amounts received from sacking/razing, barter value of items and units, but not the actual mechanical value of something. Saying someone will pay or trade X amount for something isn't the same as actual value for the contract.
Then there are things like if items possessed by units are included in the unit value (Parson's bracer and glasses, or any of the tools). Those range from Sizemore's guess of several hundred thousand to priceless as far as barter value, but do they have a "blue book" price? Also, can we really factor in the cost of the spell to summon Parson? I think he's made up for that and more so far, so I really have no clue there.
If I look at it from the other side, and assume the contract picks everything (except confidentiality breach cities), the same problems with causing more breaches could happen with units switching in the middle of others. Hopefully someone could order both sides to not engage in time there. A ruler would know when a unit or city changed sides, but would have to give a fast "do not engage" order to avoid more breaches. I don't know if standing orders from before to not engage would always work if a stack lost leadership, and an enemy suddenly was in their face.
I'm looking forward to seeing how the contract handles all of this if/when things start changing hands.People convicted of terrorism or extremism will be treated like sex offenders and automatically barred from working with children and vulnerable people, David Cameron will announce today.
Launching the Government’s new strategy to combat extremism, the Prime Minister will pledge that the Government will do more to protect young people from radicalisation.
“I have said before that defeating Islamist extremism will be the struggle of our generation. It is one of the biggest social problems we need to overcome,” Mr Cameron will say.
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.
“A key part of this new approach is going further to protect children and vulnerable people from the risk of radicalisation by empowering parents and public institutions with all the advice, tools and practical support they need.”
The new plans will see the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) given new powers to ensure anyone with a conviction or civil order for terrorist or extremist activity is automatically banned from working with children and vulnerable people, in the same way as those convicted of sexual offences are banned from working with children.
Parents will also be given greater powers to remove their children’s passports if they fear they are at risk of taking part in extremist activity overseas, in an expansion of measures introduced in July, under which parents have had the right apply to the Passport Office to cancel the passports of children under 16 suspected of extremism. 16 and 17-year-olds will now also be covered by the rule.
Responding to the counter-extremism strategy, Andy Burnham, Labour's Shadow Home Secretary, said: "This is the greatest challenge of our age and the Prime Minister is right to devote his focus to it. For our part, we will always support measures that are reasonable, proportionate and evidence-based”
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 nowMy name? Lennjar Ingstat.
What you can see behind me is my ship Aegir… dedicated to my late son Aegir Lennjasson. He fell in the fight against these nasty centaurs. The only thing that still reminds me of him are my memories and his self-forged battle axe. After hearing about the death of my son, I decided to leave my old world behind me to find a new one.
So I gathered my faithful crew and stuck on the vast, seemingly endless sea.
Our target? Cantha!
We knew that Zhaitan and his followers of undead were supposed to block the way for hundreds of years, but we ignored such rumors and for this shall be our fate.
The undead suddenly surprised us on the stormy sea. We tried to throw this horrible pack overboard, but we lost control of our ship and crashed into huge rocks. Once again, I lost my son, in the sense of the ship Aegir, as well as my crew. All that remained were boards and crates floating on the sea, the ship destroyed… and also my broken will.
Caught on an island full of undead, I already gave up my life. What should I do? Everything I loved was lost. Only broken fragments and smashed pieces were left.
On one of those sorrowful nights, as always, I was sitting alone on the beach, looking at the sea. But something unremarkable managed to shine through the black depths of the water. Carefully I went took a closer look, who knows what danger would wait for me there. But what I discovered was anything but dangerous for me. The self-forged battle axe.
When I grabbed it, a strange, strong feeling pierced through my heart. It hurt, at the same time it was facilitating. It seemed as if my son was talking to me... as if he was whispering to me through the mild winds that I should not give up. I am a strong Norn but prior to that, a strong mother. My tears streamed down my cheeks, the last time I had the feeling holding Aegir in my arms once more.
I realized at that time that I was not allowed to give up! Exchanged, I was going to the fragments of my shattered ship and searched for usable materials. It was possible for me to build a small shelter on the beach and I began to live again, with lots of ideas and plans.
My goal was to build a new ship to escape from this forsaken place.
And who knows... Maybe I'll try going to Cantha again one day.
But what I know is that one day I will see my dear Aegir again.Behold the future of LEDs (light emitting diodes): the polarized LED - a technological breakthrough that could usher in a new generation of super-efficient LEDs adapted for use in LCDs on a variety of consumer electronics. Martin Schubert, a graduate student at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, was awarded the prestigious Lemelson-Rensselaer Student Prize for his work - the culmination of several years' research.
His polarized LED is a step up from existing technologies; it allows for much better control of the direction and polarization of the emitted light, resulting in less wasted energy from scattered light and optimal light placement. According to Schubert, this should make it suitable as a backlighting component for a range of LCD screens, such as those found in televisions, cameras and cell phones - providing crisper, more lifelike images.Its broad appeal to a more eco-conscious and discerning customer base - not to mention efficiency-oriented tech industry - should speed it up its wider adoption, he believes. In addition to replacing fluorescent lights, Schubert sees his innovation being incorporated into street lighting and imaging/sensing free-space optics. As LED enthusiasts here at TH, we're looking forward to seeing in what innovative ways this new technology is implemented.
Image courtesy of Kris Qua/Rensselaer
See also: ::Gravia: LED Lamp Lit by Gravity Lasts 200 Years, Never Plugs In, ::IKEA Lighting The Way To Warmer LED LampsThe CEO of a former Fortune 500 company, who is also the daughter of a U.S. senator, is under fire for jacking up the rates of life-saving anti-allergy device known as the EpiPen.
Heather Bresch, whose father is U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., became president of Mylan Pharmaceutical in 2009 and CEO in 2012. She is no stranger to controversy: She moved Mylan’s headquarters to the Netherlands last year after a corporate “inversion” merger with Abbott Laboratories.
The move enabled the company to operate its headquarters in the U.S. but maintain corporate citizenship in Holland, benefiting from a lower tax rate.
But the EpiPen scandal, sparked by a sudden price hike, could cause more trouble for the company, its CEO, and her lawmaker father. This week, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Antitrust Subcommittee, demanded hearings on the EpiPen’s 450 percent price increase in just seven years.
The cost of a two-pack of EpiPens — shots of epinephrine that relieve symptoms from severe allergies that restrict breathing and can cause death — has risen from $103.50 in 2009 to $608.61 today, despite no changes in the chemical formula. Two vials of the proper dosage of epinephrine and manual syringes would cost only $20; some put the cost of the dosage in each EpiPen at as little as $1.
Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., have all decried the EpiPen’s skyrocketing cost. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, in a statement today, called the situation “the latest troubling example of a company taking advantage of its consumers.” Even infamous pharmaceutical price gouger Martin Shkreli has called Mylan “vultures.”
“This outrageous increase in the price of EpiPens is occurring at the same time that Mylan Pharmaceutical is exploiting a monopoly market advantage that has fallen into its lap,” Klobuchar said in a statement.
Klobuchar, whose daughter uses EpiPens due to severe allergies, is calling for hearings in the Judiciary Committee, and an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission into Mylan’s price hikes, which have occurred every quarter since 2013. “The commission should also report to Congress on why these outrageous price increases have become common and propose solutions that will better protect consumers within 90 days,” Klobuchar said.
EpiPens are critical for anyone with severe allergies to things like bee stings or peanuts to carry, and doctors recommend that they carry two, in case an extra dose is needed. But they expire after a year, forcing families to pay for a new dosage annually. Doctors wrote 3.6 million prescriptions for EpiPens last year, giving Mylan $1.2 billion in sales off that single product.
The price increases coincide with Mylan’s purchase of the product in 2007, and with Bresch taking control of the company shortly thereafter. Mylan has virtually no competition for epinephrine auto-injectors, as they control 87 percent of the U.S. market. One competitor, the Auvi-Q, was recalled from pharmacies last year; the Food and Drug Administration rejected another potential alternative from Teva Pharmaceuticals this spring.
Bresch, born Heather Manchin, started at Mylan in 1992. She was hired after her father, then a West Virginia state senator, told then-CEO Mike Puskar that she needed a job.
From working in the company’s basement, she moved through the ranks to become Mylan’s chief lobbyist in 2002. In that position, she contributed to the 2003 Medicare prescription drug bill, which barred the federal insurance provider from bargaining with drug companies over prices. She was also key to the passage of the 2012 Generic Drug User Fee Act, which increased inspections of foreign facilities manufacturing drugs for the U.S. market. While it increased regulations at Mylan’s own sites outside the U.S., it also made it more difficult for foreign drugmakers to sell their products domestically, knocking out many of Mylan’s competitors.
The bill passed Congress easily, with her father among those providing yes votes.
Congress also passed a law in 2013 prioritizing grant money for schools to stock EpiPens in case of emergency, since children are most at risk for a severe allergy attack. Some states require EpiPens in their schools, including West Virginia, where Gayle Manchin, mother of Heather Bresch, was head of the Board of Education when the policy went into effect in 2013.
Manchin has spoken out against his daughter’s use of an inversion to renounce Mylan’s corporate citizenship, saying that such tax dodging should be illegal. He has not, however, made any public statement about EpiPens since the scandal came to light, and his office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Intercept.
He has been hearing from people on his Facebook page. “Buddy what is up with your daughter?” asked one commenter. “How could you raise a child that takes advantage of suffering families?” Another wrote, “Your daughter Heather Bresch and Mylan Pharmaceuticals just raised the cost of an epipen 400%. People will die because of her greed.”
Mylan claims that they have improved the EpiPen product, necessitating the cost increases. “Ensuring access to epinephrine — the only first-line treatment — is a core part of our mission,” the company said in a statement.
Correction: August 24, 2016
A previous version of this article incorrectly identified Mylan as a current Fortune 500 company. Fortune removed Mylan from its list after the company left the U.S. for tax purposes.OTTAWA — Though camels are usually associated with the searing heat of the desert, a group of scientists reported on Tuesday that they had found fossilized remains of a giant camel, with a shoulder height of perhaps nine feet, in Canada’s frigid high Arctic.
“It’s a surprise when you first hear it,” said Natalia Rybczynski, a paleontologist at the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa, who discovered the bone fragments in 2006. “But the Arctic in the winter was like a desert at that time.”
Dr. Rybczynski said that though scientists have long believed that camels originated in North America and then spread throughout the world, the remains were found about 750 miles north of what was previously the northernmost known camel fossil, a giant found in Canada’s Yukon Territory in 1913.
“It’s just kind of stunning that it’s more than 1,000 kilometers away,” said Dr. Rybczynski, the lead author of a paper about the camel published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.The Security Council is expected to vote Friday or Saturday on a resolution to blacklist the son of the Yemen's former president and a Houthi leader.
Diplomatic manoeuvring over the conflict in Yemen continued Friday at the United Nations, with Gulf Arab diplomats pressing Russia on Friday to support a resolution circulated by Jordan on Monday.
The resolution, drafted by Gulf states, demands that the Houthis withdraw from the Yemeni capital Sanaa and all other areas seized since 2013, and puts an embargo on the Houthi leaders, as well as their allies, who include former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Abdelmalik al-Houthi, the leader of the predominantly Zaydi Shia movement, and Ahmed Ali Saleh, the ex-leader's son, are added to a sanctions list in the new document, while there is no reference to the Saudi-led military strikes or Russian calls for humanitarian pauses in the fighting that has already left more than 540 dead in the past three weeks, according to the World Health Organisation.
There have been attempts to give unspecified concessions to Russia, who have the power of veto at the Security Council, a diplomatic source, who did not wish to be named, told al-Araby al-Jadeed.
But this did not include the removal of al-Houthi from the sanctions list, which is believed to put the Russians in a difficult position.
Earlier in the week Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov had said that he was “dismayed, to put it mildly” by the military campaign being undertaken by a nine-country coalition led by Saudi Arabia.
“We value our relations with Saudi Arabia, and with other coalition members, but they came to the Security Council post-factum, and started asking for approval of what they had begun,” Lavrov said on Monday.
Pakistan rejects entry into conflict
Meanwhile, Pakistan's parliament unanimously adopted a resolution turning down Saudi Arabia's request for it to join its coalition in Yemen in a military capacity.
“[The] Parliament of Pakistan... underscored the need for continued efforts by the government of Pakistan to find a peaceful resolution of the crisis,” the resolution said.
“[Parliament] desires that Pakistan should maintain neutrality in the Yemen conflict so as to be able to play a proactive diplomatic role to end the crisis.”
Pakistan's parliament has seen five days of debate on the issue, with most lawmakers insisting that Pakistan should not involve itself in the conflict, despite its close ties to Saudi Arabia.
The parliamentary vote also came after a visit to Pakistan by Iranian foreign minister Mohammed Javad Zarif, where he laid out a four-stage plan for talks, and called for an immediate ceasefire.
Iran is accused of backing the Houthis with arms, something the Iranian government denies.
US secretary of state John Kerry had criticised Iran's involvement |
look at those things at all. They don't affect me one way or the other. I don't get motivated by it. You could pick us last, and I still wouldn't get upset by it because it doesn't matter. What matters is when games start playing, what happens at the end of each game. Hopefully we win more than we lose and find a way to be at the top of our conference. I would be shocked if somebody picked us over Oregon, to be honest. I don't mind it one bit. They've got a lot of guys coming back, as we do. My assertion, which I said last year, the best quarterback in the nation is Marcus Mariota. I think he was the best in the nation last year also. There is nothing like him in college football. So I don't mind that at all. Bottom line, we've still got to play the football games. We're going to have to go up to Autzen Stadium in a tough environment where they're gunning for us. It will be a tough game to win, but we'll go up there and give it our best shot.
Ted Miller (ESPN):
People always say, when you're not growing, you're falling back. When you're not getting better, you're getting worse. When you analyze your program, what are some of the things you guys need to do to get better?
Shaw:
I think for us to be able to handle all the things that come in the course of the season. You look at last year, and never making any excuses, we played phenomenal against every ranked opponent that we played, and we lose tough games against unranked opponents that we're supposed to beat. Even though when you watch on film, these are really good football teams. You're not going to find a more talented unranked football team than you had at USC or the Utah team that had Arizona State down, that had UCLA down, and had Oregon State down, and those teams came back and beat them. But they got us and made more plays than we did. But for us to be able to say, hey, we have to play a high level every single week if we want to be one of those great programs or be one of the best programs in the nation, we have to bring it every week. We can't back off just because we just played Oregon, and then we played Washington back-to-back, and we can't get up for the third week. That's not an excuse. We have to get up for the next week because that's where our conference is. The moment you take your foot off the gas pedal, you're going to take one on the chin.
GMC:
What is the running back situation like? How do you see that shaking out this fall?
Shaw:
I'm excited. Tyler Gaffney came in and took over last year, an dthere was no question about it. All the running backs saw it. He was on a different level. He was phenomenal. This year we have more variants. We have different body types, guys that do things differently. We have guys that have some natural ability, and we're going to give those guys an opportunity. I think if you ask any of those guys, I think they recognize the ability of different players. I don't know that there is a guy that says, I'm going to be the guy that gets those 30 carries a game. Instead, they look at the other guy and say, I can't keep Kelsey Young off the field. I can't keep Ricky Seale off the field. He does things that are phenomenal. I can't keep Barry J. off the field. He does things that are really special. We have a group of guys that have a lot of talent. I think they've actually gelled as a group. They feel like they're a tag team wrestling team. They tag off, and the next guy goes in to get it. I think we've developed that kind of mentality.
GMC:
Can you talk a little bit, in general, about leadership. Every year you're going to lose some leaders. Do you identify leaders in the recruiting process, or is it once they get on campus and start to interact with teammates? What's that process like?
Shaw:
We're in a unique position where we only recruit leaders. They have to be leaders. So we have a platform where all we're going to do is compete like crazy, and I'll never pick the leaders. Leadership just rises. So you have a group of leaders -- I hate to say that the cream might rise to the top, because that insinuates that the other guys are not leadership caliber -- but I think leadership has to be organic. It has to come out and come from within. As guys start to exhibit those leadership characteristics we'll see that without ever saying, "You're going to be a leader, and you're going to be a leader." Just like last year, we've always had two captains, and the [players'] vote was so close and so tight, we had to choose four because the players chose four. All of those guys were voted right about the same, which means the team felt those were the four best guys to lead the team. Who am I to pick two out of those four? These are the guys our team chose, and I'm going to put them in front of them.
GMC:
Of the incoming freshmen, which ones might we expect to see on the field this year?
Shaw:
That's so hard to say, because we haven't worked with them at all as a coaching staff. I know they passed an NCAA rule that allows you to spend some time with them, but we didn't do it. I don't think it's good for the players, I don't think it's good for the coaches. I want our coaches to go on vacation and get fresh. I want our guys to work together and build trust amongst the team before the coaches come in. But just ability wise, you're looking at Solomon Thomas -- can he come in and give us some depth on the defensive line? We'll see. We bring in four linebackers. We'll see if somebody can help us on special teams and maybe help us on defense. Joey Alfieri and Bobby Okereke, to name two. Christian McCaffrey is just a phenomenal football player. Whether he can help us on special teams or help us on offense, we'll see as we get going. Casey Tucker, we'll see if he can help us on the offensive line, much like Kyle Murphy and those guys did their freshmen year. I just named a few guys. We won't really know until we get probably at least midway through training camp.
Kyle Bonagura (ESPN):
Ideally, would you like to redshirt as many as possible, though? Should that be the goal every year?
Shaw:
I think when we can, it's a luxury. We haven't always had that luxury. But at the same time, sometimes you have a guy like Ty Montgomery that comes in and midway through training camp you're saying, we gotta play this guy. We can't sit him. That might happen again this year, at the very least special team wise. We're bringing in this many athletic defensive backs -- Brandon Simmons -- that can come in and play for you, at least on special teams. This many linebackers that are athletic and fast. We're a little short on depth on the defensive line, so one of those young defensive linemen might be able to come in and spell our guys and get in the rotation. A guy like Christian McCaffrey, he's so dynamic with the ball in his hands, maybe he helps in the return game, maybe he helps in the backfield in some way, shape, or form. I'm excited about watching these guys and seeing if any of these guys can fill a role for us.
GMC:
You spoke about Ty Montgomery and his return from injury. How do you weigh his impact on a game versus injury risk? If he's your best return man, is that the only thing that matters, or do you sometimes think, I've got this other guy who's almost as good, so I'd rather protect Montgomery a little bit -- not in the context of this injury, but in general?
Shaw:
In general, I don't believe in protecting football players outside of the quarterback. It's football. He's gotta play. I'd hate to take the best kickoff returner in the nation, and not have him return kickoffs. That helps our football team. It's the biggest exchange of field position in the game, the kickoff return. He's just phenomenal at it, and he loves it. I'd hate to pull it away from him because he would hate it also. When he's ready to play, we'll turn him lose. I just think he's as dynamic a football player as there is in all of college football. You look at a game like Utah. We lost a tough, close game against Utah. We get blown out by Utah if not for Ty Montgomery. Kickoff return for a touchdown. He takes a receiver screen forty-something yards down inside the ten-yard line. He makes some unbelievable catches, he breaks five tackles on one run. Just phenomenal. He's got the ability to take over a game, so once he's cleared to go, we're gonna use him in any way we can.
Kyle Bonagura (ESPN):
Assuming Alex Carter is healthy, is this corner combination, with Carter and Wayne Lyons, as good as you've had?
Shaw:
That's tough to say until we really see it come to fruition. Wayne was great in the spring. It's the best football Wayne Lyons has played. He was awesome in spring, I'm so excited for him. Ronnie Harris played his tail off in the spring, and he's earned the right to play. He's going to go out there and play corner for us. It's nice to have at least those three guys in the rotation so they can stay fresh and healthy, but I'm really excited about all those guys.
How exciting is it that you have several more options at tight end?
Shaw:
I'll be able to sleep better at night, I think our quarterback will also. I think our receivers will, even though they'll have to share some balls to a certain degree. Devon Cajuste broke our school record for yards per catch for a season. You've got Devon Cajuste at 225 pounds who's breaking our yards per catch record, you've got Ty Montgomery, who's going to be up for every award, you've got Michael Rector, who averaged thirty yards a catch, although he didn't have enough catches to be recognized nationally. You've got these three guys who can affect the game. If teams start playing deep and playing over the top of those guys, our tight ends can really make some hay underneath. Our running game should take advantage of that also. Having tight ends back in the mix, athletic tight ends that can make plays in the passing game and be great blockers for us really helps us be that complete offense we want to be.
Is Dalton Schultz another true freshman who could factor in?
Shaw:
Ah, we'll see. I would love to redshirt him and have him really hit the weight room and really get ready. But he's one of those guys that when it's all said and done, he'll be like a Zach Ertz. He'll be that guy that can play at the line of scrimmage and then also flex out and run routes. He's a great teammate, very unassuming guy, very unselfish football player, doesn't care if he catches passes, he just loves to block and be physical. That's the mentality that we love to have in our guys. But he can have that mentality, but he's athletic enough to go out there and make plays for us.
GMC:
How has recruiting changed for you in the last five or six years? I would guess that four or five years ago you could say to kids, you can come in and you can compete, and they could realistically compete for playing time as a true freshman, but now the talent on the roster is so much higher. How do you manage that when you've got a kid coming in who's always been the best player on every team he's been on, and suddenly he's facing a year without being on the field?
Shaw:
I think sometimes we as older people don't completely understand it, but you have to remind yourself that great players look to play with other great players. If you're going to join a good team, they're going to have good players at your position. Sometimes situationally you'll be able to come in and play as a true freshman, maybe even start as a true freshman, but if you're joining a good football team, there's a chance you're gonna have to work your way up the pecking order. Some of those guys will still play as freshman, maybe not start, but as they get into their sophomore years they become big parts of what we do. And I think our guys have appreciated that we're not going to throw them out to the wolves until they're truly ready. Once they're ready physically, mentally, and emotionally as I say, we'll put 'em out there and let 'em go.
Having won this conference twice in a row, how does that help, whether it's confidence or whatever else?
Shaw:
I know it sounds like coachspeak, but I don't think about it. I honestly don't think about it. You talk about complacency, battling complacency, which every successful program has to fight, the moment that you are worrying about what you have accomplished is where you really start to have trouble. I can't do that. I just can't do it. I can't do it for a minute. I can't worry about what's been accomplished. I can't worry about what Andrew did, and what David DeCastro did, and what Chris Owusu did, and what Doug Baldwin and Richard Sherman did when they were at Stanford. I can't think about the past because that doesn't help us. I think about how tough our conference is and how hard our schedule is going to be. The moment that we take a deep breath and think about anything other than the next opponent, we're gonna get hit in the mouth. And I think that's the way it should be. Winning things are great, but the bowl rings and the bowl trophies -- that stuff's for after you retire. That's for looking back on. But it's not a time to look back right now. It's time to move forward.
GMC:
As a coach that's probably easier for you. You're always aware of the negative things that can happen if you overlook anybody on your schedule. But how do you keep 19-, 20-, and 21-year-old kids from overlooking UC Davis and thinking about USC?
Shaw:
What we try to do, honestly, is deemphasize the opponent no matter who it is. I say it point blank -- we're playing UC Davis this week. If you look at yourself as a great football player, should a great football player ever care about who he plays? Are we gonna practice harder because it's USC or Notre Dame? Well then that says something about us. If we're gonna practice harder for them than we will for somebody else, that says that we are gonna change who and what we do based on who we play. That puts the emphasis on our opponent and not back on us. For me, spending four years with Ray Lewis and one year with Jerry Rice -- Jerry Rice never cared who was on the other side. It could've been another Hall of Famer, it could've been another great player, or it could've been some guy who's name he didn't even know. He didn't care. His job was to beat that guy. He was gonna prepare like crazy to be at his best against whoever shows up on game day. That's the mentality that we try to infuse in our guys, that it's not who we play, but how we play that we focus on.
GMC:
So there's not an uptick in intensity for Oregon, for USC, for Cal?
Shaw:
There will be, that's natural. I still try to downplay it as far as the way we look at it organizationally and the way that our players need to look at the season. You can't go into a game thinking, I don't have to give my best this week. Number one, that's when you lose; number two, that's when you get hurt. Every game. We've only got twelve of them. Twelve times. Twelve times sixty. Twelve sixty-minute games, that's all you get. You can't take two minutes off. Your mind can't be anyplace else, and those few times we have to do what we do, we don't have time to look past anybody. Also, those statistics count. Those scores count. That's still saying a lot about who we are, and I'm really big at making players look at themselves and look at us as a team and say, "Who cares what we say, what we do says who we are." And if we're the team that backs off of an opponent because of who they are, that's not who I am. That's not who I want to be, that's not what I want to be part of. I want to be one of those teams where, hey, if we've got an opportunity to win, we're going to get after it. We don't care who it is, we're gonna give our best shot.
GMC:
With the new playoff system and people looking at the teams subjectively as well as objectively, is there going to be a voice in your head -- if you're up by ten with a minute left and you're on the five-yard line, are you gonna allow yourself to say, "You know what, another touchdown here would look nice"?
Shaw:
[Pause] No. No. I'll do what we typically do. Early in the season we don't care what the score is, we just go. We could be up by... it doesn't matter. There are so many things that we're working on, and we just go. Later in the season, I still believe in playing the game the right way. We're not gonna play for the polls, we're not gonna play for votes. We're just play hard. If for some reason we're up by three touchdowns, we'll run the clock out. That's just what we do. That's the way you play the game. I think a lot of mistakes are made, you give a lot of teams opportunities to come back also when you try to do things that are cute and you don't keep the pedal to the metal. We'll play the same exact way, and hopefully at some point that's enough.
GMC:
You talked earlier about not protecting football players, except for quarterbacks. It seemed like in Andrew's career, towards the end there were fewer designed runs for him. Do you think we might see that same trend this year with Hogan?
Shaw:
I think it's only natural. We did that with Andrew partially because we just didn't need to. We had a really good running attack, that's the thing. You look at Andrew's last year, we had an All-American center, a tackle that's been a starter for two years in the NFL, a guard who's been a starter for two years in the NFL, three NFL tight ends, four NFL receivers, and three NFL running backs. So we didn't need Andrew to run anymore. He loved it. He loved the gun and runs. He'd complain under his breath a little bit, like "Gosh, can we go back and run some more of those read plays?" And I'd look back in the backfield, and I would see Stepfan Taylor, Tyler Gaffney, and Jeremy Stewart, who's still with the Raiders, and I'd say, "We don't need you to run the ball anymore. We've got guys that can do it." To have a versatile attack, the gun and runs do help periodically, and I can see Kevin Hogan getting to that point, especially if our group of running backs really comes through and is what we want them to be, with our receiving corps playing up to their possibilities and having a group of tight ends. To say that Kevin Hogan needs to carry the ball ten times a game, it just might be unnecessary. It's still something to have, something he's extremely good at, so it's not just protecting him and not letting him to it, but if we don't need to, why bother? Let somebody else get hit.
With all the spread offenses throughout the game, do you still take pride in being unique and distinctive, focused on the run?
Shaw:
Absolutely.
How will that change? You've talked about all the running backs you have, but Gaffney was a unique creature. It's gonna be tough to play the way you did last year without him.
Shaw:
I don't know that it'll be tough to play that way. We don't have a back with his stature. We don't have a 6'2" 220-pound running back that runs a 4.4. We just don't have that right now. We've got some smaller backs, so maybe we won't do the pounding that we've done before, but we're gonna come to our extra offensive line sets. We've got some guys that can run the power play, run the counter play, and do all the things that we need. Run the ISO play, et cetera. So we'll still run the same offense. I think we have some more versatility in our backfield to be able to do some more different things with those guys. When it comes down to it, we want to be a physical, point of attack running team, and that's not gonna change.
Bonagura (ESPN):
What about backup quarterback? Do you know how you'll divvy up reps there?
Shaw:
We do a lot of splitting, as you guys may know, in training camp and throughout the season, where we'll be on two fields. We'll keep Evan Crower with Kevin Hogan, and Evan will be our backup quarterback and get enough reps to make sure he's ready to play. On the other field we'll have the two young quarterbacks, and we'll just rotate those guys and get them as many plays as possible, just to get them as much experience as possible so when it is there turn to compete for playing time and for a starting job, they're ready and have as much of the offense under their belts as possible.
Bonagura (ESPN):
Is there a chance that Burns passes Crower, or is it pretty solid right now?
Shaw:
I think it's gonna be tough. Evan Crower being a fourth-year senior, being in this offense for three years plus, it's gonna be hard for a guy in his second year. Forget about physical ability. None of that matters. You gotta go to the line of scrimmage, and you gotta know it all. You gotta get us to the right play. As I remind the quarterbacks all the time, your first job as a quarterback is to make sure the other ten guys know what to do and to make sure we're calling the right plays, the right protections, and the right run checks. We're a 60%, 55% running team. We need to be running the proper plays, so the quarterback has to have all those checklists, and he can't be 90%. He needs to be 99%, if not 100% correct on the plays that he chooses. It's going to be hard for a second-year guy to pass up a fourth-year guy, because he's gotta know it and know it cold. Ryan has made some strides, but it's not close. He's not close. That's where Evan Crower is right now. That's the thing with Evan. Evan is similar in stature and ability to a Sean Mannion. Evan's ready to play, it's just that he has Kevin Hogan in front of him.
Bonagura (ESPN):
Is Burns kind of comparable to where Evan was at that same time? It seems like Crower took a pretty big jump forward this spring compared to where he was a year ago.
Shaw:
Evan took a big jump this past training camp. Third year, it kind of all slowed down for him. He had some days in training camp where he was like 8 for 8, 9 for 9, 12 for 12, 13 for 14 and two touchdowns, and he was just on fire. He and I have talked about it, and I say, "You can play almost anywhere in the nation." But he just says, "Coach, I'm not thinking about transferring, I want to be here at Stanford, I want to be the quarterback here." And if Kevin does take off after his fourth year, he'll have an opportunity to battle for that starting spot. If Kevin comes back, he'll graduate so he'll be able to go someplace else if he wants to and not sit out. Evan's in a really good spot right now, and I'm really comfortable with him as our backup quarterback.
Bonagura (ESPN):
Since you brought that up, if Hogan were to return and Crower were to graduate and you have two other guys who look like they could be pretty good players, would you say, hey, this could be a great opportunity for you to go somewhere else?
Shaw:
I'd never want to talk a guy into leaving Stanford, but if you're walking out with your degree, and Kevin would be a fourth-year senior starting quarterback, there's no reason for Evan to sit behind him. I would help him go wherever he wanted to go, because like I said, he's ready to play. He's ready to plug in and play, and he's as good as many of the guys who are playing around college football right now, some really good players. He could step in and not miss a beat and be extremely good.
GMC:
On defense, a guy that we've been waiting for, Aziz Shittu. How does he look?
Shaw:
Really excited about Aziz. I had a quick conversation with him in passing the other day about how proud I was of him in the spring, taking that next step. He's so explosive, so powerful. Sometimes young defensive linemen are like big puppies. They have all this ability and they don't know what to do. Their paws are all over the place. But he's really focused in and understands how to get in the backfield, how to use his speed explosion, how to redirect to make plays and be a high-energy player, where to put his hands, how to understand the defense. It all kind of came together for him this spring, so I think he's gonna have a really good year.
GMC:
Is he gonna be an end or a tackle?
Shaw:
He's got the ability to do it all, so you could see him line up anywhere along the defensive line.
GMC:
James Vaughters?
Shaw:
James is ready. I thought he had a good year last year, overshadowed by...
GMC:
There were a lot of great linebackers.
Shaw:
Shayne Skov, who's in his fifth year, a captain; Trent Murphy leads the nation in sacks. I thought James Vaughters made some big plays for us last year. A couple of sacks, some big sack-fumbles, some TFLs that were outstanding plays. He didn't get the notoriety that he should've gotten, but you understand why with what Shayne and A.J. Tarpley did on the inside, probably one of the best tandems on the nation, along with the guy who leads the nation in sacks on the outside, Trent Murphy. It's easy to overshadow what James did, but I think James is set for an outstanding year as a senior.Storing things on the computer or in physical form isn’t 100% safe, meaning that you’ve got to be careful when choosing how you want to secure things. Now when it comes to physical like documents, sure you can shred paper or burn it, but what if there could be a quicker way of destroying what was written?
There is a Kickstarter project for a notebook called the Rocketbook Wave. This is a paper notebook, not a laptop notebook, and one of its unique capabilities is that when you stick it into the microwave, it will actually be able to erase itself. How does this work? This is thanks to the use of the accompanying Pilot Frixion pens that rely on thermochromic ink which will become clear under a heat source.
So why would anyone want to microwave a notebook? For starters like we said security reasons. However the alternative is a bit more noble, which is going green. The Rocketbook Wave and its accompanying app allows users to scan their pages and uploads them to the cloud. However this is more than just taking a photo as the app can help enhance pages and even images to make it more legible on the screen.
So when your notebook is full, instead of wasting paper and buying a new one, you just pop it in the microwave and it’s like you’ve gotten yourself a brand new notebook. The Rocketbook Wave appears to be doing pretty well for itself as it has managed to raise nearly half a million dollars on Kickstarter, way more than its original humble goal of $20,000. It still has about 9 days left so if you’d like to help fund it, hit up its Kickstarter page for the details.
Filed in. Read more about Crowdfunding, Kickstarter and Security.American photojournalist
"Eisenstaedt" redirects here. For other uses, see Eisenstadt (disambiguation)
Alfred Eisenstaedt (December 6, 1898 – August 23, 1995) was a German-born American photographer and photojournalist. He began his career in Germany prior to World War II but achieved prominence as a staff photographer for Life Magazine after moving to the U.S. Life featured more than 90 of his pictures on its covers, and more than 2,500 of his photo stories were published.[1]
Among his most famous cover photographs was V-J Day in Times Square, taken during the V-J Day celebration in New York City, showing American sailor George Mendonsa kissing nurse Greta Zimmer Friedman in a "dancelike dip" which "summed up the euphoria many Americans felt as the war came to a close", in the words of his obituary.[2] He was "renowned for his ability to capture memorable images of important people in the news" and for his candid photographs taken with a small 35mm Leica camera, typically with natural lighting.[2]
Early life [ edit ]
Eisenstaedt was born in Dirschau (Tczew) in West Prussia, Imperial Germany in 1898.[3] His family was Jewish and moved to Berlin in 1906. Eisenstaedt was fascinated by photography from his youth and began taking pictures at age 14 when he was given his first camera, an Eastman Kodak Folding Camera with roll film. He later served in the German Army's artillery during World War I and was wounded in 1918. While working as a belt and button salesman in the 1920s in Weimar Germany, Eisenstaedt began taking photographs as a freelancer for the Pacific and Atlantic Photos' Berlin office in 1928. The office was taken over by the Associated Press in 1931.
Professional photographer [ edit ]
Eisenstaedt became a full-time photographer in 1929 when he was hired by the Associated Press office in Germany, and within a year he was described as a "photographer extraordinaire."[4] He also worked for Illustrierte Zeitung, published by Ullstein Verlag, then the world's largest publishing house.[4] Four years later he photographed the famous first meeting between Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini in Italy. Other notable early pictures by Eisenstaedt include his depiction of a waiter at the ice rink of the Grand Hotel in St. Moritz in 1932 and Joseph Goebbels at the League of Nations in Geneva in 1933. Although initially friendly, Goebbels scowled at Eisenstaedt when he took the photograph.[5]
In 1935, Fascist Italy's impending invasion of Ethiopia led to a burst of international interest in Ethiopia. While working for Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung, Alfred took over 3,500 photographs in Ethiopia, before emigrating to the United States, where he joined Life magazine, but returned in the following year to Ethiopia to continue his photography.[6]
Eisenstaedt's family was Jewish. Oppression in Hitler's Nazi Germany caused them to emigrate to the U.S.[7] They arrived in 1935 and settled in New York, where he subsequently became a naturalized citizen,[8] and joined fellow Associated Press émigrés Leon Daniel and Celia Kutschuk in their PIX Publishing photo agency founded that year. The following year, 1936, Time founder Henry Luce bought Life magazine, and Eisenstaedt, already noted for his photography in Europe,[4] was asked to join the new magazine as one of its original staff of four photographers, including Margaret Bourke-White and Robert Capa.[7] He remained a staff photographer from 1936 to 1972, achieving notability for his photojournalism of news events and celebrities.[2]
Along with entertainers and celebrities, he photographed politicians, philosophers, artists, industrialists, and authors during his career with Life. By 1972 he had photographed nearly 2,500 stories and had more than 90 of his photos on the cover.[9] With Life's circulation of two million readers, Eisenstaedt's reputation increased substantially.[4] According to one historian, "his photographs have a power and a symbolic resonance that made him one of the best Life photographers."[10] In subsequent years, he also worked for Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, Town & Country and others.[10]
Style and technique [ edit ]
From his early years as professional photographer he became an enthusiast for small 35 mm film cameras, especially the Leica camera. Unlike most news photographers at the time who relied on much larger and less portable 4"×5" press cameras with flash attachments, Eisenstaedt preferred the smaller hand-held Leica, which gave him greater speed and more flexibility when shooting news events or capturing candids of people in action.[8] His photos were also notable as a result of his typical use of natural light as opposed to relying of flash lighting.[8] In 1944, Life described him as the "dean of today's miniature-camera experts."[4]
At the time, this style of photojournalism, with a smaller camera with its ability to use available light, was then in its infancy.[9] It also helped Eisenstaedt create a more relaxed atmosphere when shooting famous people where he was able to capture more natural poses and expressions: "They don't take me too seriously with my little camera," he stated. "I don't come as a photographer. I come as a friend."[9] It was a style he learned from his 35 years in Europe, where he preferred shooting informal, unposed portraits, along with extended picture stories. As a result, Life began using more such photo stories, with the magazine becoming a recognized source of such photojournalism of the world's luminaries.[9] Of Life's photographers, Eisenstaedt was most noted for his "human interest" photos and less the hard news images used by most news publications.[9]
His success at establishing a relaxed setting for his subjects was not without difficulties, however, when he needed to capture the feeling he wanted. Anthony Eden, resistant to being photographed, called Eisenstaedt "the gentle executioner."[9] Similarly, Winston Churchill told him where to place the camera to get a good picture,[9] and during a photo shoot of Ernest Hemingway in his boat, Hemingway, in a rage, tore his own shirt to shreds and threatened to throw Eisenstaedt overboard.[9]
Martha's Vineyard [ edit ]
Eisenstaedt photographing the Clinton family on Martha's Vineyard.
Eisenstaedt, known as "Eisie" to his close friends, enjoyed his annual August vacations on the island of Martha's Vineyard for 50 years. During these summers, he would conduct photographic experiments, working with different lenses, filters, and prisms in natural light. Eisenstaedt was fond of Martha's Vineyard's photogenic lighthouses and was the focus of lighthouse fundraisers organized by Vineyard Environmental Research Institute (VERI).
Two years before his death, Eisenstaedt photographed President Bill Clinton with wife Hillary and daughter Chelsea. The session took place at the Granary Gallery in West Tisbury on Martha's Vineyard and was documented by a photograph published in People magazine on September 13, 1993.[11]
Personal life and death [ edit ]
After first settling in New York City in 1935, Eisenstaedt lived in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York, for the rest of his life. Until shortly before his death, he would walk daily from his home to his Life office on the Avenue of the Americas and 51st Street.[12]
He died in his bed at midnight at his beloved Menemsha Inn cottage known as the "Pilot House" at age 96[2] in the company of his sister-in-law, Lucille Kaye (LuLu),[13] and friend, William E. Marks.[14]
Notable Eisenstaedt photos [ edit ]
V-J day in Times Square
Eisenstaedt's most famous photograph is of an American sailor grabbing and kissing a stranger—a young woman—on August 14, 1945 in Times Square. He took this photograph using a Leica IIIa. (The photograph is known under various names: V-J Day in Times Square, V-Day, and others.[15]) Because Eisenstaedt was photographing rapidly changing events during the V-J Day celebrations, he stated that he did not get a chance to obtain names and details, which has encouraged a number of mutually incompatible claims to the identities of the subjects. Their identities turned out to be George Mendonsa (1923-2019) and Greta Zimmer Friedman (1924-2016).[16] The contact sheet of his shots reveals that the encounter was less than romantic, with the woman socking the man in the face in two of the four frames.[17][18]
Portraits of Sophia Loren
The portraits of Sophia Loren have been described[by whom?] as conveying mischievousness, dignity, and love on the part of both Eisenstaedt and Loren.
Ice Skating Waiter, St. Moritz
This 1932 photograph depicts a waiter at the ice rink of the Grand Hotel. "I did one smashing picture", Eisenstaedt wrote, "of the skating headwaiter. To be sure the picture was sharp, I put a chair on the ice and asked the waiter to |
markings that indicate they come from a number of different sources. The men behind the tables wear masks or glasses and hats to hide their faces. Welcome to Maridi market, one of Baghdad’s –if not, Iraq’s - most famous arms markets.
Markets like Maridi sprang up around Iraq after 2003, when former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein lost his iron grip on the country. There are many such markets around the country, most large cities have them and they are often protected and run by local tribes, which makes them impervious to official security forces. Maridi market is considered the “Iraqi stock exchange” of these unofficial gun markets.
There are a lot of ways in which one can obtain weapons, says Alaa Zamel, a trader in the market. The most significant route is across unguarded border crossings from turkey. The guns and other weapons enter Iraqi Kurdistan in northern Iraq and are then brought to Baghdad; checkpoints don’t seem to be a problem and if they are, some counterfeit ID cards or a bribe will often work.
“Most of the weapons come from military stores, especially those located near the front,” Zamel told NIQASH. “Soldiers who lose their weapons during fighting are not questioned as to why. If a soldier dies fighting, lost weapons are registered in their name. So a lot of the lost weapons are registered in dead soldiers’ names. And those weapons go to the arms dealers.”
Thanks to the problems in Iraq and many Iraqis wanting to leave the country, often illegally, a lot of soldiers and other members of the state security forces sold their weapons as part of efforts to raise funds for their journey, Zamel says. Additionally some soldiers simply supplement their incomes by registering their weapons as lost and then selling them.
And he believes the standard of weapons sold at Maridi is higher than the standard of official issue armaments. “Some army officers come to this market to buy what they need because they know its better quality,” Zamel says.
Another source at the market who wished to remain anonymous, told NIQASH that there are members of the volunteer Shiite Muslim militias who take their officially supplied weapons and sell them on the black market to make money.
Mostly the gun markets are in out of the way places that the official army or police don’t go to. And the arms dealers are creative, the source says. Even if security did close the gun markets down the traders would doubtless still sell using dedicated, and private, Facebook pages.
Most households in Baghdad own at least one gun and the arms dealers say that more and more people are buying weapons illegally. They are used in tribal conflicts that turn violent and for personal protection, the dealers suggest. Often young men will boast about their guns.
“But the customers here are not just ordinary people,” says Hassan al-Yasiri, who also has a stand at the market selling light weapons like pistols, automatic weapons and grenades. “A lot of them are army officers and government officials.”
“There is higher demand for light weapons like the Beretta 16mm handgun because it is often used by army officers and bodyguards,” al-Yasiri says. Because of such demand, a Berretta 16mm can sell for as much as $US1,300 and, al-Yasiri adds, prices for this and other weaponry can increase or decrease depending on events. “Prices go up during security and political crises and down during economic crises,” the weapons trader explains, before detailing the market’s price list.
The Walther pistol is also used by army and police and can fetch as much as US$1,000. Different types of automatic weapons cost different amounts, depending on where they were manufactured. A Kalashnikov-style weapon could have been made in Russia, Belgium, Romania or Iran. Two kinds of machine guns are sold here too, some made in Russia and others in Iran, and these cost around US$2,000. There are also grenades that can be thrown by hand or machine-fired; they cost US$50 each.
“Iraqis call these rumanna [in English, pomegranates] because they look a little bit like them,” al-Yasiri notes.
“They even sell mortars and rocket launchers here. These are most often bought and used by militia groups because they’re not heavy and they’re easy to hide. They cost US$1,000 each though they may cost a little more.”
Having listed the prices of the guns and other weapons at the market al-Yasiri happily confirmed that he and his colleagues in arms dealing make a good profit, up to several thousand dollars daily and that no other job in the country compares.
Of course, the weapons sold at the market are illegal, he agrees. But the traders will often issue customers with forged gun licenses issued by offices inside Maridi market itself.
Al-Haj Ahmad Khashan is a potential customer at the market, examining one of the guns on a nearby table. The instability of the Iraqi state, the absence of the rule of law, the presence of unofficial militias in the streets and that state of security in Baghdad are all factors that make locals want their own guns, Khashan suggests.
“Battles and being in a continuous state of conflict is what is causing people to want to buy weapons,” he notes.
The police in Baghdad are concerned about the gun markets, Saad Maan, spokesman for the Baghdad Operations Command, the body tasked with ensuring security in Baghdad, told NIQASH. And they conduct ongoing raids on the markets and try to arrest those carrying guns without the proper permits.
Maan denied what the traders said, that it was easy to bring weapons into Baghdad because those manning security checkpoints on the way into the city were willing to turn a blind eye.
“And any soldier who dies in battle should have his weapon brought back to his commander, who then issues a dead of release so that everyone knows that the dead soldier’s weapon has been accounted for,” Maan explains how things should work.By Juliet Linderman
Associated Press
BALTIMORE — A 31-year-old woman and a young boy were shot in the head Thursday, becoming Baltimore's 37th and 38th homicide victims so far this month, the city's deadliest in 15 years.
Meanwhile, arrests have plunged: Police are booking fewer than half the number of people they pulled off the streets last year.
In this May 24, 2015, file photo, police pick up a pair of shoes after a double shooting in Baltimore. (AP Image)
Related feature Protests, charges against Baltimore cops after in-custody death The in-custody death of Freddie Gray led to weeks of protests — culminating in the deployment of the National Guard, charges for six officers involved in the arrest, and a probe of the Baltimore Police Department's practices.
Arrests were already declining before Freddie Gray died on April 19 of injuries he suffered in police custody, but they dropped sharply thereafter, as his death unleashed protests, riots, the criminal indictment of six officers and a full-on civil rights investigation by the U.S. Justice Department that has officers working under close scrutiny.
"I'm afraid to go outside," said Antoinette Perrine, whose brother was shot down three weeks ago on a basketball court near her home in the Harlem Park neighborhood of West Baltimore. Ever since, she has barricaded her door and added metal slabs inside her windows to deflect gunfire.
"It's so bad, people are afraid to let their kids outside," Perrine said. "People wake up with shots through their windows. Police used to sit on every corner, on the top of the block. These days? They're nowhere."
West Baltimore residents worry they've been abandoned by the officers they once accused of harassing them, leaving some neighborhoods like the Wild West without a lawman around.
"Before it was over-policing. Now there's no police," said Donnail "Dreads" Lee, 34, who lives in the Gilmor Homes, the public housing complex where Gray, 25, was chased down. "People feel as though they can do things and get away with it. I see people walking with guns almost every single day, because they know the police aren't pulling them up like they used to."
Police Commissioner Anthony Batts said his officers "are not holding back," despite encountering dangerous hostility in the Western District.
"Our officers tell me that when officers pull up, they have 30 to 50 people surrounding them at any time," Batts said.
Batts provided more details at a City Council meeting Wednesday night, saying officers now fear getting arrested for making mistakes.
"What is happening, there is a lot of levels of confusion in the police organization. There are people who have pain, there are people who are hurt, there are people who are frustrated, there are people who are angry," Batts said. "There are people, and they've said this to me, 'If I get out of my car and make a stop for a reasonable suspicion that leads to probable cause but I make a mistake on it, will I be arrested?' They pull up to a scene and another officer has done something that they don't know, it may be illegal, will they be arrested for it? Those are things they are asking."
Protesters said Gray's death is emblematic of a pattern of police violence and brutality against impoverished African-Americans in Baltimore. In October, Batts and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake invited the Justice Department to participate in a collaborative review of police policies. The fallout from Gray's death prompted the mayor to ramp that up, and U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch agreed to a more intensive probe into whether the department employs discriminatory policing, excessive force and unconstitutional searches and arrests.
Baltimore was seeing a slight rise in homicides this year even before Gray's death April 19. But the 38 homicides so far in May is a major spike, after 22 in April, 15 in March, 13 in February and 23 in January.
With one weekend still to go, May 2015 is already the deadliest month in 15 years, surpassing the November 1999 total of 36.
Ten of May's homicides happened in the Western District, which has had as many homicides in the first five months of this year as it did all of last year.
Non-fatal shootings are spiking as well — 91 so far in May, 58 of them in the Western District.
The mayor said her office is "examining" the relationship between the homicide spike and the dwindling arrest rate.
Even before Gray's death, police were making between 25 and 28 percent fewer arrests each month than they made in the same month last year. But so far in May, arrests are down roughly 56 percent. Police booked just 1,045 people in the first 19 days of May, an average of 55 a day. In the same time period last year, police arrested 2,396 people, an average of 126 a day.
In fact, police did not make any arrests in the triple digits between April 22 and May 19, except on two occasions: On April 27, when protests gave way to rioting, police arrested 246 people. On May 2, the last day of a city-wide curfew, police booked 140 people.
At a news conference Wednesday, Rawlings-Blake said there are "a lot of reasons why we're having a surge in violence."
"Other cities that have experienced police officers accused or indicted of crimes, there's a lot of distrust and a community breakdown," Rawlings-Blake said. "The result is routinely increased violence."
"It's clear that the relationship between the commissioner and the rank-and-file is strained," she added. "He's working very hard to repair that relationship."
Emergency response specialist Michael Greenberger cautions against directly blaming police. The founder and director of the University of Maryland Center for Health and Homeland Security, the spike in homicides is more likely a response to Gray's death and the rioting.
"We went through a period of such intense anger that the murder rate got out of control. I think it's been really hard for the police to keep on top of that," he said.
Lee disagrees. He says rival gang members are taking advantage of the police reticence to settle old scores.
"There was a shooting down the street, and the man was standing in the middle of the street with a gun, just shooting," Lee added. "Usually, you can't walk up and down the street drinking or smoking weed. Now, people are everywhere smoking weed, and police just ride by, look at you, and keep going. There used to be police on every corner. I don't think they'll be back this summer."
Batts acknowledged that "the service we're giving is off-target with the community as a whole" and he promised to pay special attention to the Western District.
Veronica Edmonds, a 26-year-old mother of seven in the Gilmor Homes, said she wishes the police would return, and focus on violent crime rather than minor drug offenses.
"If they focused more on criminals and left the petty stuff alone, the community would have more respect for police officers," she said.
Copyright 2015 The Associated PressA federal judge on Thursday denied the city of Chicago's motion to dismiss a park preservation group's lawsuit aimed at blocking the proposed Lucas Museum, dealing a blow to the project and the goal of breaking ground along the lakefront this spring.
U.S. District Judge John Darrah ruled Friends of the Parks makes a case that the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art would not benefit the public, and that the project may violate the state's public trust doctrine.
Darrah said Friends of the Parks had plausibly argued that the proposed museum would "impair public interest in the land... and promote private and/or commercial interests," and he cited case law that says courts "must be skeptical with claims of public benefit."
The ruling cast doubt on plans to begin construction on the project sometime this spring. Construction cannot begin until the court case has been settled.
Friends of the Parks contends the land selected for the museum site between Soldier Field and McCormick Place is held in the public trust because it is formerly part of Lake Michigan, and that the land should be protected and preserved for the state's residents.
"We're thrilled that the judge has upheld what we've been saying all along, that our case does have merit," said Juanita Irizarry, executive director of Friends of the Parks.
"Star Wars" creator George Lucas wants to house his collection of artwork and showcase exhibits and films at the futuristic-looking building. The museum has the approval of the Chicago City Council, the Plan Commission and the Chicago Park District, which has entered an agreement to lease the land near Lake Michigan at a cost of $10 for 99 years.
The 300,000-square-foot museum will be privately funded and is slated to be built on 17 acres of lakefront property. The project is expected to cost more than $300 million.
The judge also ruled that "plaintiffs sufficiently plead that the ground lease effectively surrenders control of the museum site and places the public land 'entirely beyond the direction and control of the state.'"
The museum, designed to include several theaters, a library and an observation deck, will charge an admission fee but also will have several free areas. The plan also calls for nearly 4.6 acres of parkland and improvements at the site.
Friends of the Parks' attorneys say the terms of the lease, which include a two-time option to renew, essentially mean the Park District is handing over the property to the nonprofit organization that will run the museum. The parks group also argued that a state law passed last year targeting museums on formerly submerged land should not serve as a green light for the project, and Darrah agreed they made a viable claim on that point.
"We're pleased the case is going forward," Friends of the Parks attorney Tom Geoghegan said. "I think this is an excellent opportunity for the mayor to reconsider the location for this project."
A lawyer and spokesman for the city's Law Department said they were reviewing the judge's ruling. The Park District issued a statement that said the museum "is an unparalleled investment in the City's museum campus and our cultural and educational offerings, not to mention an incredible addition of green space to Chicago's lakefront."
Geoghegan said the group is not opposed to the concept of the Lucas Museum, or its presence in Chicago — simply the selected location.
"Let's use the lakefront for what it is meant for," he said. "We don't think this building is appropriate on the lakefront."
Geoghegan has said previously he wants to depose Park District officials as part of the legal discovery process to shed more light on how the city came to an agreement with the Lucas camp on the lakefront site. The judge's ruling kicks off a new phase in the case, creating the potential for those depositions to take place.
Lawyers for the city and the Park District argue that the lease is not a transfer of public property and that the museum will have substantial public benefits. They argue that the museum will be an upgrade over what is now a parking lot primarily used for Bears games, and the grounds near the museum will be enjoyed by city residents and visitors.
Friends of the Parks also questions the plans for parking near the proposed museum, arguing "it is very unlikely and certainly not guaranteed" that Lucas' pledge of $40 million for a parking garage near the site and a possible pedestrian bridge over Lake Shore Drive would cover the costs of the projects, leaving taxpayers on the hook.
At Friends of the Parks' annual meeting luncheon at the Chicago Cultural Center, group members and supporters celebrated the judge's decision.
"We are still in it!" Irizarry told the gathering.
Ald. Scott Waguespack, 32nd, who voted against the Lucas Museum and was among nine aldermen honored at the luncheon, said he and several others opposed to the location also are considering whether to file a friends of the court brief in the lawsuit. They also are thinking about pursuing a remedy in state court, where they would argue the project would obstruct a free, open and clear lakefront and would not bring sufficient economic development to the city.
Waguespack said there are other sites more suitable for the Lucas Museum, including the former Michael Reese hospital site or University of Illinois at Chicago property that was under consideration as a possible site for the Obama library. He also worried about who would be left paying for proposed parking facilities near the museum.
Friends of the Parks sued to block the museum in November 2014, after Lucas and the city announced plans for the lakefront project.
A status hearing has been scheduled in the lawsuit for Feb. 17.
poconnell@tribpub.com
Twitter @pmocwriterOne Idaho state lawmaker is still in denial over election results and would like to see states challenge the legitimacy of Obama’s reelection. Last week, Idaho State Sen. Sheryl Nuxoll (R) amplified a debunked theory circulating Tea Party blogs, that claims Romney still has a chance to win if enough states refuse to participate in the Electoral College.
Nuxoll linked to the debunked idea in a tweet, afterward telling the Spokane Spokesman-Review “I don’t know if it’s realistic.”
Even though Obama won 51 percent of the popular vote, by Nuxoll’s reasoning, “states are going to have to stand up for our individual rights and for our collective rights” because he is “depriving us of our freedoms.”
Constitutional Accountability Center’s Emily Phelps explains why the idea that unhappy Republicans can prevent the Electoral College from reaching a “quorum” is completely wrong: “A quick reading shows that [Tea Party Nation's] Phillips has his voting bodies backward. There is no quorum requirement for the Electoral College. If pro-Romney electors boycotted the meeting as Phillips has urged, the others would simply meet without them and elect President Obama.”
The original story on World Net Daily, a conspiracy site that regularly pushes “birtherism”, now has a major caveat. The site’s editors added the note: “Since this column was posted it has been discovered that the premise presented about the Electoral College and the Constitution is in error. According to the 12th Amendment, a two-thirds quorum is required in the House of Representatives, not the Electoral College.”FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – In 2006, New England Patriots kicker Adam Vinatieri was an unrestricted free agent and it was hard to envision him winding up in an Indianapolis Colts uniform. He did.
In 2013, Patriots receiver Wes Welker was exploring offers from other teams and got into deep discussions to sign with the Denver Broncos, yet it was hard to envision him following through on it. He did.
Those two examples came to mind when the question was asked: Would New England linebacker Dont’a Hightower really sign with the New York Jets?
It’s a timely question because Hightower is visiting the Jets and the meeting is expected to wrap up Monday, according to Jason La Canfora of CBS. It is believed to be Hightower’s first visit of free agency, as a market for him didn’t develop as quickly as many projected.
If Vinatieri and Welker could cross enemy lines, there’s nothing that says Hightower couldn’t.
That’s why, even though some around the NFL believe Hightower ultimately will re-sign with New England, there are no guarantees when it comes to free agency. As ESPN analyst Tedy Bruschi said last week, this is “truth week” in the sense that you learn a lot about how teams view players, and vice versa.
Hightower has been part of two of the best programs in football over the last nine years – first at the University of Alabama under Nick Saban and then with the Patriots under Bill Belichick. Both are similar, hard-driving cultures, and now this is Hightower’s chance to explore what it might be like in a different environment.
It wouldn’t be a surprise if that was part of the sales pitch from one of the Jets coaches who would work most closely with Hightower, Mike Caldwell. The Jets’ inside linebackers coach/assistant head coach is a former linebacker who broke into the NFL in 1993 on Belichick’s Cleveland Browns team, with Saban as his defensive coordinator, so he’s walked in the same football shoes Hightower has. Maybe that leads to a connection that Hightower is interested in investing in, as the Jets have been exploring an upgrade at his position.
Ultimately, it figures to come down mostly to financial investment.
Whatever the Patriots have on the negotiating table for Hightower hasn’t been enough for him to want to sign the deal at this point. That led him to the visit with the Jets, and maybe they wow him with an offer that’s too good to pass up.
If they don’t, sometimes simply getting a peek behind the curtain with another team can spark more appreciation for a player’s original team -- or get them to up their original offer and be a catalyst to re-sign. Other times, it can work in the opposite direction.
Which one will it be with Hightower?BY: Follow @FBillMcMorris
The Senate confirmed Colorado appellate judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court on Friday after Senate Republicans ended Democratic efforts to filibuster him.
The Senate voted 54-45 to seat Gorsuch on the high court after a 14-month vacancy left by Justice Antonin Scalia after his death in February 2016. Gorsuch will break a 4-4 split between the court's liberal- and conservative-leaning justices that has led to several high-profile deadlocks on controversial cases, including decisions that protected forced government union dues and blocked President Barack Obama's immigration plan.
Gorsuch will now be seated on the court in time to hear important cases scheduled for oral arguments in April, including Trinity Lutheran Church v. Pauley, a case that could determine whether religiously affiliated organizations such as schools and hospitals can receive government grants.
Gorsuch was confirmed despite fierce opposition from abortion rights activists, dark money liberal groups, and Democratic senators. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) organized the first filibuster of a Supreme Court nominee ever on Thursday. That filibuster could have delayed Gorsuch's nomination in perpetuity after Schumer received the support of 41 Democratic senators, but Senate Majority Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) changed the rules to break the filibuster and force an up-or-down vote decided by a simple majority, rather than 60 votes.
It was the second time the Senate has invoked the so-called nuclear option in the past four years. Former Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) changed the rules in 2013 to help confirm controversial judicial nominees to the federal bench.
Gorsuch previously enjoyed bipartisan support. He was confirmed unanimously to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2006. President Donald Trump credited his previous Senate confirmation as part of the reason he selected him from a shortlist of 20 conservative jurists organized by the Heritage Foundation and Federalist Society.
"Judge Gorsuch has outstanding legal skills, a brilliant mind, tremendous discipline, and has earned bipartisan support," Trump said at a January White House press conference announcing the nomination.
Republicans praised the confirmation. Sen. Orrin Hatch (D., Utah), former Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, said in a statement that he had "never seen a better nominee than Judge Neil Gorsuch."
"Not only does he possess unquestionably impressive credentials, but he has also demonstrated a deep and abiding understanding of the proper role of a judge under the Constitution," Hatch said. "While I am disappointed that partisan politics interfered with the Senate's consideration of a nominee who deserved the support of all 100 senators, I am extraordinarily pleased that Judge Gorsuch will now take a seat on the highest court in the land."
Leonard Leo, Trump's Supreme Court adviser, praised Gorsuch, as well as McConnell for turning the key on the nuclear option to break the filibuster. He said the confirmation will preserve Scalia's "legacy on the Court."
"I applaud President Trump for choosing such an outstanding nominee, and Leader McConnell and his colleagues for defeating an unprecedented partisan filibuster," Leo said in a statement. "A year ago we lost Justice Scalia, a giant, and today we are one step closer to seeing the preservation of his legacy on the Court."
Trump is scheduled to swear in Gorsuch on Monday.Sex is like crushed red pepper: guaranteed to add heat and spice to recipes that would otherwise be as bland and boring as unflavoured farina. Consider this dull economic dictum: "Service workers who enjoy their jobs generate more enthusiastic (and lucrative) customer response than workers with a bad attitude."
How obvious! A rude, unfriendly waiter gets smaller tips from diners. Even writers like me wouldn't land decent commissions if our every pitch to an editor carried the undertone "I hate you, Guardian. I loathe writing for you, and I'd never do it if I didn't have to support three kids and a cocaine habit."
No one would deny that "attitude matters" regarding waiters or writers, but observing that a sad and desperate prostitute makes less money than a happy, confident one – as authors Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner do in their new tome Superfreakonomics – generates a controversy that would never exist without that peppery red sex addition spicing up the farina.
My own take on sex work is arguably more liberal than the norm, since I spent my youth working somewhere between waiter and hooker on the service-industry spectrum: to support myself through college and graduate school, I worked as a stripper. (Actually, "exotic dancer" was the preferred nomenclature when I started in the overly religious part of the American south. No actual stripping was allowed – we usually wore spangled bikinis on stage, and not until moving to the staid American northeast did I strip down as far as "fully topless".)
Exotic dancing! What a marvellous job that was for an 18-year-old college student who at the time had few other marketable credentials: doll up, jiggle the twins a bit and make more money in an hour than a McDonald's burger-flipper got all week. The only real downside came from the condescending attitudes of those who insisted that, to avoid exploitation, I should've exchanged my bikinis and body glitter for a polyester uniform and made one-tenth as much money hauling fries out of a vat of oil.
Given the dismal state of the economy and my own finances, I'd go back to part-time dancing this second if I were 10 years younger. Maybe five. I did work at McDonald's in high school, and it was possibly the most exploitative job I've held. Those customers had zero interest in me as a person and viewed me merely as a way to get a piece of meat (with a side order of fries).
There's certainly a world of difference between being a stripper and a prostitute, but both share certain qualities: an unsavoury, sexually charged reputation; the chance to make far more money than the "respectable" jobs generally available to such workers; and in both cases, any unpleasant aspects are made immeasurably worse by make-it-go-away moralising. The women who work at legal, regulated brothels in Nevada or the Netherlands are far less likely to be hurt by abusive customers than the illegal prostitutes who fear not only clients but also the cops. And unhappy, desperate, low-paid street prostitutes wouldn't exist if people could work openly in or frequent legal whorehouses, any more than sleazy speakeasies selling blindness-inducing bathtub gin remained in America after we ended alcohol prohibition.
As a dancer I mostly worked in shoddy neighbourhoods but was exponentially safer than any prostitutes in the vicinity, not because I didn't have sex and they did but because my colleagues and I could view cops and security guards as our protectors, not people out to ruin our lives with criminal records.
If prostitution were as safe as any other legal and regulated business, there would be nothing controversial about Superfreakonomics or anyone else saying "The ones who like their jobs do better than the ones who don't." That was certainly true when I was dancing.
One of my single most lucrative nights came when, as soon as I got on stage, I climbed atop the pole and hung suspended several feet above the floor, then called out to the crowd, "I do celebrity impersonations! Free table dance to the first man who figures out who I am." Then, keeping my legs wrapped around the pole, I fell back and hung upside-down, with my eyes closed and my fingertips dangling a foot above the stage, and when the audience gave up guessing I flipped back to an upright position and called out.... wait for it....
"Mussolini!"
And my God, how the money rolled in. See? Attitude matters.Pastor Maldonado finished 14th in the drivers' championship in 2015
Pastor Maldonado is in danger of losing his drive at Renault this year as a result of late payment of funds.
The Venezuelan's sponsor - national oil company PDVSA - pays the team a reputed $50m (£35m), but the money is several weeks overdue, sources say.
Maldonado, 30, will be replaced by former McLaren driver Kevin Magnussen if the payment is not made soon.
Renault have taken over the Lotus team and need confirmed drivers in time for a major media launch in early February.
British novice Jolyon Palmer is Renault's other driver for the 2016 season, which starts in Australia on 20 March.
A Renault spokesman said: "It's speculation at the moment. We have a contract with Pastor. That is the current situation.
Highly rated: Kevin Magnussen finished second on is debut for McLaren in 2014
"Who knows what could happen by Australia but, at the moment, we are going forward with Pastor and Jolyon."
Maldonado's manager, Nicolas Todt, was not available for comment.
Magnussen was given a tour of the Renault factory in Oxfordshire last week in full view of the whole team.
Insiders believe the situation has been leaked as a tactic to try to put pressure on PDVSA to pay the money it owes, but the Venezuelan economy is struggling as a result of a huge drop in oil prices.
Maldonado owes his position in F1 to former Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, who arranged for the sponsorship as a means of boosting the country's prestige.
Chavez died in 2013 but Maldonado's funding has continued under current president Nicolas Maduro.
Despite having a race win to his name, Maldonado is renowned for his crashes
Maldonado has won one race - the 2012 Spanish Grand Prix for Williams - in an F1 career that has been notable for its volatility.
His propensity for incident has led to the nickname 'Crash-tor' and has even spawned a satirical website devoted to his accident record.
Renault was reluctant to keep Maldonado for 2016, but he was signed by Lotus before the takeover was complete.
Magnussen, 23, is a free agent having been released by McLaren following a year as their reserve driver in 2015.
The Dane raced for the team in 2014 as team-mate to Briton Jenson Button and was second on his debut in Australia that year.
He is regarded as one of the most talented drivers without a current place on the F1 grid for 2016.This 1967 Jeepster Commando has undergone what the seller describes as a restoration, though the original paint has been clear-coated to preserve its light patina. The interior has been redone however, and in combo with the 4″ lift and big BFG’s on OEM wheels and covers it makes for a very good looking truck. The seller says that nothing was spared to bring it to top condition, adding that it runs and shifts very well. A hardtop is included, though we’d probably run it fully open as often as possible. Find it here on eBay in Del Mar, California with a $17k BIN.
Says the seller: “The original patina was so cool that I just did not want to have it painted, so instead I polished, buffed and clear-coated it leaving the very few scrapes and scratches which give it its amazing character. ” All new suspension is noted briefly, and tires are described as ~200-mile old BFG’s. We think they look great here with OEM rolling stock including the wheel covers, and the soft top and its windows are reported to be in good shape. A hardtop is included as well, but not photographed. Note the 15,000 lb. Warn winch.
The interior features new and good looking upholstery on the front and rear seats, as well as on the dash pad. The cool OEM gauge pack has been retained and is complemented by an aftermarket readout on the dash.
The Buick Dauntless V6 wears correct color paint and has been fitted with a new carb. The seller says it “runs like a top,” adding that the automatic trans shifts well. Brakes and suspension have reportedly been gone through, and sale includes the original owner’s manual and some period brochures.Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Alice's parents say they are struggling to come to terms with why anyone would want to hurt her, as the BBC's Tom Symonds reports
A body found in a west London river is that of missing Alice Gross, the Metropolitan Police have confirmed.
The 14-year-old's body was found on Tuesday night in the River Brent. She was last seen on 28 August after she left her home in Hanwell, west London.
Alice's parents say they have been "left completely devastated" and thanked the local community for its help in the search.
A post-mortem examination began earlier at Uxbridge Mortuary.
'Sweet and beautiful'
Police said: "Due to the complex nature of this investigation the post-mortem is still ongoing and will resume tomorrow."
Image copyright PA Image caption Police officers from several forces took part in the search
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Detectives said significant efforts had been made to conceal the body
Image copyright PA Image caption Ealing Council said yellow ribbons placed around the borough will be kept in place as a sign of respect
Alice's parents Rosalind Hodgkiss and Jose Gross said: "It is difficult to comprehend that our sweet and beautiful daughter was the victim of a terrible crime.
"Why anyone would want to hurt her is something that we are struggling to come to terms with.
"Alice was a loving and much loved daughter and sister, a quirky live spark of a girl, beautiful inside and out.
"She was a funny companion, a loyal friend, both passionate and compassionate, and so talented with a bright future ahead of her. She brought so much joy to our family and those who knew her."
Her school said in a statement: "Alice was an outstanding and talented student who will be sorely missed from our school community.
"This is a very sad day for our school and we are devastated by this tragic loss. We are doing everything we can to support each other and will continue to do so in the days and weeks ahead."
'A dreaded day'
Convicted murderer Arnis Zalkalns, 41, a labourer from Latvia, remains the prime suspect in the case.
Image copyright PA Image caption Alice's parents said she was 'a quirky live spark of a girl, beautiful inside and out'
He served seven years in prison in his native country for bludgeoning and stabbing his wife Rudite to death.
He was filmed cycling along the Grand Union Canal 15 minutes after Alice had walked along it on 28 August, and has been missing from his Ealing home since 3 September.
When police found the body on Tuesday they said significant efforts had been made to conceal it.
Alice's disappearance prompted an outpouring of support in her local community, where yellow ribbons and bows still adorn the streets.
Posters are taped to walls, lampposts and car windscreens, while sunflower-colour strands of material are tied to doorknobs - many inscribed with a simple message: "Find Alice."
Leader of Ealing Council Julian Bell said the yellow ribbons will be kept in place as a sign of respect.
He said: "Today is the day that everyone in our community has dreaded and the yellow ribbons flying across our borough show how deeply our community cares and has been affected.
"It is essential that anyone with information that can help the police's investigation comes forward."HAVING battled for three years to see a “light at the end of the tunnel” in his AFL career, former Fremantle Dockers ruckman Craig Moller is now clear about the way forward.
It’s via the hardwood of a basketball court rather than the grass of a footy field.
Moller, 21, is confident of securing a berth on an NBL roster next season as he looks to achieve the rare feat of playing at the top level in two sports.
The 203cm NSW product conceded it had been difficult being behind Aaron Sandilands, Jon Griffin, Zac Clarke and Jack Hannath in Fremantle’s talented ruck pecking order, registering a sole senior game in 2013 before being delisted late last year.
“Hindsight’s a wonderful thing. Looking at it now, with Sandilands and big Jon Griffin and Clarkey, they’re top-calibre ruckmen in the AFL,” Moller told The |
values we can move to (0, 0) (each of which must give different offsets since the value on (0, 0) is different), and n*n essentially different values for the offsets, each change in offsets also corresponds to a translation (notice how this reasoning fails if the multipliers are not linear independent since not all (0, 0) results would be distinguishable). So if we choose the average value in the center and use a coordinate system with (0, 0) in the middle, it's obvious that for (0, 0) we must have i = j = (n-1)/2, so: i = (x*u+y*p+k*n+(n-1)/2)%n j = (x*v+y*q+l*n+(n-1)/2)%n (I left in the k and l to stress the complete set of solutions. In practise they of course have no influence and you just drop them). If you now consider two points in positions symmetric with respect to the center, their x and y coordinates have opposite sign, so equally much gets added or subtracted from (n-1)/2. And since 0 an n-1 are equally far from (n-1)/2, if the modulo wraps -1 or lower up, the other position is at n or higher and gets wrapped down equally much. So the sum of the values at symmetric positions is constant, and in fact twice the average (and now central) value, (n-1)/2*n+(n-1)/2 = (n-1)/2*(n+1) = (n2-1)/2 In fact, a square is called "associative" if all positions symmetric to the center sum to n2+1 (this definition is for squares that start counting at 1). So that is n2-1 for 0-based squares, so moving the average value to the center makes a semi-magic siamese square associative. And since the whole square is on average filled with the average value and all pairs (except the center) sum to twice the average value, every associative semi-magic square must have the average value in the center, so the two conditions are equivalent for siamese squares. Using that n = (2*M+1)*µ*µ' and n = (2*E+1)*ð*ð' gives for the offsets: a = ((2*k+1)(2*M+1)*µ*µ'-1)/2 b = ((2*l+1)(2*E+1)*ð*ð'-1)/2 which is compatible with the condition for the diagonals to sum to the magic constant, so every associative semi-magic Siamese square is magic. So moving the average value to the center in the example in fact didn't destroy the magicness. On the contrary, it's a way you can make any semi-magic Siamese square magic. Translating back to zero-based coordinates for (x, y) gives: i = (x*u+y*p+(1-u-p)*(n-1)/2)%n j = (x*v+y*q+(1-v-q)*(n-1)/2)%n Going back to our standard example (u, v, p, q) = (2, 1, 1, 1) gives: i = (2*x+y+1)%n j = ( x+y-(n-1)/2)%n which is the exact formula we found for the example inversions. So the classic construction gives associative magic squares. The other example we recently looked at was (u, v, p, q) = (2, 2, 1, -1). This gives: i = (2*x+y+1)%n j = (2*x-y)%n Notice how choosing u+p and v+q to be odd tends to get rid of the ugly offsets.
Demanding the square is panmagic When all the diagonals, including those obtained by "wrapping around" the edges, of a magic square sum to the same magic constant, the square is said to be a panmagic square. In this example from MathWorld you see at the left the normal magic square condition and to the right the conditions for all wrapped diagonals (in both directions): If you go back to the sequences we studied when demanding a square is magic, it's easy to see that e.g. moving z times one down from the main diagonal corresponds to adding z*p to the i entries and z*q to the j entries. Each of these must give a component of the magic constant (We only demanded that all diagonals sum to the same value, but since in this way we cover all positions, this value must be the magic constant. And the diagonal compatibility condition will also be fullfilled). So: n * (n-1)/2 = sum(u+p, a+z*p, n) = sum(u+p, n) + (a+z*p)%µ * n n * (n-1)/2 = sum(v+q, a+z*q, n) = sum(v+q, n) + (a+z*q)%ð * n (moving the diagonals to the right instead of down would correspond to adding z*u and z*v and will of course lead to the same conclusions, since in the end they represent the same diagonals). Since each of these must give the same result irrespective of z, it follows that (a+z*p)%µ is constant. Considering z=0 and z=1 we see that µ | p, and assuming this is also enough to to make (a+z*p)%µ constant. But we also have µ | u+p, so µ | u. And since µ | n, we also see that µ | gcd(u, p), so µ=1. Doing the same for the others, we see that the necessary and sufficient condition for a semi-magic square to be panmagic is: µ = µ' = ð = ð' = 1 So a Siamese square is panmagic if and only if: value(x, y) = i+j*n where: i = (x*u+y*p+k)%n j = (x*v+y*q+l)%n and: gcd(u*q-p*v, n) = 1 gcd(u, n) = gcd(v, n) = gcd(p, n) = gcd(q, n) = 1 gcd(u+p, n) = gcd(u-p, n) = gcd(v+q, n) = gcd(v-q, n) = 1 and k and l are arbitrary integers. We can easily make the square associative too by choosing k and l so that they are of the form we determined higher. Looking again at the examples, we see that (u, v, p, q) = (2, 1, 1, 1) implies ð' = n, so the classic construction never gives a panmagic square (except n=1). Considering (u, v, p, q) = (2, 2, 1, -1) we see that we need gcd(3, n) = 1 as necessary and sufficient condition. So the squares generated by i = (2*x+y+k)%n j = (2*x-y+l)%n are panmagic if n is not a multiple of 3, so of the form n = 6*m±1 What happens in the previous example is pretty typical. Siamese squares that are a multiple of 3 never seem to be panmagic. Why? u+p, u-p, u and p may obviously not be multiples of 3, otherwise their gcd with n is at least 3, so u = ±1 (mod 3) and p = ±1 (mod 3) which means that either the sum or the difference must be 0 (mod 3), so either u+p = 0 (mod 3) or u-p = 0 (mod 3), which is not allowed. So the Siamese method never generates panmagic squares whose size is a multiple of 3. And in fact no panmagic squares of size 3 exist at all, Siamese or not.Russell Brand’s preaching has earned him a spectacular new home (Picture: Mary Turner/Getty Images)
Russell Brand has taken a slightly luxurious detour from his path to revolution by reportedly buying himself a £3.3m countryside home.
According to The Sun, Russell is lounging around ‘taking pictures of swans’ at his postcard-worthy, six-bed, riverside retreat in Henley-on-Thames.
And when he’s not doing that – or planning his stall for the posh village regatta – he’s playing games on his XBox and PS4, according to his mate Noel Gallagher.
MORE: Here’s your first look at Jimi Hendrix’s London property as it was in 1968
Brand’s new home, obviously the epicentre of sociopolitical change (Picture: Ballards Estate Agents)
Noel said: ‘[Russell] told me he is writing another book. I said what is it going to be called this time? “Now about that revolution that never took place”.
‘He is playing Xbox. Revolutionary Russell is playing PS4.’
Advertisement
Advertisement
Perhaps he’s playing Call Of Duty: Black Ops where one mission is to assassinate founding father of Communism, Fidel Castro.
Russell was previously criticised for renting a very pricey London apartment from a company registered in a tax haven – after attacking tax-dodging firms in his 2014 book Revolution.
After taking a break from his YouTube channel The Trews and bowing out of politics, it’s doubtful the 40-year-old’s new pad will play host to many revolutionary rallies any time soon.
Unless there’s tea and sponge cake, of course. Then someone might come.
MORE: Russell Brand slams Katy Perry as ‘vapid, vacuous and plastic’ during their marriage
MORE: Back for more? Russell Brand is now endorsing Jeremy Corbyn for the Labour leadershipPresident Putin's visit to Japan earlier this month is bearing fruit. With Japan's industrial economy hungry for energy supplies, Russia may begin to supply the Asian nation with electricity, and soon.
© Sputnik / Michael Klimentyev Russia, Japan to Launch Simplified Visa Regime on January 1
Japanese investors are looking to invest heavily into a project that would link Russia's Far Eastern Primorye Region and Sakhalin Island with the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido via an energy grid.
Speaking to Russian media earlier this week, Oleg Budargin, general director of Russian power company Rosseti, explained that the company's Japanese counterparts were the ones to propose the idea.
"Japanese companies came to us at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum this year with a proposal: to build a Russian-Japanese energy bridge," Budargin said, speaking to reporters in Kaliningrad on Monday.
The company official recalled that the idea for this kind of large-scale project has been discussed for several decades, although in the past Russia has been the one to initiate the discussions.
Budargin said that Japanese entrepreneurs are ready to invest up to $11 billion into the project. They now face several obstacles domestically which must first be overcome. Specifically, the country's government would first have to somehow amend or eliminate a national law banning the import of electricity from other countries.
© REUTERS / Tomohiro Ohsumi/Pool Washington Expects Tokyo to Maintain Hard Line on Moscow, US Official Says
There are also political factors, Budargin noted, and not necessarily connected to Russian-Japanese relations. But "at the level of ordinary people, I think there is a very strong understanding, and therefore business is starting to look at this question differently," the official said. In previous years, Tokyo has been reluctant to agree to connect to Russia's electricity grid, citing high cost and fears of becoming dependent on Russian energy supplies.
Pointing out the prospective benefits of the project, Budargin recalled that Japan has no hydrocarbon reserves of its own, and that after the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in 2011, authorities' confidence in the use of nuclear power has hit at an all-time low.
Russia, meanwhile, has all the resources necessary for the export of electricity, and would not even need to construct any new generation capacity. At the moment, over 30% of Russia's Far Eastern generation capacity consists of reserves.
Rosseti has already signed on to a multinational memorandum 'On the Creation of a Market for Electricity in the Asia-Pacific Region'. On the basis of that document, governments and national energy companies are conducting negotiations regarding the integration of regional energy infrastructure. Together with Russia and Japan, China, Mongolia and South Korea are also involved in that effort. These negotiations have a bright future, Budargin stressed.
Last month, Russian business magazine Expert explained that Russian-Japanese cooperation in the energy sector may not be limited to electricity. Earlier this year, lawmakers from Japan's ruling coalition proposed the construction of a gas pipeline to supply gas to Tokyo Bay via Hokkaido and Sakhalin. The Russian gas delivered by the pipeline is said to be significantly cheaper than the liquefied gas currently delivered to Japan by ship. Russian state energy firm Gazprom is conducting its own feasibility study, and officials from both sides are engaged in active negotiations regarding cost sharing, environmental issues, and technical details.On Friday, following McCain's announcement that Sarah Palin was his choice for running mate, like way too many others I allowed myself to indulge in the fantasy that this was the stupidest decision of a GOP presidential candidate since Dan Quayle was tapped for the role. Now that my post-DNC sense of invincibility has worn off, however, so has my triumphalism. I woke up yesterday morning with a much different sense of the Sarah Palin choice. I think it's a trap.
The McCain campaign knew exactly how both Democrats and the traditional media would respond to the Palin announcement, because it was entirely predictable. Choosing someone this plainly unqualified wasn't a mistake, and it wasn't even a gamble. It was a trade-off.
My suspicion is that the McCain campaign doesn't really care that Palin undermines McCain's case for experience, because they're not planning to use that argument anymore. They've decided that the experience argument is ineffective against Obama's change message, and they're more or less giving it up. Moreover, they know how to respond to attacks on Palin's total lack of qualification for the office, and are in fact inviting those attacks as a way to build sympathy with working class independent voters. That's where Palin's value lies.
Instead of continuing on the experience theme, McCain is front-loading his "Country First" message, and his campaign is taking the competition for working class voters on economic issues much more seriously than they were a few months ago. McCain has finally figured out that this is not going to be a national security election, and that Iraq is a distant second to the recession as the central issue in 2008. So it doesn't matter that Palin has no foreign policy experience. That's not what they need her for - they need her for the debate over the economy.
Of course, Palin is useless for any actual debate on the subject that might require policy expertise and persuasive argumentation. In that, she's similar to McCain, who is not identified as a Senator with any special knowledge on economic issues, and has been exposed as an out of touch multimillionaire. For all these reasons, and with GOP-style economics completely out of style, the McCain campaign is at a major disadvantage in any wonky policy debate on fixing the economy. Knowing this, and knowing that the election is going to be won or lost on whether their ticket is regarded as the best equipped to meet that challenge, the McCain campaign is doing what the GOP always does when it has to fight for working class voters in a debate that Republicans can't win on its merits: they are reverting to symbolic politics, a role for which Palin is tailor-made.
Palin was educated at a not-famous public university, received a bachelor's degree in journalism and became a sportscaster before entering the political arena. She married her high school sweetheart, a commercial fisherman and oil company worker (not an executive, or even a manager). Her political career began at the PTA. She raised four kids while holding down her career, and recently had a fifth. Compared to McCain, Obama and even Biden, her story is easily the most sympathetic to working class voters, especially white women. While the McCain campaign whispers to voters in Peoria that Obama is not 'one of us,' with Palin they will be able to present a face and a story that is reassuringly familiar - much more so than the top of the ticket.
The McCain campaign is going to trot Palin out whenever they need to make the case that they feel America's pain. They're going to contrast her story to Obama's, and even to Biden's (not the part about being a scrappy kid from Scranton, but the part about being in the Senate for a million years). They're going to have her stick relentlessly to her personal biography, and avoid at all costs any discussion of policy. And whenever any Democrat attacks her for being inexperienced, they're going to turn to working class voters and ask why all these Harvard-educated, pointy-headed know-it-alls think that they know better how to help working families than a woman who worked her way through a demanding career while raising five kids, stayed married to her hard-working husband, and was so successful that she became a governor and then a VP nominee. They're going to turn any question about Palin's 'experience,' whether from a Dem or from a journalist, into another elitist attack on working class culture, another example of snooty, brainiac liberals condescending to ordinary Americans. And to boot, a bunch of good old boys picking on Mrs. Mom.
I don't believe that this is a bid for Hillary supporters, I think it's a bid for the same segment of the electorate that almost every tactic from both campaigns has been aimed at: white working class swing voters. I think the inevitable attacks on Palin are part of the purpose of her selection. By turning her into a lightning rod, they will be able to deflect attacks away from McCain toward a far more sympathetic figure, and then use those attacks as evidence in a far more powerful counterattack against typical liberal elitism.Get the biggest daily stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
Newcastle United boss Rafa Benitez says that going on far-flung trips during pre-season makes little sense for a team looking to hit the ground running in the Premier League.
The Magpies have just been promoted from the Championship and are preparing for their opening game of the season against Tottenham Hotspur at Carton House just outside Dublin.
But as many Premier League sides travel on pre-season tours across the globe, the Champions League-winning boss feels staying close to home will leave his side better prepared for the rigours of a new season.
(Image: KBA)
READ MORE:
It's the second year in a row that Newcastle have trained at Carton House during pre-season, and the famously meticulous Benitez took time out to praise the facility for its excellent standards.
The former Liverpool boss said: "We were happy with the way everything was organised, the pitches, the staff, everybody was helping.
"Sometimes you want to go to Australia to make money - that makes no sense when you have to settle down in the Premier League.
"You have to be sure and in control of everything from day one, and then you can work in a way that will improve the team, not just having a team travelling around the world."
Despite staying in Ireland, Newcastle will not be joining British sides such as Hearts, Charlton Athletic, Burnley, and Celtic in playing pre-season games against League of Ireland sides.
But Benitez says his side's lack of fixtures in Ireland was simply an issue of bad timing, with their opening game against Spurs less than a month away.
"We couldn't come earlier", he said.
"I think Burnley were here, and we have to organise everything in the best way possible for us.
"The number of games and the level of the opponents, all of these you have to control when you're trying to be the best you can be against Tottenham.
READ MORE:
"We couldn't manage too many more games."
Benitez was also quizzed on the futures of both Daryl Murphy and Rob Elliot, two Irish players who have been linked with a move away from St. James' Park this summer.
Murphy has been the subject of interest from Aston Villa, among others, and the Newcastle boss confirmed they had been listening to offers for the former Ipswich Town man.
"A lot of teams, they are interested", Benitez said.
"We have been in contact with some of them - he has also, we're aware of that.
"We will see what happens."
(Image: ©INPHO/Donall Farmer)
He added that he wants to keep former Charlton stopper Elliot around to increase competition for his goalkeeping spots, after admitting he will let long-standing number one Tim Krul leave the club.
"He's a good keeper, he's working very hard", he said.
"I'm trying to bring in another keeper to compete.
"In any team, you have to compete with someone else, and I think he knows that's the idea. He's training well and I've a lot of confidence in him."
Rafa Benitez was talking during a recent visit to Sports Direct’s new flagship Irish store at North Earl Street in Dublin today. NUFC’s new third kit is available at all Sports Direct stores and sportsdirect.com.
READ MORE:Kliff Kingsbury pulled into the parking lot outside the Texas Tech football offices a few minutes before 4:30 a.m. The sun wouldn’t rise for at least another two hours. By then the 35-year-old Red Raiders head coach would’ve worked out for an hour and pored over another hour of studying tape.
One of his assistants, Tech linebackers coach/co-defensive coordinator Mike Smith, pops in to say hi to his boss and jokes that Kingsbury’s inspiring him to shed 20 pounds to get back down to his old playing weight as the former Tech QB takes a quick break from perusing some NFL film that’s intrigued him. Kingsbury is a film junkie. Unlike a lot of head coaches, he doesn’t put it up on some projection screen or 60-inch flat screen. He’s just fine with watching it from a small computer window not much bigger than a business letter.
It’s the way he studied film when he first broke into the coaching business as a quality control assistant on Kevin Sumlin’s staff at Houston. The perspective gives him a measure of, well, perspective. "It keeps me in check,” Kingsbury says. “Anytime you start thinking you made it or whatever, I like getting on that little screen and getting back to the basics and it’s all about X’s and O’s."
Article continues below...
In Smith’s eyes Kingsbury hasn’t really changed from their days as Red Raider teammates even if his old QB has become something of a celebrity in the past year-plus, as he emerged as the sport’s resident heart-throb bachelor coach. After all, how many other head coaches get requests from E! Entertainment TV or from Inside Edition? Or have shirtless photos poolside that go viral?
Not that Kingsbury’s persona hasn’t helped elevate the brand of Texas Tech football or re-energize what had been something of a fractured fan base coming off the transition from Mike Leach to Kingsbury’s predecessor Tommy Tuberville, because it most definitely has. Tech AD Kirby Hocutt and the Red Raiders brass couldn’t be happier about the young guy they took a shot on some 20 months ago. In fact, they’re so enthusiastic they just rewarded him with a lucrative new deal, extending his contract through the 2020 season and paying him a guaranteed base salary of $3.5 million with yearly bonus clauses that can bring him another $1.5 million.
To Smith, the rest of Kingsbury’s coaching staff — many of whom also played for Tech –and pretty much everyone else who knew him before he became the ‘It’ head coach, he’s really an old-school grinder. Smith tells the story of when the Red Raiders played Colorado years ago and Kingsbury got drilled right before halftime on his elbow. "It was gashed open," Smith said. "His whole leg and shoulder pads are covered in blood. So I’m looking at him from my locker thinking, ‘He’s definitely out. It looked like he just got hit by a car.’ He goes in the backroom. They stitch him up and put a huge pad on and he finishes the game."
Smith, without taking a breath, transitions into another Kliff story about the guy who Tech teammates say was their warrior QB, not some pretty boy — this one from a game against Nebraska. Kingsbury got hit in the side and had a bone sticking out from that shot. "He never missed a play either," said Smith. "He’s a Texas kid, a true son of a coach. Reminds me a lot of Steve McNair, who I played with in Baltimore, in terms of playing through injuries and being tough.”
Leach, now Washington State’s head coach, recalls a game against Texas A&M where he went back and reviewed the film and noted that the Aggies hit Kingsbury hard 22 times and the guy still hung in the game and threw for over 300 yards. "He was incredibly tough," Leach said.
"That (other stuff), that’s not Kliff," said Smith, who spent two years in the NFL as a linebacker. "He’s just a football guy. There’s not one time I’ve gone into his office and he’s not watching film. One day it’s Redskins. Another day he’s watching Toledo. A lot of people think he’s this Hollywood guy in it for the fame. He could care less about it. His biggest deal with that is it helps recruiting and helps the program.
"He knows how much it helps in recruiting, and right now we’re kicking butt in recruiting. I think we’re leading the Big 12 in four- and five-star guys. I think he has an old spirit. He goes to bed at like 8:30. He’s always eating right."
Said Kingsbury of his glitzy, playboy persona: "You just got to have fun with it. I think right now that we’re trying to get as much exposure for Texas Tech as we can and so there’s a lot of things that we do that are calculated. We’re trying to get our name out there and until the wins catch up with that, we’re going to keep doing it ‘cause I think Texas Tech is an incredible place. We want recruits to see it. We want the world to see what we’re all about and eventually the wins will come."
He shakes his head and laughs at some of the reactions he gets from the team like he did when the pool picture made its way around the internet. Players started texting him about it. Then, he said, he walked into a meeting and the players started clapping for him. "It’s just one of those deals," he said. "Just have fun with it. It’s part of the gig."
The attitude he’s striving to instill in Lubbock, though, is anything but surface or shallow. He is adamant that he never wants Texas Tech to "take a back seat to anyone." He’s been dogged in driving home that message in how he and his staff work and the energy they bring to practice and meetings.
"I don’t want them to ever think lower than Big 12 championship," Kingsbury said. "I think sometimes on a national scale people see Texas Tech as that team that wins one big game a year and screws up somebody else’s season. Well, we need to think bigger than that and that’s been my goal since I got here."
Kingsbury, the 2002 National Football Foundation Academic All-America Player of the Year, attributes his work ethic and toughness to his parents.
"It was always, in our household, if the bone’s not sticking out, you’re going to keep playing," he said. "That was just the mentality. He wanted us to be tough and then he coached that into us growing up."
“He” is Kingsbury’s father, Tim, a former high school football coach and old Marine who earned a Purple Heart in Vietnam.
"They were in the jungle apparently and they got ambushed, and he hit a trip wire and got shot through the jaw," said the younger Kingsbury. "He had to sit there through a dog fight, for like three hours he said, and then they got him out of there. Fireworks and things like that — he still doesn’t take part in ‘em and you can still see the lingering effects."
Tim Kingsbury, who retired after a very successful run at New Braunfels High at 51 so he could watch Kliff play at Texas Tech, prefers not to talk about his military days. "That’s old news," he said. "I don’t make too big a deal about that. I was shot in the jaw, but there were a lot of people who got hurt back then."
The elder Kingsbury says Kliff’s mom, Sally, was the really tough one in the family, especially with the way she kept fighting cancer. She had a soft tissue sarcoma that started in her leg, then progressed to her lungs and went from there.
"She was a strong lady," Tim Kingsbury said. "She was very courageous. She just kept battling back after every surgery. I guess it just wasn’t meant to be, but she was a real inspiration."
The family started a foundation — the Sally M. Kingsbury Sarcoma Research Foundation — which Tim says has raised over $160,000.
Kingsbury’s parents both were teachers. His mom taught government and economics. His dad, in addition to being a football coach, taught world history and US History. The skills they established to teach have also enriched their son’s ability to communicate and connect with his players since there is such carryover. Being the son of a Texas high school football coach also has provided Kliff Kingsbury with quite a primer for the career he’s chosen.
"It’s an incredible honor," he said of being the son of a Texas high school coach. "I think people that are from the state know how big of deal that is and know how the life those coaches lead and the stress they’re put on in these small towns where that’s all they got is football. So I always appreciated the way he handled himself. He was always harder on my brother and I and we knew that."
***
Smith, who before coming back to Tech spent three seasons as an assistant with the New York Jets, sees some similarities in Kingsbury to his old boss Rex Ryan. "They’re both such players’ coaches," Smith said. "People are just drawn to them. He really is a lot like Rex. Players respond to Kliff and I think that’s 90 percent of coaching."
Smith brings up a story from last season as an example of why the players like Kingsbury so much. Smith watched back the replay of Tech’s game against TCU. In it, he noticed a moment where a Horned Frog player screws up and TCU coach Gary Patterson really gets in the guy’s face. Not long after that, Smith says, Tech’s DeAndre Washington breaks what would’ve been a 49-yard catch-and-run for touchdown with the score tied 10-10 late in the game. Only Washington started to celebrate the touchdown a step too soon and dropped the ball, which ultimately nullified the play and put the ball back at the TCU 15.
"Kliff pats him on the head and said, ‘Alright brother. Next play.’ We end up scoring and winning the game. (Stuff) like that," Smith said, "is pretty cool. It gives me goose bumps."
To Tech players, Kingsbury is so much different than any other head coach. "He makes you feel like he’s one of us," said star QB Davis Webb. "He can relate to anybody on and around our team. That’s the coolest thing about it. He relates to us better than anybody I’ve ever been around."
Asked if he thinks he can sustain this pace and this vibe 10, 15 years from now as the guy working out every bit as hard, if not even harder, than his players, Kingsbury said if he can’t, "then I’ll get out of the profession." He said he doesn’t see himself as some Joe Paterno where he’s coaching even into his 70s.
"This is the part that I love,” Kingsbury said. “It makes you feel like, as close as I can to being a player, and so I think that’s why I do it. I love just bringing my energy and getting around the players and putting the best products out there we can."
Bruce Feldman is a senior college football reporter and columnist for FOXSports.com and FOX Sports 1. Follow him on Twitter @BruceFeldmanCFB.IN A PASSIONATE decry of Ireland’s tribunals, George Hook told Vincent Brown last night that they “have been nothing but a reason to fill newspaper space”.
Speaking on TV3′s Tonight with Vincent Browne, Hook questioned the value tribunals offer to the public as have no grounding in law.
Asked about the Moriarty Report and its inferences to his boss Denis O’Brien and controversial TD Michael Lowry, the radio and television commentator repeated that tribunals have no grounding in legal fact.
If Denis O’Brien is convicted in a court of malfeasance or financial irregularity, I will resign forthwith from any organisation owned by him.
Before making his opening statements on the programme, Hook identified himself as Browne’s “patsy”, predicting lots of “rolled eyes and sighs” once his boss’s name was mentioned.
“What I find strange about the whole thing is that as soon as we mention the name of O’Brien, we are told we are willing to say anything,” he added.
Discussing the tussle between O’Brien and Tony O’Reilly for control of Independent News and Media, Hook described the pair as two of Ireland’s greatest businessmen.
However, he said the power struggle had only led to losses for INM shareholders who had suffered monetarily because of the diving price of shares.
Adding to the debate about media ownership, Hook said he believes the “real problem” lies with failure of media regulators.
We wouldn’t have a discussion about media ownership and any person’s power if this country had firm and strong regulation in terms of ownership. As long as somebody can buy a newspaper or radio with impunity, they will do it.
Throughout the programme, the Newstalk presenter continued to question Rupert Murdoch’s involvement in newspapers in Ireland.
“Why do journalists of such great integrity not turn around and say they will not work for an organisation that hacks into people’s emails?” he asked.
Read: Dunphy, Hook, Smyth, O’Brien and Byrne – the Twitter war>
Watch: Tonight with Vincent Browne from 16 April>Dozens of so-called “kayaktivists” and marchers also participated in the protest over fossil fuels and Arctic drilling
Authorities cleared the railroad tracks of protesters and arrested 52 climate activists Sunday morning in Skagit County, after a two-day shutdown.
About 150 people spent the night in tents and sleeping bags on the tracks near two refineries near Anacortes, according to BNSF Railway spokesman Gus Melonas.
They were asked to leave at about 5 a.m. and most gathered their belongings and left the area, Melonas said.
“It was peaceful,” he said. “Eighty percent removed their belongings and cleared out.”
The 52 people arrested were cited for trespassing, according to the Skagit County Department of Emergency Management. One person was also cited for resisting arrest.
Skagit County Sheriff Will Reichardt said that before anyone was arrested, officers advised protesters that they could move to another designated location and demonstrate.
A spokeswoman for the protesters said she expected everyone arrested would be processed and released from police custody.
Emily Johnston said protests would continue around Anacortes on Sunday, but she didn’t expect people to return to the railroad tracks.
Johnston, who had participated in a blockade of the Seattle harbor to protest Shell Oil’s plans to drill for oil in the Arctic, said the success of protests like the one in Anacortes can mostly be seen in the way they inspire people to speak out about climate change.
The rail line has been closed since Friday because of the protests, and trains were to start running again Sunday afternoon after a cleanup and safety sweep of the tracks, Melonas said.
Protesters in kayaks, canoes, on bikes and on foot also took place in demonstrations near Anacortes, about 70 miles north of Seattle, to demand action on climate and an equitable transition away from fossil fuels such as oil and coal.
In upstate New York, climate activists gathered Saturday at a crude-oil shipment hub on the Hudson River in an action targeting crude-by-rail trains and oil barges at the Port of Albany. A group of activists sat on tracks used by crude-oil trains headed to the port. Albany is a key hub for crude-by-rail shipments from North Dakota’s Bakken shale region.George Osborne has opened the way for a fresh round of £10bn welfare cuts by securing agreement from the work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, and promising the Liberal Democrats that the cuts will be balanced by a bigger contribution from the rich.
Duncan Smith had been the main Conservative obstacle to more welfare cuts but on Sunday he wrote a joint article with the chancellor saying he was "satisfied" such savings were possible.
In return, the Treasury has given him the final political go-ahead for universal credit, his cherished but risky master plan to merge benefits and tax credits from next year.
Senior Tory sources also suggested that senior Lib Dems had also accepted the fresh cuts as long as Osborne and Cameron stuck to their promises made that the rich would have to make the largest contribution to the next attack on the deficit.
Osborne and the Lib Dems have been scouring Whitehall for £16bn of further cuts to be implemented in 2015-16 ever since Osborne was forced in last year's autumn statement to concede that he could not eradicate the structural deficit in this parliament.
Although Osborne does not need to spell out the precise details of the 2015-16 deficit reduction programme until next year's autumn statement, the welfare reforms will require legislation to be in place within two years at the most. The first targets are likely to be housing benefit for the under 25s and restraint on the uprating of benefits.
Osborne's two deals – with Duncan Smith and senior Lib Dems – free the chancellor to put political pressure on Labour to explain its plans to cut the deficit.
In a joint article in the Daily Mail, Duncan Smith and Osborne state: "We are united in our determination to deliver universal credit, the most fundamental reform of our benefits system for a generation, on time and on budget."
They say that further savings are needed in most government departments and most areas of spending at the next spending review.
They also point out that the Treasury illustrated at the time of the last budget that if the rate of reductions in departmental budgets in the next spending review period is to be |
a synthetic shampoo. Keeva Organics is one that if you use it for a while will see amazing results. Your hair will be hydrated, and if you suffered from dry or irritated scalp, your scalp will thank you. As with all natural shampoos, there are no parabens or sulfates and, as an added bonus if you care about animals, they do not test on animals.
If you get your hair colored or use a hair dryer to style your hair, then your hair is getting damaged. You can restore it by using Keeva Organics as the essential oils from argan, coconut and tea tree will repair the damage.
Don't expect a great sudsy lather, however as it won't achieve that. Sudsy lather is not an indication that it works. It just feels good to get that lather going! But, trust me when I tell you that it works even though you might be disappointed in the lack of suds. And you will notice the difference as soon as you use it as you will feel how soft your hair is after.
The only downside to this organic shampoo is some guys think the scent is a little girly. But it isn't an overpowering scent anyway.
Features: Helps eliminate dandruff
Hypoallergenic
Free of parabens, phthalates, fragrances and sulfates, vegan-friendly
Safe for color treated hair
Restores hair to its ideal natural moisture content
Prevents clogged hair follicles Ingredients: Aqua, Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, Sodium Lauroamphoacetate, Sodium Methyl Cocoyl Taurate, Sodium Lauryl Glucoside Carboxylate, Lauryl Glucoside, Sodium Cocoyl Glutamate, Acrylates Copolymer, Coco-Glucoside, Glyceryl Oleate, Caprylhydroxamic Acid, Glyceryl Caprylate, Glycerin, Sodium PCA, D-Panthenol, Simmondia chinensis (Jojoba) Oil, Botanical Keratin, Salvia officinalis (Sage) Oil, Prunus persica (Peach Kernel) Oil, Nardostachys jatamansi (Spikenard) Oil, Melaleuca alternifolia (Tea Tree) Oil, Rosemarinus officinalis (Rosemary) Oil. If you have dandruff I am sure you have tried a thousand shampoos designed to get rid of it. If you are still reading this then it means you still haven't found one that works.
Look no further, then, as Maple Holistics has provided a solution. All natural Sage Anti Dandruff shampoo will treat the source of the dandruff with natural ingredients and not with harsh chemicals like you find in so many medicinal shampoos for dandruff.
Though I don't have dandruff-well, I don't even have hair!-I have used this shampoo once just to feel it on my scalp as I heard how nice it feels. It doesn't exactly tingle, but it feels invigorated. I think that is the tea tree oil working.
This natural shampoo lathers up nicely and has an awesome scent. It's almost an herbal scent that kind of soothes you.
But, people really want to know if it works. I have customers in the barbershop ask me all the time for recommendations on how to get rid of dandruff. I only recommend this shampoo and everybody comes back telling me how they finally have a shampoo that gets rid of dandruff and does it without damaging their hair on top of it.
Features: 100% Natural
No parabens and no harmful chemicals
Gluten Free
Hypoallergenic
Color Safe
Nourishes hair follicles, reversing damage and promoting cell growth.
Fights hair loss
Reduces shedding, increases volume & thickens hair
Gentle enough for daily use Ingredients: DEIONIZED PURIFIED WATER, DECYL GLUCOSIDE (DERIVED FROM NATURAL SUGAR), COCAMIDOPROPYL HYDROXYSULTAINE (DERIVED FROM COCONUT), SODIUM C14-16 OLEFIN SULFONATE (DERIVED FROM COCONUT), COCAMIDOPROPYL BETAINE (DERIVED FROM COCONUT), POLYQUATERNIUM-71 (DERIVED FROM PLANT), COCAMIDE MIPA (DERIVED FROM NATURAL SUGAR), DISODIUM LAURETH SULFOSUCCINATE (DERIVED FROM COCONUT), POLYQUATERNIUM-80 (DERIVED FROM PLANT), DISODIUM LAURYL SULFOSUCCINATE (DERIVED FROM COCONUT), MELALEUCA ALTERNIFOLIA (TEA TREE) LEAF OIL*, LACTOBACILLUS FERMENT (NATURAL PRESERVATIVE), SAMBUCUS NIGRA (ELDERBERRY) FRUIT EXTRACT (NATURAL PLANT-BASED PRESERVATIVE), SALIX ALBA (WILLOW) BARK EXTRACT (NATURAL PLANT-BASED PRESERVATIVE), ARGANIA SPINOSA (ARGAN) KERNEL OIL*, NIGELLA SATIVA (BLACK CUMIN) SEED OIL, URTICA DIOICA (NETTLE) LEAF EXTRACT, GRATELOUPIA ELLIPTICA (RED KOREAN SEAWEED) EXTRACT, BIOTIN (VITAMIN H), SERENOA SERRULATA (SAW PALMETTO) FRUIT EXTRACT, CEDRUS ATLANTICA (CEDARWOOD) BARK OIL, ROSMARINUS OFFICINALIS (ROSEMARY) LEAF OIL*, SALVIA OFFICINALIS (SAGE) OIL, POLYGONUM MULTIFLORUM (HE SHOU WU) ROOT EXTRACT, HIBISCUS SABDARIFFA (ROSELLE) FLOWER EXTRACT, PRUNUS AFRICANA (PYGEUM) BARK EXTRACT, CUCURBITA PEPO (PUMPKIN) SEED OIL, CAMELLIA SINENSIS (GREEN TEA) LEAF EXTRACT, ZINC PYRITHIONE, SOY ISOFLAVONE (NON-GMO GENISTEIN DAIDZEIN), BETA-SITOSTEROL, EMBLICA OFFICINALIS (INDIAN GOOSEBERRY) FRUIT EXTRACT, CITRUS MEDICA LIMONUM (LEMON) PEEL OIL*, CITRUS GRANDIS (GRAPEFRUIT) SEED EXTRACT (NATURAL PRESERVATIVE), CYMBOPOGON FLEXUOSUS (LEMONGRASS) OIL, NICOTINIC ACID (NIACIN), TOCOPHEROL (VITAMIN E), SORBITAN OLEATE DECYLGLUCOSIDE CROSSPOLYMER (DERIVED FROM NATURAL SUGAR, NON-GMO CORN AND OLIVE OIL), XILITOL SESQUICAPRYLATE (NATURAL PLANT-BASED PRESERVATIVE), CITRIC ACID (DERIVED FROM CITRUS FRUITS)
If you find your drain in the bath is collecting more and more of your hair lately, then you might be in the market for an anti hair loss shampoo.
Before I get into the review of this natural anti hair loss shampoo from Pura D'Or, let me first say that if you have male pattern baldness then this will not work for you. In fact no shampoo will regrow your hair if that is the case. You can regrow your hair by using a shampoo when you are shedding hair but not if you have a bald spot on the back of the top of your head.
Ok, with that out of the way, if you are shedding hair because you have a damaged scalp or have been damaging your hair with harsh hair products than you need an anti hair loss shampoo like this one. Specifically this since it works naturally to heal your damaged hair follicles.
Some anti hair loss remedies that aren't all natural can leave your hair dry or coarse, or worse and might not even work to regrow your hair. Trust me, I was trying them all until I realized that I had pattern baldness and not just thinning hair. And so many of them left my hair frizzy and brittle.
The best natural hair loss shampoos use a DHT blocker which is a hormone responsible for some types of hair loss. The biotin and the essential oils found in the product also help to heal your scalp which promotes hair regrowth.
I recommend this product to customers and many have reported back that their hair is indeed thicker and has regrown in the thinning areas.
Best Natural Men's Hair Conditioners
Best Natural Men's Hair Conditioners
Features:
Helps with frizziness, dry hair, curly hair, static reduction
Safe for color treated hair
Sulfate free
Helps retain moisture, strengthens and protects hair
Replenishes low keratin levels (a common cause of frizzy hair)
No artificial fragrances, coloring
Compatible with any shampoo. Ingredients: Water, Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice, Cetearyl Alcohol, Behentrimonium Chloride, Glycerin, Cetearyl Olivate, Sorbitan Olivate, Phytokeratin, Propanediol, Caprylic Capric Triglyceride, Argan Oil, Shea Butter, Certified Organic Pomegranate, Hibiscus, Green Tea and Sea Buckthorn, Silk Amino Acids, Jojoba Oil, Natural Vanilla Fragrance, Panthenol, Guar Hydroxypropyltrimonium Chloride, Phenoxyethanol, Potassium Sorbate.
Hopefully you aren't hungry when you apply this conditioner to your hair, because the vanilla scent will leave you wanting a piece of cake! Don't worry, though, the scent isn't overpowering.
This is definitely one of the best conditioners out there, and not just in the natural hair products category. It just works great at strengthening your hair and leaving it feeling soft and natural. If you use gels or pomades or any other hair styling products, then you are probably already using a conditioner after you shampoo your hair to get your hair back on track.
If you haven't already tried Silk 18 then you should pick some up ASAP and see the difference.
Features: Intensively hydrates
Certified-organic plant extracts & oils
Imparts exceptional moisture & vitality to dry hair
Hair appears suppler fuller thicker more lustrous & stronger
Great for dry damaged color-treated & permed hair Ingredients: Aqua (purified, deionized water), aloe barbadensis (aloe vera) leaf juice,* cetearyl alcohol, panthenol (vitamin B5), sorbitol (org. humectant), persea americana (avocado) oil,* soy protein, simmondsia chinensis (joboba) oil,* extracts of arnica montana (arnica),* camellia sinensis (white tea),* anthemis nobilis (chamomile)* & calendula officinalis (calendula),* hydrolyzed wheat protein, citric acid, orbygnia speciosa (babassu) oil,* stearamidopropyldimonium chloride, behentrimonium methosulfate, capric caprylic triglycerides, soy lecithin, tocopherols, apis meliferra (honey),* lonicera japonica (Japanese honeysuckle) extract, sodium benzoate, potassium sorbate, essential oils of lavandula angustifolia (lavender),* cedrus atlantica (cedarwood)* & cymbopogon martinii (palmarosa)* Our ingredients and products are never tested on animals.
It's not the cheapest conditioner on the market, but these days if you want to have an all natural and organic hair product you have to shell out a few bucks. And you should. John Masters Organics is a superior product that doesn't just make you feel good to use it since it is all natural, but it works extremely well.
If you have thick or straight hair that needs to be styled, then I am sure you know how hard that is to achieve without using the right conditioner. Use this one and and your hair will be soft, manageable and above all healthy.
Features: Helps revitalize weak, limp and lifeless hair
Treats frizz, dryness and split-ends so that your hair will regain its softness and shine.
H elps prevent protein loss and breakage, while also making hair shinier and more manageable.
elps prevent protein loss and breakage, while also making hair shinier and more manageable. Can be used as a leave-in conditioner, an overnight hair treatment, or even as a heat protector and styling aid for any hair type, including dry, curly or fine hair Ingredients: Cyclopentasiloxane, Dimethiconol, Caprylyl Methicone, Dimethicone Crosspolymer, Fragrance, Organic Argan Oil (Argania Spinosa), Carrot Seed Oil (Daucus Carota Sativa), Organic Coconut Oil (Cocos Nucifera). It's hard to categorize exactly what this product is. It can be a conditioner that you use after you shampoo. It can be a leave in conditioner. According to one reviewer on Amazon, you can even use it as a beard oil. I would say it is best used as a leave in conditioner if you aren't using any styling products in your hair.
The argan oil nourishes your hair and leaves it stronger than ever. There is even carrot seed oil in it, which keeps your hair moist. If you use it as a leave in conditioner then it will give your hair an almost wet look like. If you have longer hair, then that would work great for a just out of the shower look without it looking or feeling greasy.
Best Natural Men's Hair Gels
Features: Adds volume and shine to dull, damaged and frizzy hair
Sulfates and parabens free
Nourishes the scalp and delivers long-lasting protection against environmental pollutants and dirt buildup Ingredients: Water,Butylene Glycol,PVP, Aloe Barbadensis (ALOE VERA) Leaf Juice, Triethanolamine, Glycerin,Panthenol,Caffeine, Salvia Officinalis (Sage) Leaf Extract, Rosmarinus Officinalis (Rosemary) Leaf Extract, Niacin, Polysorbate 20, Carbomer, Disodium EDTA, Fragrance, Phenoxyethanol, Caprylyl Glycol, Ethylhexylglycerin, Hexylene Glycol Now you need to style your hair but don't want to use a gel that contains any chemicals that do damage to your hair that you've tried so hard to take care of. You really need this Amplixin Natural Styling Gel. Free from damaging sulfates and parabens, and instead infused with caffeine and healthy organic aloe vera, your hair will actually be healthier after using this gel.
Yes, you should be putting caffeine into your hair. It strengthens your hair from the follicle up and can also prevent hair loss.
If you don't need a high hold and aren't looking for high shine, then you will like using this gel. If your hair is usually flat or weighed down by gels then you should give this a try since it goes on light and does add some volume to your hair.
Features: Adds body fullness
Provides firm hold
Conditions
Vegan Ingredients: Aqua, alcohol denat. (38b, lavender*), glycerin, cellulose gum, hydrolyzed sweet almond protein, panthenol, acacia senegal (arabic) gum*, citrus grandis (grapefruit) extract, tocopheryl acetate (vitamin A), panax ginseng root extract, biotin, hamamelis virginiana (witch hazel) extract, ascorbic acid (vitamin C), glycine soja (soybean) oil, daucus carota sativa (carrot) root extract, beta-carotene.*Organic
I almost didn't put this on the list, but did since it is not only all natural but contains the ginseng which is unique to a gel. This is not going to work for every hair type and if you need a very high hold gel. It is pretty light so if you want that crunchy type of hold, then you will need to look elsewhere.
But, if you do find more and more hairs in your shower drain, then it is worth giving this a try if you need a light hold gel with a wet look.
Features: Supports the treatment of dandruff, psoriasis of the scalp, seborrheic dermatitis, dry and itching scalps
Safe for color treated hair, vegan and gluten free for daily use. No animal testing
No sulfates, parabens, petrochemicals, PVP or 'nasty' ingredients
Fresh unisex aroma from lemon tea tree, tea tree, lavender and geranium essential oils
Soft flexible hold to control frizz - with no build up. Ingredients: Herbal Infusion [Purified Water (Aqua), (Glycyrrhiza Glabra* (licorice) Root, Tussilago Farfara+ (coltsfoot) Leaf, Achillea Millefolium* (yarrow), Salix Alba+ (willow), Tabebuia Impetiginosa+ (pau dÃarco), Arctium Lappa* (burdock) Root, Berberis Aquifolium (mahonia), Calendula Officinalis* (calendula), Equisetum Arvense* (horsetail), Urtica Dioica* (nettle)], dehydroxanthan gum (plant derived styling agent), Hydrolysed Soy Protein, Aloe Barbadensis* (aloe vera) Leaf, Sodium Benzoate, Sodium Anisate, Panthenol (pro vitamin B5), Leptospermum Petersonii (lemon tea tree), Melaleuca Alternifolia* (tea tree), Lavandula Angustifolia* (lavender), Pelargonium Graveolens* (geranium), Rosemarinus officinalis* (rosemary). *Organic +Wildcrafted This Max Green Organic gel works great and not just for an organic one. It isn't super high hold, but if you want a look that can be restyled throughout the day, then you won't be disappointed by this.
It is entirely plant derived so definitely vegan approved!
The smallish downside is that it isn't great in humid areas if you have really thick hair.
Using non synthetic gels was not easy to do a few years ago and many men had damaged hair because of it. As mentioned already, this isn't just non-synthetic, but completely plant based. You don't need to be a vegan to appreciate what that will do for your hair.
If you have fine or dry hair then this is an ideal gel for you.
Features: Gives a soft light hold perfect for all hair types
Adds shine and texture to hair
Free of synthetic plastic ingredient and alcohol free
Perfect for all hair types and safe for color-treated hair Ingredients: Aqua (purified, deionized water), aloe barbadensis (aloe vera) leaf juice,* guar gum,* sclerotium gum, sorbitol, hydrolyzed silk protein, gum trangacanth, soy protein, panthenol (vitamin B5), sodium benzoate, potassium sorbate, lonicera japonica (Japanese honeysuckle) extract, essential oils of citrus sinensis (orange)* & cedrus atlantica (cedarwood)* Many natural hair gels out there still contain alcohol, which dries out your hair big time. John Masters Organics is a big exception. No alcohol means much more manageable hair when you aren't using the gel. Plus it has aloe vera which keeps your hair moist and soft.
Most natural hair products are easy to get behind since they aren't going to ruin your hair. But, sometimes they just don't perform well. John Masters Organics products always do well and don't leave you feeling like you're getting ripped off just because it's organic. It's pricey, but it works well.
It isn't super high hold, though so if you want a stiff gel this isn't for you anyway. But, if you have thick hair or longish hair and need something to give it that wet look and don't want it crunchy, then I think you will be happy with this organic gel.
Best Natural Men's Pomades
Features: Provides a balance of medium hold and a touch of high shine
Great for styling your hair with a fine-toothed comb or with your fingers, and it also washes out effortlessly with one rinse
The sweet scent of peppermint accompanies the performance and provides a pleasant aroma that is loved by men and women alike
Made from all natural ingredients and completely free of alcohol, parabens and sodium chloride Ingredients: Key Ingredients: Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice - Saturated with essential vitamins and minerals that help heal scalp, add sheen, luster and shine while fighting frizz and restoring hair back to proper health. Panthenol - Form of Vitamin B5 that penetrates through the cuticle of the hair and acts as a powerful humectant that helps hair maintain moisture, leaving it more pliable, shinier, stronger and thicker. Hydrolyzed Soy Protein - Hair conditioning, strengthening, and repairing. Additional Ingredients: Water/Aqua/Eau, PVP, PEG-40 Hydrogenated Castor Oil, Oleth-10, Ceteareth 25, Petrolatum, Oleth-20, Isopropyl Palmitate, Glycerin, Lanolin, Fragrance/Parfum, Phenoxyethanol, Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice, Methylisothiazolinone, Panthenol, Hydrolyzed Soy Protein, Phospholipids, Tocopheryl Acetate, Retinyl Palmitate, Ascorbyl Palmitate. I'm kind of amazed that all hair pastes aren't made of beeswax as this one is since it works incredibly well. Forgetting about the fact that it is all natural for a second, this hair paste will give your hair high hold that lasts all day, it will give your hair a nice textured look and will work on just about any hair type and hairstyle.
I don't see any reason to use any other hair paste. It has no alcohol in addition to being all natural so it won't dry out or damage your hair.
The one downside, if you can even call it that, is that it is really thick and you have to really rub it into your hands before you apply it. A little goes a long way, though so you don't need to really goop it on.
Read the reviews on Amazon and you will see how many rave reviews it gets. And for good reason. I've been using this paste only recently in the barbershop where I work, as I got a free sample of it and wish I had found it years ago. My customers really love it.
Features: Produces shine, smoothness and touchable hold
Hydrates hair
Shapes hair without weighing hair down
Enriched with Moroccan Argan Oil
Alcohol, paraben and sodium chloride-free
Safe for colored, straightened and chemically-treated hair Ingredients: Water,ceteth-20, glycerin, cetearyl alcohol, glyceral stearate, peg-100 stearate, tribehenin, bis-diglyceryl, polyacyladipate-2, argania-spinosa kernel, oil, coconut oil, vp/va copolymer, dimethicone peg-8, meadowfoamate, fragrance/parfum, dimethicone, phenoxyethanol, caprylyl glycol, ilex paraguariensis leaf extract, ethylhexylglycerin, hexylene, glycol, peg-90m, limonene, linalool, citral, geraniol, citronellol, farnesol, hexyl cinnamal, mat-hsp.
Medium hold and high shine, this pomade also leaves your hair soft and healthy. Some pomades can really damage hair and scalp, but this one won't do either. The argan oil will hydrate your hair and repair any damage done to your hair by either blow drying it or from the weather or any other reason. Whether you buy this product or another one, you really need to be using products with argan oil to take care of the health of your hair.
The first thing you notice is the texture is not like most petroleum based pomades. It isn't like a vaseline texture, it's more like a cream. So, it goes on really easy. It smells a bit like cake, which wasn't overpowering, but some people might not like the smell.
It is a lightweight pomade which won't weigh your hair down if your hair isn't very thick. And having no alcohol means it won't dry out your hair.
Features: Made with 9 certified-organic ingredients
Is perfect for shaping hair into any desired style
Makes hair smooth and silky
Adds shine and texture to the hair
Safe for color-treated hair
Gluten-free Ingredients: Ricinus communis (castor oil), glycerin and glyceryl polyacrylate (vegetable-derived gel), butyro-spermum parkii (organic, unrefined shea butter), sorbitol, panthenol, essential oil of vanilla planifolia (bourbon vanilla),* citrus sinensis (blood orange),* citrus reticulata (tangerine)* & citrus paradisi (pink grapefruit),* vitamins A, C & E, phytic acid*Denotes Certified Organic.
As with all John Masters organics products, this hair texturizer does not come cheap. And it's small. But it will do wonders for the health of your hair and a little goes a long way.
It works like a hair forming cream, so it will help you maintain a style that doesn't need a high hold. But it also gives your hair some texture. If you are going for the messy look, then this is ideal as it will give you the hold and texture you need while also taking care of your hair.
It is not water based, so it is a bit thick. Which means it will last all day, but it also means that you won't be running your fingers through your hair to restyle it if you have longer hair. If your hair is longer and you want something strong enough to hold it all day, then you will be happy with this product.
It smells really good too, though a bit on the sweet side.
Even though it is not water based, it does wash out easily.
Best Natural Men's Hair Tonics
Features: Powerful Natural Serum with Biotin and Vitamins for Combating Hair Loss and Improving Hair Regrowth
Thicker Hair Growth with Biotin.
Combat DHT Build Up with Saw Palmetto. Improve Scalp Circulation with Caffeine
Revitalize Scalp Health with Antioxidants including Vitamin C and Hyaluronic Acid
Fast Results. Use Just Once Daily. No Minoxidil, Non Toxic, Color Safe, Fragrance Free Ingredients: Proprietary Vitamin Enriched Hair Loss Formula. No minoxidil or harsh chemicals. Color Safe.
What is a hair serum? It sounds like something you would see in an old newspaper ad from the early 1900's, right? A hair serum is usually a silicon based product that coats your hair making it easier to brush if you get tangles. It also protects your hair from over exposure to the sun or pollutants in the air.
This serum from Vitagrowth is not silicon based but does coat and protect your hair. But, the vitamins in it will help heal your hair is you have damage caused by heat like a blow dryer or curling iron. The extra added bonus is the caffeine in it which will stimulate some hair regrowth if you have a high level of DHT hormones.
So when to use this hair serum: When you have damaged hair that needs repair-When you want to protect your hair from the sun or air pollution-When you want thicker hair or are trying to regrow it.
This isn't a product that many men typically use, but if you haven't used it before then you should start.
Guys these days simply don't think of the health of their hair, but you should start to.
Features: Long Lasting Ultra-Conditioning Treatment that Lasts Without Weighing Hair Down
Reconstructs, Smoothes And Repairs the Structure Of Hair and Rejuvenates the Scalp
Intensely Nourishes, Improves Elasticity, Repairs, Strengthens and Revitalizes Dry and Damaged Hair
Deep Nourishment Color Safe Frizz Control - Enriches Dry and Unruly Hair
For All Hair Types - Fights Environmental Damages & Suitable for All Hair Types - Dry, Normal, Damaged, Colored
Non-GMO, PETA Approved Cruelty Free and Vegan Certification - Paraben Free, No Sulfates or Alcohol, No Artificial Colors or Fragrances, Salt Free Ingredients: Purified Aqua, Cocos Nutcifera (Coconut) Oil, Simmondsia Chinesis (Jojoba) Seed Oil, Cetearyl Glucoside, Olive (Olea Europaea) Fruit Oil, Stearic Acid, Triticum Vulgare (Wheat Germ) Oil,Pesea Gratissima (Avocado) Oil, Argania Spinosa Kernel Oil, Ricinus Communis (Castor )Seed Oil, Potassium Sorbate,Tocopheryl Acetate, Guar Hydroxypropyltrmonium Chloride(Guar Gum), Salvia Officinalis (Sage) Leaf Extract, Benzoic Acid, Linalool, Lavandula Angustifolia (Lavender) Oil, Rosmarinus Officinalis (Rosemary) Leaf OIL, Linalool, (Lemongrass) Cymbopogon Scoenanthus Oil, Citral, Vanilla Planifolia Fruit Oil, Pelargonium Graveolens (Geranium) Flower Oil, Patchouli(Pogostemon Cablin) Oil, Rose Flower Oil, Citrus Medica Limonium (Lemon) Oil, Ylang-ylang (Cananga Odorate Flower) Oil
How many of you have used a hair mask? How many of you even know what a hair mask is? Yeah, I thought so. Well, you might not know you need a hair mask but I am telling you that you do.
If you don't usually use conditioner and maybe you live in a place with lots of sun. Or, you use a lot of hair products with harsh chemicals. Or, you color your hair or blow dry it frequently than you have damaged hair that badly needs to be repaired. It's time for a hair mask over an after shampoo conditioner.
This mask is all natural, organic and plant based. You will notice how healthy and soft your hair feels after just one application.
We're living in a time when you don't need to accept that to use a hair product it has to be synthetic. For years even if you wanted to use a natural man's hair product you were relegated to a handful of shampoos and conditioners.
But, as soon as you wanted to style your hair, any benefits from that natural shampoo went out the window when you put a petroleum based pomade or a gel with a harsh chemicals.
Take advantage of being a guy in these modern times and get yourself some of these natural products to take care of your hair. There's no reason to use damaging hair products any longer.
Take care of your hair and it will take care of you!
If you've made it this far and are still undecided, I recommend checking out the Mr. Pompadour Peppermint Pomade or alternatively their beeswax paste.
I hope this review of the best all natural men's hair products helps you get healthier and stronger hair. If you have any questions about any of these products, send a comment below.
If you have a favorite you didn't see listed here either comment below or send me a message on TwitterBy
by Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon
If you answer this question like most modern Christians, you’re probably wrong.
Because the Old Testament records the historical pedagogy by which God prepared His People for the arrival of the Savior, it is hardly surprising that it says a great deal about what human beings were to be saved from—that is, sin. The Hebrew Bible conveys quite a bit about God’s attitude toward sin. This was a necessary part of the divine tutelage revealed in Salvation History.
It may be a particular point of a modern reader’s discomfort with the Old Testament that it contains so much bloodshed, violence, and, even, genocide. Many sincere Christians, it appears, deplore that aspect of the Hebrew Bible. Alas, sometimes the resistance of Christians to the Old Testament borders on Marcionism. The books of Joshua and Judges come in for special criticism in this respect.
For this reason it is important to reflect that the God of history gradually revealed the truth to the human race. He did it in stages, according to man’s historically conditioned ability to receive the revelation. God began by teaching the basics—the grammar of the historical process. Chief among the elements of Old Testament pedagogy is the grammar of sin.
Among the first things mankind had to learn was God’s enmity toward sin and His inveterate disposition to show a harsh side of Himself when confronted with it. God, if He truly loved man, could not permit man to remain in doubt on the point. So He rained fire and brimstone on the Cities of the Plain because of their sins. He commanded Israel to slaughter the nations of Canaan in order to teach the human race about the seriousness of idolatry. If death entered into the world through sin, God was obliged, so to speak, to demonstrate, in unmistakable ways, that sin ends in destruction. He commanded this slaughter of the Canaanites for the same reason He destroyed the Egyptian firstborn and Pharaoh’s army at the Red Sea: God is very angry at sin.
This truth is essential to the ABC’s of revelation. God hates evil. He hates it so much that He commands evil-doers to be destroyed. That is the lesson on many pages of Joshua and Judges, nor could Mankind afford to skip school on the days that lesson was taught.
One cannot understand the first thing about the mercy of God until he has come to grips with the anger of God. God’s yes makes no sense until we have heard God’s no. One should not imagine he understands the Gospel of John until he has understood the Book of Joshua.
Let me venture a word of caution here: I fear that these questioning Christians, those bothered by the books of Joshua and Judges, do not hate evil. They need to question themselves on the point. Perhaps they do not believe that sin leads to destruction/ Why else should they complain when, on some of the more gruesome pages of Holy Scripture, evil is punished?
The Israelites were not less intelligent than other ancient peoples, so it is no slur on them to observe that they appear to have been slow learners. The biblical prophets, along with the Psalmist, mention this fact from time to time, uniformly to deplore it. After what befell Sodom, after the way Egypt was plagued, after the manner in which God visited the sins of the Amorites and the transgressions of the Philistines, one might think, surely, that Israel would get the message. But no, even after the fall and deportation of the Samaritans, the children of Judah continued in their sins and abandoned the responsibilities of the Covenant. Finally, with immense reluctance, according to Jeremiah, God condemned them to exile in Babylon.
And we, have we yet taken to heart the biblical grammar of sin? Is it not a fact that the New Testament itself warns,
“it is a fearful thing to fall into the hand of the living God”?
Anyway, it is distressing to hear Christians deplore the punishment allotted to the Canaanites but not deplore the idolatry of the Canaanites.
Do we really imagine genocide is more serious than idolatry?
This punishment of sin, of which God made ancient Israel the instrument, was essential to the historical process displayed in the Bible, and that punishment was appropriate to the time.
There is an ongoing historical and pedagogical process involved in Salvation History. At certain crucial times, ancient Israel was obliged to learn—for the benefit of all of us—some difficult but necessary lessons, lessons appropriate to their age and place in history. To lament that there is bloodshed, violence, and genocide in the Old Testament is something on the order of complaining that infants soil their diapers.Imagine Dragons'new track "Believer" is the lead single from the band's forthcoming third album, the follow-up to their 2015 sophomore effort, Smoke + Mirrors. And as guitarist Wayne Sermon tells ABC Radio, the band felt that "Believer" was the "perfect way to start off this record cycle."
"I think it really reflects where we're at musically and mentally and everything," says Sermon. "So I think it was sort of a no-brainer for us, as far as what we want to lead off with."
On the music side, Sermon says that the band wants to become "more mature" with their production.
"It seems like almost like the less you put on the track, the more it sticks, and the more impact that one thing has," Sermon explains. "So I think 'Believer' is a pretty good example of maybe being a little bit more sparse as far as the way things sound, but still having all the power that we wanted."
For that new sonic direction, Imagine Dragons are working almost entirely with outside producers for the first time in their career.
"Most of what we've done has been self-produced," Sermon says. "We worked with Alex da Kid pretty closely on a few tracks for each album, but this is the first album where we're actually reaching out and doing each song with a producer rather than doing everything ourselves."
"It's honestly been really awesome," he adds. "Because we can actually focus on being musicians and just kinda sticking to one role."
Imagine Dragons' third album is due out this year.
Copyright © 2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.Episode 15: I'm Sorry
A/N: I'm gonna keep this note short and sweet because this episode is just |
La Croix said in its editorial: “If answers are not found to French people’s concerns, the National Front will continue its progression until the presidential election.”
The FN had hoped the regional polls would be a springboard for Le Pen’s bid for the presidency in 2017.
Polls still show she would win the most votes in the first round of that election. But like on Sunday, her problem is likely to be the second round.
Her father and the FN’s co-founder Jean-Marie Le Pen rocked the French establishment by reaching the second round of the 2002 presidential election but was defeated by Jacques Chirac as voters threw their support behind the mainstream candidate.
While many voters dislike the main parties banding together to defeat the far-right, another former conservative prime minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, said he believed the Republicans had no choice but to work with the Socialist government “because the National Front is a common enemy”.
“We have to beat (the FN) through action and therefore there will be things we can do together,” Raffarin told BFMTV.MANILA — The interior secretary and the head of the military on Saturday declared an end to a three-week standoff between rebels and government forces in the southern Philippines by raising the country’s flag at the site of some of the fiercest fighting.
“The siege in Zamboanga City is over,” Interior Secretary Mar Roxas told reporters in the embattled town on Saturday. “We honor the fallen, the brave soldiers and policemen who died for the sake of countrymen and the innocent civilians who were sacrificed at the altar of the selfish interests of a few.”
Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said Saturday that a few rebels remained in the city and were being pursued by the military and the police. Mr. Roxas said sporadic fighting could continue in the city for two more weeks as the remaining rebels were located.
More than 200 people — rebels, soldiers, police officers and civilians — were killed during the standoff, and the clashes displaced more than 100,000 residents and strangled the economy of what had been a vibrant trading enclave.Towns in rural America are attempting to revitalize their increasingly anemic communities by incentivizing people to move out to the countryside.
Cash grants, student loan pay offs and free land giveaways are just some of the enticements smaller communities are offering to a younger generation of Americans looking to leave the big city, where in some places individuals can utilize up to $80,000 worth of incentives to relocate.
According to USA Today, rural America encompasses 75 per cent of the country, but only 16 per cent of its population, the lowest in the nation's history.
Numbers show that 54 per cent of the population in 1910 lived in rural communities, but dropped to just 19 per cent in 2010, according to a report by real estate website Zillow.
USA Today explains the phenomenon is a complicated mix of many factors, but essentially boils down to rural Americans facing fewer opportunities following technological advancement and the continued consolidation of the agricultural industry.
Academics have also argued that an increasingly globalized world where free trade and competition from emerging foreign markets have created a dearth of options for Americans living in the more bucolic regions of America.
'Meanwhile, the growth of steel, automobile and other industries, along with a college education, pulled young people into urban areas where they got married and had children. Most did not return to their rural roots,' William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, explained to USA Today.
But its not just communities in the idyllic plains of the American country side that are offering these programs.
A few surprising cities and even states also say they will help you payoff homes and financial obligations if you agree to live in their communities.
Here are some of the places around the United States Country Living Magazine says you may want to consider for your next move:
Harmony, Minnesota
Cash grants, student loan pay offs and free land giveaways are just some of the enticements smaller communities are offering
Towns in rural America are attempting to revitalize their increasingly anemic communities by incentivizing people to move out to the countryside
The Harmony Economic Development Authority incentivize people to build homes in this town with a cash rebate program worth between $5,000 to $12,000, with no restrictions on age or income level.
According to the 2010 census, the population of Harmony stood at 1,020 and features the largest Amish community in the state. The town, which bills itself as the 'Biggest Little Town in Southern Minnesota,' currently has a media age of just over 50 years of age.
The town has looked to its neighbors in Stewartville, a town of 5,900, which has seen significant growth since it implemented its own plans in 2013, offering $5,000 to build a house or $7,500 to put up a commercial, industrial or multifamily residential building, according to The Start Tribune.
'It's worked — very much so,' city administrator William Schimmel said. 'I know that some think, 'Oh, those folks were going to build anyway.' But we've seen new investment.
Marne, Iowa
The programs are designed to get a younger generation of Americans looking to leave the big city
Nineteen per cent of American in 2010 resided in rural America, a stark contrast to 54 per cent that lived in small communities in 1910
Officials in this Iowa town, located just 45 minutes away from Omaha, will give you free land to build a house if it's at least 1,200 square feet. The town, according to the 2010 census, has around 120 residents with a median age of 44-years-old.
Mayor of the town Randy Baxter said: 'This is a very picturesque town with rolling hills. For such a small population we have a lot going on.
'We also have a good schooling system, high speed internet and we are well connected to other towns.
'We have a young family of five who took advantage of the scheme living here now.
'And that's what it is all about - getting people to move here and boasting the population.'
To qualify for the scheme people need to be a resident of the US and house construction must be completed within 18 months.
Tribune, Kansas
A few surprising cities and even states also say they will help you payoff homes
Tribune, Kansas is looking to draw a younger generation of Americans to one of its least populated counties in the state, offering to pay off up to $15,000 worth of student loans over five years with the Rural Opportunity Zone program.
'We knew we needed young people in our community, and so we were looking for opportunities to bring them back,' said community development director Christy Hopkins.
'Since beginning the ROZ program, Greeley's population has increased by 55 people—25 of them being direct program participants benefiting from the student loan incentives.'
Curtis, Nebraska
If you build a single-family house in Curtis, Nebraska within a certain timeframe, you can get the lot of land it's built on for free
The land could be located in the town's Roll'n Hills addition or near the Arrowhead Meadows Golf Course
Curtis, Nebraska offers newcomers lots of free land to build a single-family house within a certain timeframe, which can be placed in the town's Roll'n Hills addition or near the Arrowhead Meadows Golf Course.
Curtis currently has a population 896, down from 939 when the 2010 US government surveyed the town in 2010.
Some of the provisions for the free land may have turned investors looking to turn a quick profit away. Curtis officials say that the land is only guaranteed for single-family homes where construction has started within six-months of entering an agreement with the city.
'There's really no catch except that you have to build a house,' Doug Schultz, Curtis city manager, told the Omaha World-Herald.
Baltimore, Maryland
A surprising addition to this list, Baltimore has two programs that will help people looking to move to the city with buying a home
A surprising addition to this list, Baltimore has two programs that will help people looking to move to the city with buying a home.
If you qualify, the Buying into Baltimore program offers residents a $5,000 forgivable five-year loan.
The Vacants to Value Booster scheme offers $10,000 for a down payment and closing costs if you purchase property considered to be distressed or formerly distressed.
As of 2015, Baltimore recorded a population of more than 620,000 residents and is the largest 'independent city' in the United States. An Independent city is a territory not incorporated into a county or counties.
New Haven, Connecticut
New homeowners can count up to $80,000 worth of perks if they decide to build a home in New Haven, Conneticut
New Haven, Connecticut is by no means a small town, but city offers home-owner incentives that qualify it for the Country Living list.
New homeowners can count up to $80,000 worth of perks including a $10,000 forgivable five-year loan for first-time buyers. It also offers $30,000 of renovation assistance, along with paying up to $40,000 towards college tuition.
'You can also receive an additional $2,500 if you’re a city employee, teacher, police officer, firefighter or member of the military,' the program's website states.
The city's homeownership rate is between 32 and 34 percent, according to The New Haven Independent, with city officials looking 'to get to 35 percent and north of that.'
From 2010 to 2016, the town's population increased by 156 people, from 129, 779 to 129,934, according to census data.
Alaska
The whole state of Alaska offers a myriad of different programs that aims to draw people towards the biggest state in the union
The whole state of Alaska offers a myriad of different programs that aims to draw people towards the biggest state in the union.
State-wide interest rate reduction programs for energy-efficient homes along with incentives for veterans and live-in caretakers of physically or mentally-disabled residents are also available.
According to the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska's rate of growth and home ownership grew four years in a row until 2017, with the population leveling out at just over 700,000.
In 2016, 2,944 homes were sold, down slightly from 3,000 in 2015, the Daily News added.
Colorado
The Rocky Mountain state offers a program that will help you finance your first home if you suffer from a permanent disability
A down payment assistance grant is also available for everyone that offers up to 4% of a first mortgage, with no repayment necessary
The Rocky Mountain state offers a program that will help you finance your first home if you suffer from a permanent disability. A down payment assistance grant is also available for everyone that offers up to 4% of a first mortgage, with no repayment necessary.
Wyoming
Wyoming offers residents who look to own a refurbished home an incentive through the Rehabilitation & Acquisition Program
The state also has another program that will assist individuals looking to repair old homes that need more than $15,000 worth of repairs
Wyoming offers residents who look to own a refurbished home an incentive through the Rehabilitation & Acquisition Program, which brings foreclosures and abandoned houses back on the market for low income families after being restored.
The state also has another program that will assist individuals looking to repair old homes that need more than $15,000 worth of repairs.This 1994 file photo shows Mumia Abu Jamal at the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections Facility in Huntington, Pennsylvania. (credit: Clark Kissinger/AFP/Getty Images)
— A teacher in New Jersey who assigned her third-grade class to write “get well” letters to a sick inmate convicted of killing a Philadelphia police officer was suspended Friday, the school superintendent said.
Orange School Superintendent Ronald Lee said in a statement that school administrators “vehemently deny” any knowledge of Forest Street Elementary School teacher Marilyn Zuniga’s assignment. Preliminary inquiries found that Zuniga did not seek approval from administrators, nor were parents notified, Lee said.
The letters were delivered to Mumia Abu-Jamal in prison following his hospitalization last month for what his family said was treatment for complications from diabetes.
“Just dropped off these letters to comrade Johanna Fernandez. My 3rd graders wrote to Mumia to lift up his spirits as he is ill. #freemumia,” read a tweet posted Sunday on Zuniga’s Twitter account, which has since been taken down.A hoard of bronze coins dating from the 4th year of the Jewish Revolt, found in 'Hirbet Marzouk' near Jerusalem.
A cache of weathered bronze coins dating from the Jewish Revolt against Rome was discovered while excavating a previously unknown ancient village, itself discovered while doing works to expand the highway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, the Israel Antiquities Authority said last week.
The 114 coins, dating from 69/70 C.E., bear a motif associated with the Sukkoth holiday: a bundle of lulavs (palm fronds bound up with a myrtle branch and a willow branch) between two etrogs (citrons). Around the image is the inscription in Hebrew “Year Four”, that is - the fourth year of the Great Revolt of the Jews against the Romans (69/70 CE).
On the reverse side, the coins bear a telling inscription, "For the redemption of Zion." This inscription characterizes coins from the fourth year of the revolt, when Simon Bar Giora took over the leadership. During the second and third years of the revolt, when the rebels were led by John of Giscala, newly minted coins bore a twist on that message: "For the freedom of Zion."
"They are not referring to religious redemption, but to salvation. In other words, the minters of the coins were expressing a hope that the revolt would end well," says Dr. Donald Zvi Ariel, head of the coins division at the Israel Antiquities Authority.
The Jewish Revolt failed, by the way, again, leading to the destruction of the Temple by the vengeful Romans on Tisha B’Av (the ninth day of the month of Av), around 2,000 years ago.
In fact the village itself was closely tied to the fate of the Jews. The town was founded in the late 1st century BCE; but it wasn't fated to last long. It was razed after the end of the great Jewish Revolt of 70-73 CE. However, it was quickly rebuilt and reinhabited in the late 1st century CE – only to be destroyed, once and for all, after the Bar Kokhba Revolt.
Dig a road, find a village
Keep updated: Sign up to our newsletter Email * Please enter a valid email address Sign up Please wait… Thank you for signing up. We've got more newsletters we think you'll find interesting. Click here Oops. Something went wrong. Please try again later. Try again Thank you, The email address you have provided is already registered. Close
The remains of the ill-fated village were found thanks to the Israeli habit, under law, of doing archaeological inspection and salvage on sites slated for development. In this case, an Israel Antiquities Authority inspector, Eyal Marco, noticed ancient pottery sherds during infrastructure works by the Netivei Israel highway company.
The previously unknown settlement was dated to the late Second Temple period. Because the village is near Ein el Marzouk, a spring that only dried up a few decades ago, the archaeologists have dubbed it "Hirbet Marzouk."
The hoard itself was concealed in the corner of a room, perhaps inside a wall niche or buried in the floor, the IAA says. Two other rooms and a courtyard belonging to the same building were also exposed during the dig.
“The hoard, which appears to have been buried several months prior to the fall of Jerusalem, provides us with a glimpse into the lives of Jews living on the outskirts of Jerusalem at the end of the rebellion," said Pablo Betzer and Eyal Marco, excavation directors on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, in a statement.
Money to buy arms?
Jewish coins of the era were characterized by images that strictly obeyed the second commandment: "Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, nor any manner of likeness, of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth". Apparently lulavs and etrogs don't fall into that category.
The lulav (date palm frond) and etrog (citron) are two of the four species associated with Sukkoth http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/high-holy-days-2013/high-holy-day-news-and-features/.premium-1.547775, the other two being hadas (myrtle) and aravah (willow). The holiday is one of rejoicing and redemption: in fact, back in the time of the first Temple, it was considered the most important of the Jewish holidays.
"All the 114 coins are of the same face value and all were minted the same year," says Betzer. "From that we can conclude that the jug they were found in was not the money box of a farmer or a family that lived in the village, but belonged to someone who received this entire sum at once. He probably received the money from the leaders of the revolt in order to purchase weapons or other provisions that were needed by the rebels. It's possible that he himself was a member of the leadership.”
If so, they wouldn't have bought many arms, though. Ariel says the monetary value of the hoard was not great.
"All 114 bronze coins are perhaps equal in value to one silver coin. That reinforces the theory that this is not the hoard of a synagogue or a community, but of a single person," he says.
Destruction on the route to Jerusalem
The trove and the buildings surrounding it enable a glimpse at Jewish life on the outskirts of Jerusalem at the end of the revolt, says Betzer and Marco. One thing that evidently characterized Jewish life at the time was fear.
The village dubbed Hirbet Marzouk lies along the ancient road to Jerusalem. Because the coins were kept in a single vessel, Betzer and Marco suspect the owner hid it when he heard Roman soldiers arriving in the village.
Going by the evidence at the dig, the fears of the hoard's owners were well based.
"This small settlement was totally destroyed," says Betzer.
When precisely isn't clear: it could have been when the revolt was finally quashed for good, in 73-74 CE. Or it could have happened a bit later.
Despite the destruction, there is some evidence that the town was rebuilt towards the end of the first century. In one room, intact pottery vessels were found that were typical of the period of the Bar Kokhba Revolt, half a century later (it was fought between 132 and 136 CE). That rebuilt settlement was also destroyed, though.
It seems that the inhabitants fought against the Romans with the Bar Kokhba forces, and suffered the same bleak outcome. The town was never to be rebuilt again.
The 114 coins had been minted together in the 4th year of the Jewish Revolt. But they weren't worth much. Israel Antiquities AuthorityMarc Levy/Associated Press
A top Pennsylvania Republican’s remark this weekend that the state’s new voter ID law would help Mitt Romney win the state has reignited a debate over whether the law is intended to curb fraud, as Republicans say, or to depress Democratic turnout, as Democrats charge.
The remark was made by Mike Turzai, the state’s House majority leader, when he spoke over the weekend to a meeting of the Republican State Committee and ticked off a number of recent conservative achievements by Pennsylvania’s Republican-led legislature.
“Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done,” he said, according to a report on PoliticsPA.com, a Web site that covers political news.
When Pennsylvania passed a law this year requiring voters to show photo identification before casting ballots, Democrats warned that it would make it harder for many of their supporters — including young voters, and members of minorities — to cast ballots. A number of the state’s colleges, for instance, will have to change the identification cards they issue so students will be able to use them to vote.
A spokesman for Mr. Turzai, Stephen Miskin, said that the remarks, which were made Saturday in Hershey, Pa., were simply meant to underscore that combating voter fraud was important and that doing so would level the playing field in the next election.
He declined to say if he thought that fraud had played a role in past presidential elections in Pennsylvania.Associated Data Supplementary Materials Supplemental data. NIHMS525803-supplement-Supplemental_data.docx (10M) GUID: B9AE5BA3-19C6-40C6-A4CB-70F50E0D7C8C
Abstract The role of specific gut microbes in shaping body composition remains unclear. We transplanted fecal microbiota from adult female twin pairs discordant for obesity into germ-free mice fed low-fat mouse chow, as well as diets representing different levels of saturated fat and fruit and vegetable consumption typical of the USA. Increased total body and fat mass, as well as obesity-associated metabolic phenotypes were transmissible with uncultured fecal communities, and with their corresponding fecal bacterial culture collections. Co-housing mice harboring an obese twin’s microbiota (Ob) with mice containing the lean co-twin’s microbiota (Ln) prevented the development of increased body mass and obesity-associated metabolic phenotypes in Ob cagemates. Rescue correlated with invasion of specific members of Bacteroidetes from the Ln microbiota into Ob microbiota, and was diet-dependent. These findings reveal transmissible, rapid and modifiable effects of diet-by-microbiota interactions.
Microbial community configurations vary substantially between unrelated individuals (1–9), creating a challenge in designing surveys of sufficient power to determine whether observed differences between disease-associated and healthy communities differ significantly from normal interpersonal variation. This challenge is especially great if, for a given disease state, there are many associated states of the microbial species (microbiota) or microbial gene repertoire (microbiome), each shared by relatively few individuals. Microbiota configurations are influenced by early environmental exposures and are generally more similar among family members (2, 7, 10, 11). There have been conflicting reports about the relationship between interpersonal differences in the structure of the gut microbiota (e.g., the representation of Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes) and host body mass index (BMI). Taxonomic profiles for obese and lean individuals may have distinct patterns between human populations, but technical issues related to how gut samples are processed and community members are identified by 16S rRNA gene sequencing may also play a role in observed differences. The relative contributions of the microbiome and dietary components to obesity and obesity-related metabolic phenotypes are unclear and likely multifaceted (2, 12–17). Transplants of fecal microbiota from healthy donors to recipients with metabolic syndrome have provided evidence that the microbiota can ameliorate insulin-resistance, although the underlying mechanisms remain unclear (18). Monozygotic (MZ) or dizygotic (DZ) twins discordant for obesity (19, 20) provide an attractive model for studying the interrelationships between obesity, its associated dietary and lifestyle risk factors, and the gut microbiome. In the case of same-sex twins discordant for a disease phenotype, the healthy co-twin provides a valuable reference control to contrast with the co-twin’s disease-associated gut community. However, this comparison is fundamentally descriptive and cannot establish causality. Transplanting a fecal sample obtained from each twin in a discordant pair into separate groups of recipient germ-free mice provides an opportunity to: (i) identify structural and functional differences between their gut communities; (ii) generate and test hypotheses about the impact of these differences on host biology, including body composition and metabolism; and (iii) determine the effects of diet-by-microbiota interactions through manipulation of the diets fed to these ‘humanized’ animals and/or the representation of microbial taxa in their gut communities.
Reproducibility of microbiota transplants from discordant twins We surveyed data collected from 1,539 21–32 year-old female twin pairs enrolled in the Missouri Adolescent Female Twin Study [MOAFTS; (21, 22)]; for further details see ref. (23). We recruited four twin pairs, discordant for obesity (obese twin BMI > 30kg/m2) with a sustained multi-year BMI difference of ≥5.5 kg/m2 (n=1 MZ; 3 DZ pairs; ). Fecal samples were collected from each twin, frozen immediately after they were produced, and stored at −80°C. Each fecal sample was introduced, via a single oral gavage, into a group of 8–9-week-old adult male germ-free C57BL/6J mice (one gnotobiotic isolator/microbiota sample; each recipient mouse individually caged within the isolator; n=3–4 mice/donor microbiota sample/experiment; n=1–5 independent experiments/microbiota). All recipient mice were fed a commercial, sterilized mouse chow that was low in fat (4% by weight) and high in plant polysaccharides (LF/HPP), ad libitum (23). Fecal pellets were obtained from each mouse 1, 3, 7, 10 and 15 days post colonization (dpc); and for more prolonged experiments on days 17, 22, 24, 29, and 35. Open in a separate window Unweighted UniFrac-based comparisons of bacterial 16S rRNA datasets generated from the input human donor microbiota, from fecal samples collected from gnotobiotic mice, and from different locations along the length of the mouse gut at the time of sacrifice (table S1A), plus comparisons of the representation of genes with assignable enzyme commission numbers (ECs) in human fecal and mouse cecal microbiomes (defined by shotgun sequencing), disclosed that transplant recipients efficiently and reproducibly captured the taxonomic features of their human donor’s microbiota and the functions encoded by the donor’s microbiome [see, fig. S1A–D, fig. S2, table S1B, table S2A–D, plus (23)]. The 16S rRNA datasets allowed us to identify bacterial taxa that differentiate gnotobiotic mice harboring gut communities transplanted from all lean versus all obese co-twins [analysis of variance using Benjamini-Hochberg correction for multiple hypotheses; table S3; see (23) for further details].
Reproducible transmission of donor body composition phenotypes Quantitative magnetic resonance (qMR) analysis was used to assess the body composition of transplant recipients 1d, 15d, and in the case of longer experiments, 8d, 22d, 29d and 35d after transplantation. The increased adiposity phenotype of each obese twin in a discordant twin pair was transmissible: the change in adipose mass of mice that received an obese co-twin’s fecal microbiota was significantly greater than the change in animals receiving her lean twin’s gut community within a given experiment, and was reproducible across experiments (p ≤ 0.001, one-tailed unpaired Student’s t-test; n=103 mice phenotyped; ). Epididymal fat pad weights were also significantly higher in mice colonized with gut communities from obese twins (p ≤ 0.05, one-tailed unpaired Student’s t-test). These differences in adiposity were not associated with statistically significant differences in daily chow consumption (measured on days 1, 8 and 15 after gavage and weekly thereafter for longer experiments), or with appreciably greater inflammatory responses in recipients of obese compared to lean co-twin fecal microbiota as judged by FACS analysis of the CD4+ and CD8+ T cell compartments in spleen, mesenteric lymph nodes, small intestine or colon [see (23) for details].
Functional differences between transplanted microbial communities Fecal samples collected from gnotobiotic mice were used to prepare RNA for microbial RNA-Seq characterization of the transplanted microbial communities’ meta-transcriptomes (table S1C). Transcripts were mapped to a database of sequenced human gut bacterial genomes and assigned to KEGG ECs [see ref. (23)]. Significant differences and distinguishing characteristics were defined using ShotgunFunctionalizeR, which is based on a Poisson model (24) (see table S4 and table S5 for ECs and KEGG level 2 pathways, respectively). Transcripts encoding 305 KEGG ECs were differentially expressed between mice harboring microbiomes transplanted from lean or obese donors (ShotgunFunctionalizeR, AIC<5,000; p ≤ 10−30). Mice harboring the transplanted microbiomes from the obese twins exhibited higher expression of microbial genes involved in detoxification and stress responses, in biosynthesis of cobalamin, metabolism of essential amino acids (phenylalanine, lysine, valine, leucine and isoleucine) and nonessential amino acids (arginine, cysteine and tyrosine), and in the pentose phosphate pathway (fig. S3A, B; table S4B–G and table S5). Follow-up targeted MS/MS-based analysis of amino acids in sera obtained at the time of sacrifice demonstrated significant increases in branched chain amino acids (BCAA; Val and Leu/Ile), as well as other amino acids (Met, Ser and Gly), plus trends to increase Phe, Tyr and Ala, in recipients of microbiota from obese compared with lean co-twins in discordant twin pairs DZ1 and MZ4 (tables S1D, S6A). These specific amino acids, as well as the magnitude of their differences are remarkably similar to elevations in BCAA and related amino acids reported in obese, insulin-resistant versus lean, insulin-sensitive humans (25). This finding suggested that the gut microbiota from obese subjects could influence metabolites that characterize the obese state. In contrast, the transplanted microbiomes from lean co-twins exhibited higher expression of genes involved in (i) digestion of plant-derived polysaccharides [e.g., alpha-glucuronidase (EC 3.2.1.139), alpha-L-arabinofuranosidase (EC 3.2.1.55)], and (ii) fermentation to butyrate [acetyl-CoA C-acetyltransferase (EC 2.3.1.9), 3-hydroxybutyryl-CoA dehydrogenase (EC 1.1.1.157), 3-hydroxybutyryl-CoA dehydratase (EC 4.2.1.55), butyryl-CoA dehydrogenase (EC 1.3.99.2)] (fig. S3C, D), and propionate [succinate dehydrogenase (EC 1.3.99.1), phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase (EC 4.1.1.32), methylmalonyl-CoA mutase (EC 5.4.99.2)] (table S4A). Follow up gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS) of cecal contents confirmed that levels of butyrate and propionate were significantly increased, and that levels of several mono- and disaccharides significantly decreased in animals colonized with lean compared to obese co-twin gut communities (p ≤ 0.05, unpaired Student’s t-test, fig. S4A, B, table S6B). Procrustes analysis, using a Hellinger distance matrix (26), revealed significant correlations between taxonomic structure (97%ID OTU-level bacterial phylotypes in fecal samples), transcriptional profiles (EC representation in fecal mRNA populations), and metabolic profiles (GC/MS of cecal samples), with separation of groups based on donor microbiota and BMI (fig. S5; Mantel test, p ≤ 0.001). These results suggest that in this diet context, transplanted microbiota from lean co-twins had a greater capacity to breakdown and ferment polysaccharides than the microbiota of their obese co-twins. Previous reports have shown that increased microbial fermentation of non-digestible starches is associated with decreased body weight and decreased adiposity in conventionally-raised mice that harbor a mouse microbiota [e.g. refs. (27–29)].
Phenotypes produced by bacterial culture collections We followed up these studies of transplanted, intact, uncultured donor communities with a set of experiments involving culture collections produced from the fecal microbiota of one of the discordant twin pairs. Our goal was to determine whether cultured bacterial members of the co-twins’ microbiota could transmit the discordant adiposity phenotypes and associated distinctive microbiota metabolic profiles when transplanted into gnotobiotic mouse recipients who received the LF/HPP chow diet. Collections of cultured anaerobic bacteria were generated from each co-twin in DZ pair 1 and subsequently introduced into separate groups of 8-week-old germ-free male C57BL/6J mice (n=5 independent experiments; 4–6 recipient mice/culture collection/experiment). The culture collections stabilized in the guts of recipient mice within 3 d after their introduction [see ref. (23), fig. S6A–E and table S7 for documentation of the efficient and reproducible capture of cultured taxa and their encoded gene functions between groups of recipient mice]. As in the case of uncultured communities, we observed a significantly greater increase in adiposity in recipients of the obese twin’s culture collection compared to the lean co-twin’s culture collection (p ≤ 0.02, one-tailed unpaired Student’s t-test; ). Nontargeted GC/MS showed that the metabolic profiles generated by the transplanted culture collections clustered with the profiles produced by the corresponding intact uncultured communities (fig. S6E). In addition, the fecal biomass of recipients of the culture collection from the lean twin was significantly greater than the fecal biomass of mice receiving the culture collection from her obese sibling: these differences were manifest within 7 d (p ≤ 0.0001, two-way ANOVA; fig. S7A). Open in a separate window
Co-housing Ob and Ln animals prevents an increased adiposity phenotype Because mice are coprophagic, the potential for transfer of gut microbiota through the fecal-oral route is high. Therefore, we used co-housing to determine whether exposure of a mouse harboring a culture collection from the lean twin could prevent development of the increased adiposity phenotype and microbiome-associated metabolic profile of a cagemate colonized with the culture collection from her obese co-twin, or vice versa. Five days after gavage, when each of the inoculated microbial consortia had stabilized in the guts of recipient animals, a mouse with the lean co-twin’s culture collection was co-housed with a mouse with the obese co-twin’s culture collection (abbreviated Lnch and Obch, respectively). Control groups consisted of cages of dually-housed recipients of the lean twin culture collection and dually-housed recipients of the obese co-twin’s culture collection (n=3–5 cages/housing configuration/experiment; n=4 independent experiments; each housing configuration in each experiment placed in separate gnotobiotic isolators; ). All mice were 8-week-old C57BL/6J males. All were fed the same LF/HPP chow ad libitum that was used for transplants involving the corresponding uncultured communities. Bedding was changed prior to initiation of co-housing. Fecal samples were collected from all recipients 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 and 15 days following gavage. Body composition was measured by qMR 1 and 5 days after gavage, and after 10 days of co-housing. Obch mice exhibited a significantly lower increase in adiposity compared to control Ob animals that had never been exposed to mice harboring the lean co-twin’s culture collection (p ≤ 0.05, one-tailed unpaired Student’s t-test). Moreover, the adiposity of these Obch animals was not significantly different from Ln controls (p > 0.05, one-tailed unpaired Student’s t-test; ). In addition, exposure to Obch animals did not produce a significant effect on the adiposity of Lnch mice: their adiposity phenotypes and fecal biomass were indistinguishable from dually-housed Ln controls ( ; fig. S7B, C). Co-housing caused the cecal metabolic profile of Obch mice to assume features of Lnch and control Ln animals, including higher levels (compared to dually-housed Ob controls) of propionate and butyrate, and lower levels of cecal mono- and disaccharides as well as branched chain and aromatic amino acids ( ; fig. S8). Principal coordinates analysis of unweighted UniFrac distances revealed that the fecal microbiota of Obch mice were re-configured so that they came to resemble the microbiota of Lnch cagemates. In contrast, the microbiota of the Lnch cagemates remained stable (fig. S9A–C). We performed a follow-up analysis to identify species-level taxa that had infiltrated into and/or had been displaced from the guts of mice harboring the Ln and Ob culture collections. We did so by characterizing the direction and success of invasion. Microbial SourceTracker estimates the Bayesian probability (P) for every species-level taxon or 97%ID OTU to be derived from each of a set of source communities (30). The fecal microbiota of Ln or Ob controls sampled 5 days after colonization were used as source communities to determine the direction of invasion. The fecal communities belonging to each Lnch and Obch mouse were then traced to these sources. We defined the direction of invasion for these bacterial taxa, by calculating the log odds ratio of the probability of a Ln origin (PLn) or an Ob origin (POb) for each species-level taxon or 97%ID OTU, i: log 2 [PLn i /POb i ] A positive log odds ratio indicated that a species or 97%ID OTU was derived from a Ln source, while a negative log odds ratio indicated an Ob source. An invasion score was calculated to quantify the success of invasion of each species or 97%ID OTU, i, into each co-housing group, j: Invasion Score i j = log 2 [ A i j ¯ / B i j ¯ ] where A i j ¯ is the average relative abundance of tax |
Madigan’s allegations stemmed from Safety Publication’s work with VietNow to raise money. Records showed only a fraction of the contributions Safety Publications collected actually went to pay for charitable programs.
Safety Publications failed to disclose that it was a paid fundraiser when making solicitation calls. The firm also failed to disclose or account for its paid fundraising activities on behalf of VietNow in annual financial reports filed with Madigan’s office. Records also showed that Safety Publications was not registered with Madigan’s office for a portion of the time that it was soliciting donations.See also: Klick
English [ edit ]
Pronunciation [ edit ]
Etymology 1 [ edit ]
Most likely a pseudo-condensed pronunciation of kilometer.
. Possibly onomatopoeic of the sound of a military odometer.
Noun [ edit ]
klick (plural klicks)
( slang, military ) A kilometer. 2002, Robert J. Sawyer, Hominids an asteroid between one and three kilometers wide had slammed into the ground at fifteen klicks per second. ( slang, usually in the usually in the plural ) Kilometres per hour.
Usage notes [ edit ]
Though kilometers are not commonly used to measure distance in the USA, klick is commonly used by the US & UK military, which use the metric system almost exclusively in order to facilitate communication with allied forces. (In other English-speaking countries, civilians often say "k" or "k.m." instead.)
Synonyms [ edit ]
( military slang: kilometer ) : click
Translations [ edit ]
slang, a kilometre Estonian: kilt (et) kilts French: borne (fr) f
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
Translations to be checked German: (please verify) Klemme (de) f
Etymology 2 [ edit ]
Noun [ edit ]
klick (plural klicks)
click Alternative spelling of
Anagrams [ edit ]
German [ edit ]
Pronunciation [ edit ]
Verb [ edit ]
klick
klicken. Imperative singular of ( colloquial ) klicken. First-person singular present of
Swedish [ edit ]
Noun [ edit ]
klick c
clique; an exclusive group; a cabal dab; a small amount of a wet substance
Noun [ edit ]
klick n
click; brief, sharp sound click; act of pressing a mouse buttonTHE BRITISH water polo team has decided to do its pre-training in Ireland before the 2012 Olympics despite the fact that the games are in London.
The water polo team, who are one of the favourites for the gold medal, will spend two weeks at the National Aquatic Centre in July next year.
The team staged a game between Great Britain and Hungary, who are the perennial world power in the sport, in March this year and they were so impressed with the facilities that they decided to book it for Olympic training rather than any facility in the UK.
The team will be joined by the American synchronised swimming team and the British paralympic swimming team at the centre next summer.
The Government has been pressing hard to make Ireland a base for teams attending the 2012 Olympics in London with varying results.
It has set up an inter-agency committee within the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport to promote Irish involvement in the games.
Minister of State for Tourism and Sport Michael Ring, who chairs the committee, said: “The inter-agency committee will work right up to the Olympics. As well as seeking to attract national teams to train in Ireland, we are staging Irish cultural events in London, and promoting Ireland as a destination for Londoners hoping to escape the Olympics.”The U.S. government has said that people who go camping may be considered terrorists, under Orwellian new rules.
According to FINCEN (the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network), the 42 millions of Americans who go camping every year ought to be considered a potential threat to security.
Freedomfightertimes.com reports:
Experiencing the great outdoors is increasingly becoming a crime in the US, due to the reality that every time a camping commodity is purchased it is tracked, and the person is potentially monitored for terroristic activities as stated explicitly in the document leaked on May 29th, 2016.
After analyzing that individual down to their underwear, the US government places them on a list or set of lists; known as the red list, blue list, and yellow list. Depending on the individual status, the police, FBI, or the private sector can be dispatched to monitor the selected person further.
Presented as Evidence
In April 2012, a Kansas SWAT team raided the home of Robert and Addie Harte, their 7-year-old daughter and their 13-year-old son. What was approved by a federal judge, for a potential drug raid; turned out to be a raid for green tea leaves and it al began because they were shopping at a garden store.
There is no shortage of cases like the one above to show that every Americans purchases are monitored. The real question is; what governmental agency is doing the monitoring? That would be the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, their official mission statement: “FinCEN’s mission is to safeguard the financial system from illicit use and combat money laundering and promote national security through the collection, analysis, and dissemination of financial intelligence and strategic use of financial authorities.”
All while the NSA collects phone data another government agency collects American’s purchase history.
For the skeptics; those who believe that the Finsec Document was intended only for “ISIS,” the following is a pdf and list of Americans in which the US government monitors and collects their data.
1. Those that talk about “individual liberties”
2. Those that advocate for states’ rights
3. Those that want “to make the world a better place”
4. “The colonists who sought to free themselves from British rule”
5. Those that are interested in “defeating the Communists”
6. Those that believe “that the interests of one’s own nation are separate from the interests of other nations or the common interest of all nations”
7. Anyone that holds a “political ideology that considers the state to be unnecessary, harmful,or undesirable”
8. Anyone that possesses an “intolerance toward other religions”
9. Those that “take action to fight against the exploitation of the environment and/or animals”
10. “Anti-Gay”
11. “Anti-Immigrant”
12. “Anti-Muslim”
13. “The Patriot Movement”
14. “Opposition to equal rights for gays and lesbians”
15. Members of the Family Research Council
16. Members of the American Family Association
17. Those that believe that Mexico, Canada and the United States “are secretly planning to merge into a European Union-like entity that will be known as the ‘North American Union’”
18. Members of the American Border Patrol/American Patrol
19. Members of the Federation for American Immigration Reform
20. Members of the Tennessee Freedom Coalition
21. Members of the Christian Action Network
22. Anyone that is “opposed to the New World Order”
23. Anyone that is engaged in “conspiracy theorizing”
24. Anyone that is opposed to Agenda 21
25. Anyone that is concerned about FEMA camps
26. Anyone that “fears impending gun control or weapons confiscations”
27. The militia movement
28. The sovereign citizen movement
29. Those that “don’t think they should have to pay taxes”
30. Anyone that “complains about bias”
31. Anyone that “believes in government conspiracies to the point of paranoia”
32. Anyone that “is frustrated with mainstream ideologies”
33. Anyone that “visits extremist websites/blogs”
34. Anyone that “establishes website/blog to display extremist views”
35. Anyone that “attends rallies for extremist causes”
36. Anyone that “exhibits extreme religious intolerance”
37. Anyone that “is personally connected with a grievance”
38. Anyone that “suddenly acquires weapons”
39. Anyone that “organizes protests inspired by extremist ideology”
40. “Militia or unorganized militia”
41. “General right-wing extremist”
42. Citizens that have “bumper stickers” that are patriotic or anti-U.N.
43. Those that refer to an “Army of God”
44. Those that are “fiercely nationalistic (as opposed to universal and international in orientation)”
45. Those that are “anti-global”
46. Those that are “suspicious of centralized federal authority”
47. Those that are “reverent of individual liberty”
48. Those that “believe in conspiracy theories”
49. Those that have “a belief that one’s personal and/or national ‘way of life’ is under attack”
50. Those that possess “a belief in the need to be prepared for an attack either by participating in paramilitary preparations and training or survivalism”
51. Those that would “impose strict religious tenets or laws on society (fundamentalists)”
52. Those that would “insert religion into the political sphere”
53. Anyone that would “seek to politicize religion”
54. Those that have “supported political movements for autonomy”
55. Anyone that is “anti-abortion”
56. Anyone that is “anti-Catholic”
57. Anyone that is “anti-nuclear”
58. “Rightwing extremists”
59. “Returning veterans”
60. Those concerned about “illegal immigration”
61. Those that “believe in the right to bear arms”
62. Anyone that is engaged in “ammunition stockpiling”
63. Anyone that exhibits “fear of Communist regimes”
64. “Anti-abortion activists”
65. Those that are against illegal immigration
66. Those that talk about “the New World Order” in a “derogatory” manner
67. Those that have a negative view of the United Nations
68. Those that are opposed “to the collection of federal income taxes”
69. Those that supported former presidential candidates Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin and Bob Barr
70. Those that display the Gadsden Flag (“Don’t Tread On Me”)
71. Those that believe in “end times” prophecies
72. Evangelical Christians
Does that sound like ISIS to you? Didn’t think so, and as time goes on it becomes increasingly more evident who the government is actually watching, those who enjoy nature, freedom, guns, and are Christians.Share This
Tobacco was unknown in Europe before the discovery of America. However, unlike other imports from the Americas that enriched European cuisine and coffers, European society did not uniformly embrace tobacco. At first welcomed as a miracle drug and cherished as a stimulant by élite circles, it was soon condemned by religious authorities for its ‘detrimental effects’ on order and morality, and tobacco thereafter lost its exclusive and exotic reputation.
[Ed. note: Many thanks to the International Institute of Jewish Genealogy (IIJG), which sponsored the research contained in this article.]
In Europe, the ‘new vice’ was excoriated by religious reform movements that prescribed discipline and sobriety, as well as by societal forces in the early modern period that advocated self-control, restraint and moderation among citizens. 2 English King James I (1566-1625) was among the first prominent tobacco opponents after gaining the throne in 1603. In his short tract A Counterblaste to Tobbaco (1604), he condemned smoking as a “savage costume”, adopted from the “barbarous Indians” that threatened to undermine English civilization. 3 He further argued that the addictive character of tobacco destabilized the established hierarchy between husbands and wives, masters and servants — and corrupted the mores and manners of English society. 4 By his way of thinking, moral corruption would be followed by an economic decay that would jeopardize the health of his subjects, and the nation as a whole.
A Counterblaste to Tobacco (1604)
Creation of Monopolies
England and France
Despite the overall moralizing discourse in his tract, James I allowed the importation of approximately 25,000 pounds of tobacco from the Spanish colonies and established a heavy tobacco tax to raise funds for his treasury. Two decades later, in 1624, England established a royal monopoly over tobacco. 5 In 1629, also the French statesman Cardinal Richelieu (1885-1642), another militant tobacco opponent, levied high duties on tobacco, convinced that a profitable tax would be more beneficial to the state and its subjects than inefficient sanctions against its use. 6 Neither James nor Richelieu ever succeeded in regulating or centralizing tobacco imports, or restricting tobacco sale to licensed persons.
Iberia
Portuguese Crypto-Jews gained effective control of the Spanish tobacco monopoly in the first half of the seventeenth century as a result of an economic crisis shared alike by the Spanish Crown and the community of Portuguese New Christians. 7 New Christians organized the tobacco monopoly and manned it with a hierarchically structured organization of local and provincial administrators, wholesale merchants and individual salesmen, all of whom belonging to Crypto-Jewish families. The monopoly began under a Crypto-Jewish chief tax farmer in Madrid, and continued after 1701 under the direct control of the royal treasury. New Christians continued to be actively involved in the tobacco monopoly until the final great persecutions of the Spanish Inquisition in 1725.8
Central Europe
The ‘new vice’ entered Central Europe during the Thirty-Years War (1618- 1648) via English soldiers. Although opposed by the Catholic and Protestant churches as well as traditional rabbis, tobacco was rapidly adopted by soldiers of both sides of the conflict and through them disseminated to the general population. In the second half of the seventeenth century, the countries north of the Alps began organizing a tobacco trade. In 1701, the Habsburg Emperor Leopold I published a general charter for all his provinces, where he declared that tobacco trade and production was to be a state monopoly. Like the Spanish king, he embraced tobacco as a taxable commodity and source of revenue for the crown.
Industrialization
The revenues generated by tobacco taxes did not live up to the hopes of the Emperor and his Treasury, and the Treasury decided in 1722 to set up its own tobacco factories, as was standard in the Western European countries. The first and primary factory was erected in September 1722 in Hainburg (Lower Austria) with Baußart von Sonnenfeld, a privy councilor at the Imperial Treasury, as its first director. In 1723, the Treasury expanded its tobacco bureaucracy across the Empire, establishing provincial branches of the central tobacco administration in Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, Upper Austria, Styria-Carinthia, Carinola and the Austrian Littoral (i.e. the area of Trieste, Istria and Gorizia). These main provincial offices erected additional factories and managed tobacco production as well as retail sale.
The erection of state-owned factories, provincial and district administration offices, all manned by properly paid civil servants was expected to be the first step toward proper organization of the tobacco monopoly in the Habsburg Monarchy. However, shortcomings on the local level resulted in corruption, rising prices and a simultaneous decrease in productquality. These shortcomings lend to an enhanced black market trade and contraband. 11
Austrian Empire, 1828
Origins of the Habsburg-era Jewish Connection
Vienna
In response to the threat from the black market, during 1725 Charles VI (1685-1740) invited to Vienna Diego 1st Baron d’Aguilar of the Holy Roman Empire aka Moses Lopes Pereira (born Mogadouro, Portugal c. 1699-1759) to bring order to the marketplace. 12 He belonged to a Portuguese family of New Christians that had been active in the tobacco business on the Iberian Peninsula since 1653. Diego learned the business in Portugal from his father, Manuel Lopes Pereira, before moving to London in 1722, where he officially returned to Judaism, together with his family.
Given the Lopes Pereira family’s expertise in the tobacco business, Diego d’Aguilar quickly pinpointed the deficiencies in the organization of the Habsburg monopoly after his arrival in Vienna in 1725. He elaborated a plan, according to which he would lease the monopoly for the whole Monarchy for eight years (enough time for efficient restructuring), paying an annual rent beyond the profit of the best year. In return, he stipulated terms that would allow him to effectively eradicate the reigning defects and deficits. The Court Treasury dismissed the propositions; partly because of economic conservatism, partly because of anti-Semitism. They were scandalized by the idea of a Jew ruling over Austrian civil servants. Moreover, they conjured the threat of d’Aguilar ‘infiltrating’ Austrian tobacco trade with huge numbers of Jews that would considerably augment the — legally restricted — number of Jews residing in the Bohemian Lands. 14
After two months of tedious negotiations, d’Aguilar agreed leasing the monopoly for the whole Monarchy, together with a Christian companion, the Marchese Carignani for a yearly rent of 400,000 fl. during the first five and 500,000 fl. during the remaining three years. Furthermore, he and his associate Carignani had to sign a ‘Letter of Commitment’ neither to employ Jews in the administration nor in points of sale; for retail sale, they were permitted to use the services of Jews, who were legal residents of the Habsburg Monarchy, i.e. no foreign Jews. 15
Despite innumerable schemes against his person, Diego d’Aguilar tried reorganizing the monopoly according to the Iberian model and for the first time provided the Imperial Treasury with constantly growing revenue for almost 25 years. However, he had to commit himself not to employ Jews in public administration and points of sale and in the Bohemian Lands he could only hire few Jewish subcontractors. Although he had personally risen to unprecedented positions of power and authority in the Monarchy, the impact of d’Aguilar’s economic activities on the modernization process of Habsburg Jewry was thus limited. This should significantly change with d’Aguilar’s successors during the next quarter of the century.
In 1726, Charles VI ennobled Diego in gratitude for his achievements and awarded him the title Baron d’Aguilar. Thereafter, Maria Theresa, Empress of Austria (1717-1780) appointed him privy councilor to the Crown of the Netherlands and Italy, the highest bodies of foreign politics in the Monarchy, in the 1740s.13 While Diego’s Jewishness was generously disregarded in these appointments, his Jewish background was a well-known and much discussed fact that time and again thwarted his business transactions.
Moravia
In Moravia, Jacob Moses Dobruschka, who had established himself as an army supplier in Brno/Brünn in the first half of the 18th century, in 1750 began leasing the tobacco monopoly for Moravia together with his son Salomon Dobruschka (1715- 1774). One member of the Dobruschka family, Moses Dobruschka (1753-1794), [alias Franz Thomas von Schönfeld, alias Junius Frey] gained dubious fame because of his association with the false messiah Jacob Frank, and later joined revolutionary forces in France in 1792 and was executed on the guillotine together with Danton. The family employed numerous Moravian Jews as subcontractors and in retail sales, thus providing many Jewish families with a comfortable income and the opportunity for upward social mobility.
Bohemia
The founder of the Lobel Honig ‘dynasty’, (Jehuda) Löbel Hönig (Edler von Honigsberg), was born in Kuttenplan/Chodová Planá, in western Bohemia at the beginning of the 18th century. He made his money as an army supplier during the Austrian War of Succession (1740-42). In 1752, he leased the tobacco monopoly for Prague, together with his sons Israel Hönig von Hönigsberg (1724-1808) and (Aaron) Moses Honig (1730-1787), for a period of ten years. Having gained the necessary experience in Prague, the Hönig family established a tobacco company together with other affluent Bohemian Jews [e.g. Judah Löwel Baruch from Königswart/Kynžvart, who later adopted the surname Königswart (er); the entrepreneur and Court supplier Wolf Joachim Edler von Popper (1730-1795) from Prague.
[Ed. note: Consistent with the family’s prominence in the tobacco trade, the grant of von Honigsberg arms to Israel Honig in 1797 (the first ever to a practicing Jew in Austria), contains the following blazon: Quarterly, 1 and 4, azure, upon a mountain sinople a dead lion proper, stretched upon his back, eight bees or, swarming around his open jaws; 2 and 3, gules, a bar argent, charged with four tobacco-plants proper. Crest: A lion issuant, proper, holding in the dexter paw a tobacco-plant proper.]
The Löbel Hönig company bid for the tobacco monopoly of the entire monarchy in 1763, taking over the Moravian trade controlled up to that time by the Dobruschka family. Over the stated opposition of the Empress Maria Theresa, who favored a search for Christian leaseholders, the company secured a ten year contract in 1765. The company fulfilled the contract by creating a network of Jewish subcontractors that efficiently eradicated contraband and black marketing. This successful and profitable business model enabled the company to renew its contract a decade later, in 1775, by offering an enormous payment to the treasury of 1,600,000 florints annually. The Imperial Treasury insured compliance with the contract terms by appointing four Court commissioners to take control of the leaseholders’ bookkeeping and to remain familiar with the company’s business. affairs
Despite these restrictions on its freedom of action, the monopoly lease remained lucrative as tobacco consumption within the monarchy continued to rise. Maria Theresa’s son, Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor decided to nationalize the monopoly in 1784, having paved the way to state control through the conditions of the 1775 contract that introduced the Court commissioners to the details of the business. Emperor secured the continuity of the enterprise by appointing Israel and Moses Hönig as directors of the national tobacco administration, without restricting their authority. Thus, Israel and Moses Hönig advanced to high-ranking state officials. How effectively this Jewish business network functioned, we learn from a complaint, filed by Count Strassoldo in 1790. Strassoldo documented that in Bohemia, 38 of 43 district leaseholders were Jews, who allegedly deprived the state and the Christian population of money and job opportunities.
Terrified by the events in revolutionary France, the Emperor ennobled Israel Hönig in September 1789, the first Jew so honored in the Habsburg Empire (see figure above). Due to their high official position and great economic power within the Empire, the Hönig family played a role in enabled upward social mobility among numerous Jewish leaseholders and subcontractors for another 25 years.
Genealogical Notes
Among the colorful Jewish intellectual figures of the 19th Century were descendants of the early Habsburg tobacco monopolists, including the writer and journalist Ludwig August Frankl (1810 Chrast — 1894 Vienna), the American publisher, journalist and abolitionist Isidor Busch (Lodenice 1822 -1898 St. Louis) who played a major role in keeping Missouri within the Union during the American Civil War, and the painter Leopold Pollak (1806 Lodenice — 1880 Rome). All were scions of a single extended family that had made its fortune in the Habsburg tobacco trade.
Isidor Busch, Missouri abolitionist
Footnotes
1 Sander L. Gilman, “Smoking Jews on the Frontier”, in: Gilman, Jewish Frontiers: Essays on Bodies, Histories and Identities, 2003, p. 96.
2 Cf. Rudi Matthee, “Exotic substances: the introduction and global spread of tobacco, coffee, cocoa, tea and distilled liquor, sixteenth to eighteenth centuries” in: Roy Porter, Mikulaš Teich, eds., Drugs and Narcotics in History (Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 24-51, p. 45.
3 Sandra J. Bell, “’Precious Stinke’: James I’s A Counterblaste to Tobacco“ in: Daniel Fischlin, Mark Fortier, eds, Royal Subjects: Essays on the Writings of James VI and I (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 2002), p. 323-343, cf. p. 327.
4 Ibid., p.333.
5 Charlotte Cosner, “Control, Contraband and the Lure of the Devil’s Weed: Two Centuries of Tobacco Regulations and its Circumvention, 1600s-1700s“ on: http://www.kislakfoundation.org/prize/200101.html (retrieved 10 Dec. 2012).
6 Egon Caesar Corti, Geschichte des Rauchens: ‘Die trockene Trunkenheit’: Ursprung, Kampf und Triumph des Rauchens (Frankfurt am Main: insel taschenbuch, 1986, reprint from 1930), p. 157.
7 Carsten Wilke, “Contraband for the Catholic King: Jews of the French Pyrenees in Tobacco Trade and the Spanish Finance” in: Purchasing Power: The Economics of Jewish History, eds. Rebecca Kobrin and Adam Teller (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, forthcoming Spring 2015), 27 pp.; I wish to thank the author for putting the manuscript at my disposal.
8 Ibid., fn, 8.
9 Sander L. Gilman, “Smoking Jews on the Frontier: On the Relationship between Jews and Tobacco, from the 17th Century to the Present” in: Sander Gilman, Jewish Frontiers: Essays on Bodies, Histories, and Identities (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, pp. 95-109, cf. p. 98-9.
10 Rising sales prices were partly a side-effect of introducing the monopoly. Carsten Wilke states for Spain that the monopoly caused a 250 % rise in sales prices during the 1650s. Cf. Wilke, Contraband for the Catholic King, fn. 17.
11 Retzer, Tabakpachtung, pp. 30-34.
12 Ibid., p. 120; I am infinitely indebted to Michael Silber, who has meticulously researched the life of Diego d’Aguilar, for correcting many common mistakes in the biography of this colorful figure.
13 Max Grunwald, Samuel Oppenheimer und sein Kreis. Ein Kapitel aus der Finanzgeschichte Österreichs (Vienna, Leipzig: Wilhelm Braunmüller, 1913), pp. 295-300.
14 The number of Jews legally permitted to reside in the Bohemian Lands was regulated by the so-called Familianten-Laws from 1726 that were designed to prevent the growth of the Jewish population in the Bohemian Lands; cf. Ruth Kestenberg-Gladstein, Neuere Geschichte der Juden in den böhmischen Ländern (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1969), pp. 1-3.
15 ÖStA, AVA, HK, TP, Fasz. 2, 794; Notably, d’Aguilar’s letters to the Imperial Court and court commissions were written in Italian.Hamilton will spend $16,000 to count out-of-town trucks on the Red Hill Valley and Lincoln Alexander parkways — with an eye on using the data to make it less congested.
The city will install four cameras that automatically record licence plates. Using a program, the city will trace the plates and the time the trucks entered and left the highways.
Once the city has the data, it will brainstorm ways to ease congestion and ask the province for more money to maintain roads.
The province maintains 400 series highways, but not the local highways. If out-of-town trucks are using the roads in large number, the province should help pay, said Sam Merulla, Ward 4 councillor.
Numerous collisions on the Red Hill and Linc have prompted the city to look at ways to make it safer. In January, one person died and one was rushed to hospital after a truck rollover on the Linc at Dartnall Road. (Andrew Collins/CBC)
"It is a local road," Merulla said. "That was the purpose of developing the road.
"What's happened is we have thousands of trucks that are not local and using it as a shortcut. We're not in a position to be paying for provincial highways."
Merulla has even suggested setting up tolls for out-of-town trucks.
The highways are a growing issue in Hamilton as speed and volume have led to numerous collisions.
City council has debated many aspects, including spending millions to make the highways safer, and even widening them.
The cameras will be at Highway 403 at Sunnyridge, the QEW at Fifty Road, the Red Hill Valley Parkway at Barton and the Lincoln Alexander Parkway at Golf Links Road.
City council will vote whether to ratify the decision on Wednesday.President Obama’s first move for clean tech could simply be getting the federal government out of the way in one area where individual states are already poised to move aggressively: fuel economy.
Candidate Obama promised to do as much on the campaign trail, and yesterday, Lisa Jackson, his nominee for EPA administrator, provided some hope that he will follow through in office. Jackson, formerly New Jersey’s top environmental regulator, pledged in a Senate confirmation hearing yesterday that she would “immediately revisit” whether to allow states to set their own CO 2 emissions limits on automobiles.
The CO 2 tailpipe standards at issue were set by California in 2004, and subsequently adopted by 18 other states. They are more stringent than the tightened Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards approved by Congress in December 2007. Federal courts rejected auto-industry challenges against the tougher state standards, but Bush’s EPA rode to the rescue by denying California (and by extension its partner states) a federal waiver needed to implement the rules. Jackson, if confirmed by the Senate, will have the power to immediately take an obstructionist EPA off the road. This could have a significant impact on technology development, given that minimal innovation is required to meet the tightened CAFE standards.
Jackson’s pledge to reconsider the state emissions waiver is an “early challenge for automakers” as Obama takes office next week, according to business journal Automotive News.
Automakers and their allies oppose state-by-state regulation of greenhouse gases. They say such rules are an indirect attempt to regulate fuel economy, which is a federal responsibility. They also say state rules would add costs and create market chaos, especially for dealers near borders with states that don’t have their own rules.
Natural Resources Defense Council vehicles policy director Roland Hwang suggested recently in a provocative report that automakers could solve such problems themselves: “The obvious solution to all of the automaker concerns–including their desire for a uniform national standard–is to adopt California’s [greenhouse gas] standards nationwide.”
Hwang analyzed fuel-economy projections in business plans that GM and Ford Motor submitted to Congress last month during their pursuit of a federal loan package. (His analysis excludes Chrysler, whose business plan was short on fuel-economy details.) He concludes that GM and Ford could comply with the California standards with little to no effort:
All three companies state that they will at least comply with future federal fuel economy (“CAFE”) standards. This analysis demonstrates that GM and Ford are now positioned also to comply with the more stringent California greenhouse gas standards if they were extended to apply nationwide. [My emphasis]
Postscript: Jackson’s home state of New Jersey just joined the list of states implementing California’s Zero Emissions Vehicle (ZEV) program, according to the Daily Record of Parsippany, NJ. The ZEV program was declared dead along with the battery-electric vehicle by the award-winning 2006 documentary Who Killed the Electric Car? In fact, the program helped drive hybrid vehicles onto car lots across the country and will likely accelerate future adoption of plug-in hybrids and battery-electrics, according to my ZEV report in IEEE Spectrum magazine.
Peter Fairley, an independent journalist and editor of the Web journal Carbon-Nation, tracks energy innovation around the globe, from the solar-powered villages of Bolivia’s Cordillera to China’s mechanizing coalfields.Experts say sexual hazing has been increasing in the past decade, and high school hazing fuels college hazing.
Ten percent of high school boys report being victims of rape, forced oral sex and other sexual assault, according to a study by the Journal of Youth and Adolescence.
“They never contacted the police. They contacted their attorney and they suspended the kids that did this to my son for one day.”
One recent example is in Norwood, Colorado. On an empty school bus at a high school wrestling tournament, three upperclassmen bound a 13-year-old boy with duct tape and sodomized him with a pencil.
Response to an attack
His father, the school's principal, first confronted the coach and reported the incident to the vice president of the school board and the superintendent of schools.
"None of them ever talked to my son to make sure he was okay," said the father, who Here & Now is not naming, in order to protect his son's identity. "They never contacted the police. They contacted their attorney and they suspended the kids that did this to my son for one day."
Under Colorado law, school officials are required to report incidents of abuse to the police or social services.
Life at school became difficult for the boy who was assaulted. Other students were cruel to him.
"They were either making fun of him for what happened or giving him a hard time for actually saying something about it," said the father.
The father found no recourse in the school administration, or sympathy from other parents. People in the town considered the boy a snitch, the father said.
Searching for justice
"We called the department of education, we called everywhere we could," he said. "It was kind of like we were on an island trying to figure out what can we do, but nobody wants to talk about it."
Some people in town made t-shirts supporting the attackers, and some students wore them to school. That's when the father decided to pull his son out of school.
"He was in school everyday," the father said. "He was stronger than anyone, going and facing that every day."
The father reported the incident to the Denver police, and the Denver District Attorney pursued charges against the three attackers. One pleaded guilty to sexual contact without consent, the other two pleaded guilty to third degree assault.Noticeably absent from Sony's press event yesterday was The Last Guardian. The game was first announced in 2009. Since then, fans have been waiting for the finished title to emerge. It hasn't.
Development has not exactly been smooth. The game's creator, Fumito Ueda, has left Sony, but is contracted out to finish this title. There's been talk about one of Sony's North American studios also working on the game. Amid speculation that the game had been shifted to the PS4, Sony's Shuhei Yoshida confirmed that the game was still being developed for the PS3.
Today at the Tokyo Game Show, a Japanese developer for Sony told Kotaku that work continues on the game—even if it's not at TGS. "I give you my word that it exists," said the developer, who wanted to be unnamed. "We are working on it."
The game, according to this developer, is still being developed in Japan. Fumito Ueda continues to work closely on the project (something Ueda confirmed to Kotaku this summer). But it's a "very ambitious project", the developer pointed out, adding that The Last Guardian was probably announced way too early.
Advertisement
According to the Sony developer, the logical explanation for why The Last Guardian isn't at TGS is that Sony seems to be pulling back recently, being more reluctant to talk about games until they are closer to launch.
"There are lots of pieces to the puzzle," said the developer. "It's a matter of getting them to fit together."
Advertisement
Click here to visit our Last Guardian timeline!Watching a soccer match can be very much like watching a sitcom with terrible acting. To gain an advantage and help their team win, players regularly engage in acrobatic, unsporting antics, which may include flamboyantly falling to draw a foul, feigning an injury to waste time, or crying out in pain while clutching their neck after beingly lightly tapped on the shoulder.
Savvy futbol fans, of course, aren't buying it. In Seattle, the 40,000+ Sounders faithful chant in unison, "Let him die!" when they deem the "injured" player to be a faker. Now, a new study published to the journal Frontiers in Psychology has confirmed what Seattle fans -- and all other soccer fans -- suspected: footballers are huge floppers.
Researchers based out of the National University Singapore and the University of Birmingham watched thirty Euro 2008 soccer matches, 90 English Premier League matches and 63 World Cup 2010 matches, charting injuries for each team over the duration of every match. The timing of injuries was divided into six periods: 0-15th minute, 16-30th minute, 31-45th minute (including first-half stoppage time), 46-60th minute, 61-75th minute and 76-90th minute (including second-half stoppage time). The injuries themselves were categorized based upon whether they would benefit or not benefit the team of the injured player. For example, if a player suffered an injury when his team was up by a goal, that would constitute a "benefit" injury, as it would slow the game down and give his teammates a break.
The researchers focused only on consequential games. Thus, forty-nine of the 183 matches were discounted because their outcomes were meaningless in the context of the competition or they were blowouts, in which one team led by three or more goals.
When the researchers tallied and categorized the injuries, the results were clear: Towards the end of a game, players on teams that would benefit from an injury were far more likely to suffer an injury. What a coincidence!
Of course, this is almost certainly not a coincidence -- the players are simply faking their injuries.
The researchers interviewed three anonymous managers in the English Premier League about the obvious tactic.
"None of the three managers admitted to actively instructing players to feign injury but all were |
people. It features an inflatable hull that can be expanded once it's in orbit, and multiple units can be linked together to provide more space. There are solar panels and batteries to provide power, and four large windows to give inhabitants a nice view of the Earth from space.
Or at least, the BA 330 will include those features when it eventually heads in to orbit, which isn't expected to be until 2014 at the earliest. For now, Bigelow and SpaceX will be focusing on marketing the idea of a trip to an inflatable space station, with efforts expected to begin in Asia sometime soon. But if SpaceX's attempt to reach the International Space Station is any indication, there's a good chance we'll see at least a few delays with the launch.The secret files show that two-thirds of deaths 2004-09 were civilians and that significantly more ordinary people were killed at checkpoints than enemy fighters.
Channel 4 News has accessed the data in the classified documents via The Bureau of Investigative Journalism and WikiLeaks but has been unable to independently verify their authenticity.
Warning: You may find some of the details in this report disturbing.
Channel 4 News has analysed some of the “significant actions” outlined in the Iraq war logs made public by WikiLeaks. Despite the US claiming on a number of occasions that it did not “do body counts” of Iraqi civilians, the files reveal that they did.
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) and Channel 4’s Dispatches created a purpose-built database to sift through the 400,000 files. Channel 4 News is the only British broadcaster with exclusive access to what they found.
In total the logs record 109,032 deaths and of these 66,081 are civilians, nearly two-thirds of all deaths logged by US troops in the six year period.
A further 176,000 civilians are also reported as wounded.
Until now these statistics have never been made public. A report in 2005 for US Congress titled “US Military and Iraqi Casualty Statistics: Additional Numbers and Explanations”, said: “The Department of Defense does not publicly release numbers on civilian deaths”.
Secret war files: Afghanistan to Iraq – special report
Statement from US Pentagon:
We deplore WikiLeaks for inducing individuals to break the law, leak classified documents and then cavalierly share that secret information with the world, including our enemies.
We know terrorist organizations have been mining the leaked Afghan documents for information to use against us and this Iraq leak is more than four times as large. By disclosing such sensitive information, WikiLeaks continues to put at risk the lives of our troops, their coalition partners and those Iraqis and Afghans working with us.
The only responsible course of action for WikiLeaks at this point is to return the stolen material and expunge it from their websites as soon as possible.
Former US President George W Bush and his administration insisted that the Pentagon did not keep civilian body counts. President Bush said in October 2003: “We have made a conscious effort not to be a body count team.
“Every day… I see who dies on our team. I don’t see who dies on their team.
“But… I think the judgment is right in the Pentagon not to be talking about the number we kill and capture on a weekly basis.”
Civilians were killed in Iraq between 2004 and 2009 in a number of ways. Chillingly, the war logs reveal civilians appeared to be killed in some circumstances while trying to surrender to coalition aircraft. Significant numbers of civilians were killed at coalition forces’ checkpoints and the files also reveal vulnerable civilians were used as suicide bombers by al-Qaeda.
Hellfire air attacks
TBIJ and Dispatches found evidence within the Iraq war logs that civilians were killed by air attack. In some cases Iraqis, who may or may not have been insurgents, appeared to be killed from the air even as they tried to surrender to coalition forces.
Death at checkpoint
The Iraq war logs analysed by TBIJ and Dispatches reveal many civilians appeared to be killed at the hands of US forces when they approached military checkpoints in the road. These checkpoints were used in the hunt for insurgents by coalition forces. Troops carried out security checks on anyone moving through different areas of Baghdad and Iraq.
Under a special US rule of engagement for Iraq known as EOF “escalation of force”, any vehicle approaching a military checkpoint was required to slow down and stop to be searched. The TBIJ and Dispatches analysis reveals that between 2004 and 2009 a total of 834 people were killed in these escalation of force incidents. Of these some 80 per cent killed were civilians, totalling 681. There were a further 2,218 civilians wounded at checkpoints.
The records also reveal that over the six year period four times as many civilians were killed in escalation of force incidents than those listed as insurgents.
One incident was caught on camera by a photographer who was embedded with the First Brigade of the 25th Infantry Division in January 2005. The troops were in Tal Afar in northwest Iraq when they came across Camille and Hussein Hassan.
The children were not all unharmed. When the shots were fired, not only did the parents of these children die, but 11-year-old Rakan Hassan was also hit. His spine was pierced by a bullet, leaving him paralysed.
Translated from its original military code the war log says: “A Sedan sped toward the PTL (patrol) and failed to stop after visual signs were given.
“A shot was fired at the front tire but the VEH (vehicle) did not stop. The PTL engaged the VEH, killing 2X Civ (two civilians)”.
Both Camille and Hussein were shot dead, but they were not alone. There were six children sat in the back of the vehicle.
The translated war log says: “There were 6 x children in the back seat (all were unharmed).”
This final comment was inaccurate. The children were not “all” unharmed. When the shots were fired, not only did the parents of these children die, but 11-year-old Rakan Hassan was also hit.
His spine was pierced by a bullet, leaving him paralysed. His family was offered a total of $7,500 compensation by the US Army. This was calculated to compensate them for the loss of the two parents at $2,500 each and an extra $2,500 for damaging the car.
From TBIJ and Dispatches analysis it appears only 13 coalition troops were killed in similar escalation of force incidents. But the researchers also found that innocent civilians often appeared to be caught out by shots fired near checkpoints. Often these incidents were fatal.
The war logs suggest around 30 children were killed in these incidents. One entry says: “While crossing the street, patrol had an EOF (escalation of force) where patrol fired 3 rounds of M249 (light machine gun). One round ricocheted off the concrete hitting a 6yr old LN 250m down the road.”
Further down the report an update records: “##### Medical Facility reported to ##### that the 6yr old LN (##### ####### ######) died of wounds upon arrival at ####.”
Troops may often be fearful when a vehicle approaches a checkpoint, but there appears to be clear examples of them taking action before even finding out if there was a reason for the driver to be in a rush.
One such incident happened in 2007 when a doctor was killed as he tried to get a pregnant woman to hospital.
The war log says: “The gunner fired a warning shot from his M-4 down and away from the vehicle. The vehicle continued to approach and the gunner fired 2 x warning shots. When the vehicle did not stop the gunner fired 4 x disabling shots into the engine. The vehicle pulled over off the road.
Upon further evaluation the CIV had a suspicious satchel in his possession. The soldiers approached cautiously to look into the satchel to discover it contained books. Iraq war classified log
“An unconfirm report from ## #### ### reports that the driver, Dr. ##### ##### ######, was transporting a pregnant woman to the hospital and was shot by CF (coalition forces). The doctor, 1 x male, and 2 x females were taken to ## #### Hospital. The driver DOW (died of wounds).”
On other occasions soldiers appear to mistakenly think pedestrians were carrying suspicious items. In this entry a civilian is killed because he is carrying a satchel that appears to be “suspicious”.
In one war log the soldier writes: “###### reports that CIV (civilian) crawled through (2) sets of concertina wire towards the CP (checkpoint) in Baghdad. Soldiers at the CP fired (1) warning shot, which the approaching CIV ignored. The CIV continued to approach. The soldiers then fired (1) shot killing the CIV.
“Upon further evaluation the CIV had a suspicious satchel in his possession. The soldiers approached cautiously to look into the satchel to discover it contained books.”
Another report appears to reveal an innocent civilian was killed by troops at a checkpoint.
The log says: “##### signals with a laser and vehicle mounted spotlight; the vehicle abruptly halts and begins to travel in reverse at an accelerating rate.
“##### continues to shout and use visual signals to stop the car. Fires warning shots with smallest calibre weapon (5.56mm M4 rifles), and the car continues to evade.
“The patrol pursues the vehicle for a short distance firing an M2 MG into the ground in front of the vehicle and firing M4 into the engine block disabling the vehicle. Vehicle then continued to reverse and the following burst of M4 fire killed the driver.”
They would scrub our heads against the ground and they would beat me here and here, non stop beating and dragging. They would drag us from here and drag us there. Hussam Kareem and Kareem Wadee Abas
The report then says: “The driver of the vehicle Wadee Sidkin Al Kezin age 50 was killed by 5.56mm. The two passengers (Hussam Kareem Abas aged 17, Kareem Wadee Abas aged 21 were unharmed).”
TBIJ and Dispatches team found Hussam and Kareem in Iraq and asked them what they thought about the Iraq war log. They said: “No! No there was no signs or anything, no signs, no warning. They rammed our car, so we turned quickly and they started to shoot.”
The young men allege that following the death of Wadee the troops assaulted them.
They said: “They made us lay on the ground and they would bring their leg on our heads and they would scrub our heads against the ground and they would beat me here and here, non stop beating and dragging. They would drag us from here and drag us there.
“When the translator finally arrives he told us confess, aren’t you from the Mehdi Army? An we said we were not form the army or anything, we were heading off to work”.
However, the military war log gives a different version of events. In the report it says: “##### respectfully transported the vehicle and the deceased to the family’s house IOT (in order to) allow them to begin funeral preparations. ##### arrived on site with TPT and conducted consequence management. CF (coalition forces) will remain in contact with the family involved in the incident and will be preparing a condolence packet.”
More: iraqwarlogs.com
Vulnerable civilians used by al-Qaeda
The analysis carried out by TBIJ and Dispatches reveals that on average around 30 improvised explosive devices (IEDs) were being detonated every day over the six years in Iraq.
Many of these devices were carried by suicide bombers, but the Iraq war logs reveal some of these suicide bombers appear to be innocent vulnerable civilians.
In one incident in March 2007 it is revealed a teenage boy was used as a suicide bomber. In the war log the US soldier writes: “A 12-14 year old boy wearing a back pack and on a bicycle rode into the intersection. The patrol passed through the intersection and the boy detonated his explosives targeting the passing vehicles”.
Another incident, almost a year later in February 2008 a war log reveals disabled Iraqi civilians were also being used by insurgents.
In the war log it states: “#### takes young LN (Local National) to his house, and talked to the LN’s uncle and mother. The boy’s age is 13 years old. They say the boy is mentally handicapped.
“S2 (military intelligence) assessment: recent reports indicated in Iraq> AQI (al Qaeda in Iraq) is recruiting young local nationals and also using mentally handicapped persons to target CF (Coalition Forces) within the dragoon OE (operational environment).”Every Friday on the blog, I answer people's questions about sex, love, and relationships. This week's question comes from a reader who wanted to know the following:
"Is there any truth to the idea that women have a sexual peak in their 30s?"
Great question! The idea that women have a sexual peak in their 30s likely has its roots in Alfred Kinsey's research from the 1950s, which revealed that women in their 30s reported the most orgasms compared to women of all other ages. But are more orgasms in and of themselves necessarily a sign that thirty-something women are having a sexual "peak?" Not necessarily, in fact, many have argued that, more than anything else, these women have probably just figured out more effective ways of reaching orgasm than their younger counterparts. However, recent research suggests that there might indeed be something to back up the idea that women experience at least a small sexual peak in their 30s and that perhaps there is even an evolutionary reason for this.
In a 2010 study published in Personality and Individual Differences, researchers examined how women’s age is related to their sexual thoughts and behaviors. The authors predicted that women’s sexual activity would increase in the years leading up to menopause because it is evolutionarily adaptive for women’s sexual desires and behaviors to ramp up as their “biological clock” winds down as a means of capitalizing on their remaining fertility.
A sample of 827 women aged 18 to 65 were recruited. These women were divided into three groups: (1) younger women (ages 18-26), (2) women whose window of fertility was shortened (ages 27-45), and (3) women who were likely no longer fertile (ages 46 and older; 46 was selected because it is the median age of menopause in the United States). All women were surveyed about how often they think and fantasize about sex, how willing they would be to have sex outside of a committed relationship, as well as how often they had sexual intercourse recently.
The results revealed that women ages 27-45 reported the most daily thoughts about sex and the most sexual fantasies compared to both younger and older women. Moreover, women in the 27-45 year age group reported the greatest willingness to have casual sex with someone they had just met and the highest frequency of recent sexual activity. That said, I should caution that although the observed differences between groups were statistically significant, they tended to be pretty small. So, it was not the case that women in the 27-45 age group were hypersexual or anything like that—they were just a bit more sexual than average.
These results suggest that women may have a small sexual “peak” in their 30s, during which their sexual desires and behaviors increase. But is this truly sign of an evolutionary adaptation, as the authors suggest? That is not definitive, and other explanations are certainly possible (e.g., perhaps this is due to age-related hormone changes, or perhaps women in this age group have the highest body image and most comfort with sex). Although we cannot fully explain the basis for these results, they do suggest that there may indeed be some peak, but it is far from a seismic change and may actually be subtle enough that it is not always consciously recognized.
For previous editions of Sex Question Friday, click here. To send in a question for a future edition, click here.
Want to learn more about Sex and Psychology? Click here for previous articles or follow the blog on Facebook (facebook.com/psychologyofsex), Twitter (@JustinLehmiller), or Reddit (reddit.com/r/psychologyofsex) to receive updates.
To learn more about this research, see: Easton, J. A., Confer, J. C., Goetz, C. D., & Buss, D. M. (2010). Reproduction expediting: Sexual motivations, fantasies, and the ticking biological clock. Personality and Individual Differences, 49, 516-520.
Image Credit: iStockphoto.com
You Might Also Like:In the past decade in New York State "more than 30 current and former state officeholders have been convicted, sanctioned or accused of wrongdoing — more than any other state."
Lawmakers led away in handcuffs seem like clear signs of a corruption problem in New York State. But the worst in the nation? Elaine Phillips says that’s the case. The Republican is running for a vacant State Senate seat on Long Island, and she has made public corruption in Albany the centerpiece of her campaign.
She outlined her plan for state ethics reform in a Facebook post, in which she claimed New York State leads the nation in lawmakers in trouble with the law.
"Over the past decade in Albany, more than 30 current and former state officeholders have been convicted, sanctioned or accused of wrongdoing — more than any other state," Phillips said in the post. She referenced the number from an article in the New York Times. Phillips took that claim a step further by saying New York led the pack in corruption among other states.
In Albany, running afoul of the law is bipartisan, and not just for backbenchers. Two of the state’s legislative leaders were convicted of corruption charges, former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Manhattan Democrat, and former Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, a Long Island Republican.
Phillips, mayor of the Nassau County village of Flower Hill, faces Adam Haber, a Democrat who most recently served with the Nassau Interim Finance Authority Board, which monitors the county’s finances.
So is Phillips right? Can New York State be the worst in a nation that includes politicians from Illinois - think Rod Blagojevich - and Louisiana, where a recent headline read "New Orleans FBI chief calls political corruption in Louisiana ‘robust’"?
Struggle with corruption
The New York Times, The Buffalo News and other publications have chronicled more than 30 corruption cases in the past decade.
Dr. Jeffrey Milyo and Scott Delhommer from the University of Missouri have compiled a database that focuses specifically on public corruption at the state level across the country. Their research focuses on state legislators, high-ranking executive branch officials, and supreme court justices. They tracked bribery, influence peddling and theft of public funds among other charges.
Other studies have looked solely at federal convictions or public officials at all levels of government. The Missouri researchers are the only ones who looked at corruption through a state lens, the kind of cases Phillips talks about.
From 2006 - 2015, the Missouri researchers identified 28 corruption cases dealing with state officials in New York. Include 2005, and that number rises to 30.
That puts New York first for the number of public corruption cases, followed by Pennsylvania, where 24 cases have been filed over the past decade. New Jersey ranks third with 12 corruption cases.
Look further back, and New York State has topped the list since at least 1986, Milyo said.
"Historically, New York has struggled with corruption and continues to do so," said Jennifer Rodgers, executive director of the Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity. "While measuring corruption is a challenge, I think it's fair to say that New York remains one of the most corrupt states if not the most corrupt state."
The corruption in New York State is likely rooted in culture, Rodgers says.
"Much of corruption is cultural, and in New York that means that you have to think about the way the New York political system has developed over more than 200 years," Rodgers said. "So you start with these corrupt political machines like Tammany Hall, and over time the problem replicates itself as the next generation figures out how things work and how much corruption will be tolerated, and so on down the line. We've made some progress, of course, but not enough."
Our ruling
In her pitch for ethics reform, Phillips said in a Facebook post that "over the past decade in Albany, more than 30 current and former state officeholders have been convicted, sanctioned or accused of wrongdoing — more than any other state."
She’s right. The analysis from the University of Missouri researchers shows New York State has had more state lawmakers and statewide officials running afoul of the law. She could have gone further. The data shows New York State has led the nation in public corruption for decades.
We rate this claim as True.King has not scored so far this season as Bournemouth remain on zero points in the Premier League after three games
Bournemouth striker Joshua King has signed a new four-year contract with the Premier League club.
King, 25, was the Cherries' top scorer last season as they came ninth - the highest finish in their history.
His 16 league goals, including 13 between January and May, meant he was linked with Tottenham in the summer.
"There was a lot of talk during the summer but I always made it clear I wanted to stay here," the Norway international told the club website.
"The future here is bright and I'm really happy that I will be a part of that."
Bournemouth chief executive Neill Blake said: "Joshua is the fifth player we have tied down to a new deal this summer and, combined with our four new signings, we can all be excited about the direction this club is heading in."
The former Manchester United trainee joined the Cherries from Blackburn for £1m in 2015.Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg News
Who is going to win the presidential election?
You might want to ask Mark T. Bertolini. He just bet $5.7 billion on President Obama.
Mr. Bertolini is the chief executive of Aetna, which on Monday agreed to acquire Coventry Health Care, a huge provider of Medicare and Medicaid programs. His $5.7 billion bet makes a lot of sense if you believe that the Affordable Care Act — otherwise known as Obamacare — will not be repealed.
Mitt Romney has pledged to repeal the act “on my first day if elected,” so any gamble that Obamacare stays intact could be fairly described as a wager that President Obama will remain in office.
At a time when so many in the business community appear to be supporting Mr. Romney, it is telling that some businessmen and investors expect a different result — and are wagering more than rhetoric; they are staking their wallet on it.
It may be counterintuitive, but with the Standard & Poor’s 500 up 9.5 percent in the last three months and the stock market over all at its highest point since the financial crisis, there is an argument to be made that investors writ large may be helping the incumbent to win. Intrade, an online market that allows investors to bet on political outcomes and other world events, shows that President Obama is favored to win, 57.3 percent to 42 percent.
“The best single predictor of presidential re-election results that we found was the percentage change in the stock market during the three years that preceded Election Day,” Deepak Goel of the Socionomics Institute said in February when he released a study that was recently highlighted by Reuters. The study said that recent performance of the stock market was more important than gross domestic product, inflation and unemployment.
At a minimum, the stock market, which is an indicator of future earnings, seems to be in disagreement, at least somewhat, with the steady drumbeat of C.E.O.’s and investors who have said that President Obama’s administration, in the words of Daniel Loeb, the outspoken activist hedge fund investor, “is openly hostile to most businesses and unable to articulate or implement policies to spark growth and reduce unemployment.”
Mr. Loeb is a frustrated Obama voter who now backs Mr. Romney.
But take a look at some of his most recent investments in the health care field. In the last quarter, he reported in Securities and Exchange Commission filings, he picked up shares of Aetna, Cigna, Humana, UnitedHealth and WellPoint, among others. All of those companies stand to benefit while Obamacare remains in force; a repeal of the bill could send those shares reeling.
Mr. Bertolini of Aetna insisted on Monday that the deal was not dependent on who wins the White House. But he has to say that. If he believed Mr. Romney was going to win and he still wanted to buy Coventry, he would have waited until after the election and bought it at a sharp discount.
In a note to investors on Monday about Aetna’s Coventry deal, an analyst at Barclays explained the rationale of it plainly as a way of “strategically positioning themselves to capitalize on further gains which may arise as a result of the election and health care reform.”
Aetna is not the only company to make a bet on the White House. WellPoint agreed to acquire Amerigroup for $5 billion in July, just a little over a week after the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act. Before that, Cigna paid $3.8 billion for HealthSpring in another bet on the expansion of Medicaid and Medicare.
Companies like Aetna, WellPoint and Cigna have all gravitated to rivals with a foothold in government-sponsored programs because the prevailing view is that margins for private customers are going to steadily erode. According to Aetna on Monday, the acquisition of Coventry will “substantially increase Aetna’s Medicaid footprint, creating more opportunity to participate in the expansion of Medicaid and to pursue high acuity positions as they move into managed care.” Aetna’s revenue from the government will jump to 30 percent from 23 percent.
In fairness, it is possible to argue that the election will be immaterial to the future of the Affordable Care Act. Even if Mr. Romney wins the presidency, depending on which parties are in the House and Senate, the act may be impossible to roll back.
“Some will argue that with the election just over two months away, the company could have been more prudent in its timing,” the Barclays analyst wrote. “Our take is that the election, reform and other potential legislative issues will have little impact on this transaction.”
David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital recently made the contrarian case that companies like Cigna would actually do better if the law were to be repealed, ostensibly because of the margin compression that is likely as a result of the new law.
“While the stocks are already cheap, there is the additional unpriced upside in the possibility that the election changes the political landscape, resulting in a possible modification or repeal of Obamacare,” he wrote in a letter to investors last month.
Still Mr. Einhorn, through smarts or luck, made a big investment in Coventry in the last quarter. With the sale to Aetna, irrespective of his investment thesis, Mr. Einhorn’s firm just made about $72 million.The Kerala Director General of Police objected to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Kollam within hours of the explosion at a temple during a fireworks display Sunday that left over 100 dead and nearly 400 injured.
Advertising
DGP T P Senkumar told The Indian Express on Thursday that the entire police department was busy in rescue and relief work and the visits by Modi and Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi meant that they had to ensure their “safety and security” as well.
READ: PM Modi, Rahul Gandhi’s presence didn’t hamper rescue work: Kerala CM
“I did object to the idea of the Prime Minister visiting the region within 12 hours of the accident. I told them it would be better for the PM to visit the spot a day after the disaster. But the PM wanted to visit that day itself. Our entire force had been working from early morning, engaged in rescue and relief work. So much work was still left and all of them were tired because there was no provision of even drinking water. We had to make arrangements for the safety and security of Prime Minister Modi and Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi too,” he said.
Watch video
Asked who from the Prime Minister’s Office had contacted him, Senkumar said it was the SPG who spoke to him. “During usual visits, a standard protocol is followed and the intimation goes through the secretary concerned and the government. As this was an emergency situation, I understand that the PM spoke to the Chief Minister whose office informed me about the visit and said the SPG would call me.”
“I was also there at the spot. It was a day when we were all totally held up in the massive rescue and relief work. So I explained the situation and suggested that he visit on Monday. Anyway, once the Prime Minister decides to visit, we have no choice other than make arrangements for his security,” he said.
[related-post]
In his report to the Kerala Home Secretary on Thursday, Senkumar blamed the Kollam district administration for the temple disaster. His report stated that the civil administration was absent in extending support during rescue and relief work.
Advertising
“When our men were on the verge of collapse, no arrangement had been made to supply them even drinking water. The district administration was absent during these stages,” he said.Westerns are what your grandfather grew up watching. He’d walk four miles (uphill, both ways, no shoes, one sock) to the only theater in town, plunk down his 25 cents, and watch John Wayne do his stuff. As a whole, Westerns unabashedly rely on shootouts, tough guys, and sometimes a conflicted protagonist who has to find his moral compass.
They were the manly man’s movie genre for a good couple of decades, but now… well. Sure, Hollywood still makes one every couple of years or so, but as we compiled this list, it became clear that the golden age of Westerns went out with the milkman. No matter; these films will always represent a unique period in cinema history when good vs. evil was decided by a six shooter in the hand of a man with a belly full of whiskey.
Dust off your spurs and saddle up to our list of the 25 best Western movies of all time, in no particular order.
Unforgiven
Year: 1992
Director: Client Eastwood
Purchase: Amazon DVD | Amazon Download | iTunes
The legendary Clint Eastwood dedicated Unforgiven to his director mentors, Sergio Leone and Don Siegel, and he surely made them proud with this Best Picture winner. Eastwood plays William Munny, a onetime gunslinger who hung up his pistols for life as a hog farmer, but gets pulled into one more job for justice. With its delightfully ambiguous morals and a hall of fame cast (Gene Hackman and Morgan Freeman, among others), this is a contender for greatest western ever.
High Noon
Year: 1952
Director: Fred Zinnemann
Purchase: Amazon DVD | Amazon Download | iTunes
When it comes to real-time storytelling, way before there was 24, there was High Noon, the legendary film with Gary Cooper as a town marshal who’s forgoes retirement (and a honeymoon with the gorgeous Grace Kelly) to defend his town against some notorious bandits waiting to rob an inbound train. The suspense steadily builds with each glance at the clock, as Cooper tries to muster up a posse to help him, but gets no takers. We also love the way the theme softly plays in the background each time Cooper walks in town.
The Searchers
Year: 1955
Director: John Ford
Purchase: Amazon DVD | Amazon Download | iTunes
As is the case with many westerns that put Native Americans in the crosshairs, The Searchers might have you scratching your head about who you really should be rooting for. John Wayne is Ethan Edwards, a Civil War veteran on a quest to rescue his niece from an Indian tribe. There’s no denying this is an American classic, one with a hallmark performance by Wayne and masterful direction by John Ford that yields some truly beautiful visuals, but be warned: You might find yourself grappling with the issue of rooting for a racist.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Year: 1966
Director: Sergio Leone
Purchase: Amazon DVD | Amazon Download | iTunes
Amazing stat: Over six hundred European Westerns were made between 1960 and 1980. Damn. Many of those were “Spaghetti Westerns,” and the king of that genre was undoubtedly Sergio Leone. The final chapter in Leone’s Dollars Trilogy, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly once again stars Clint Eastwood as The Good, with Lee Van Cleef as The Bad, and Eli Wallach as The Ugly. Leone’s mix of widescreen long shots and tight close-ups has passed into icon status by now, and the final shootout more than still stands up.
Shane
Year: 1953
Director: George Stevens
Purchase: Amazon DVD
Alan Ladd is the enigmatic drifter who tries to settle down in a nice little homesteading community, but gets dragged into a settler/rancher mess that only brute force will solve. A very smart, well-made tale of good vs. evil with some juicy depth beneath the surface, Shane is unquestionably one of the greatest Westerns ever, and also one of the best American films ever.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Year: 1969
Director: George Roy Hill
Purchase: Amazon DVD | Amazon Download | iTunes
Riding high on the chemistry between Robert Redford and Paul Newman, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid delivers more laughs than anyone would ever expect in a Western. Outlaws Robert LeRoy Parker and Harry Longabaugh are forced to run from the law all the way to Bolivia in this very likable buddy action flick.
The Outlaw Josey Wales
Year: 1976
Director: Clint Eastwood
Purchase: Amazon DVD | Amazon Download | iTunes
Clint Eastwood is Josey Wales, a post-Civil War Missouri farmer who seeks revenge after Union soldiers murdered his family. Eastwood also directed this widely respected gem based on the novel Gone to Texas by Forrest Carter, and has actually said it might be better than Unforgiven. We’re not sure about that one, but we are sure this is a classic.
3:10 to Yuma
Year: 1957
Director: Delmer Daves
Purchase: Amazon DVD | Amazon Download | iTunes
50 years before Russell Crowe and Chrstian Bale starred in the remake (which is also a fine film), Glenn Ford and Van Heflin headlined the original 3:10 to Yuma by Delmer Daves. Like with High Noon, an arriving train drives the suspense, and the psychological tension mounts. The much-maligned ending is its only weak point.
The Magnificent Seven
Year: 1960
Director: John Sturges
Purchase: Amazon DVD | Amazon Download | iTunes
If your starting point is Akira Kurosawa’s legendary Seven Samurai, you’re assured of at least a solid film. But The Magnificent Seven rises above solid, thanks to a spectacular cast (Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, James Coburn), and the awesome score by Elmer Bernstein. Instead of taking place in Japan, the setting is a small village in Mexico in which the seven American gunmen must protect its residents.
Dances with Wolves
Year: 1990
Director: Kevin Costner
Purchase: Amazon DVD | Amazon Download | iTunes
If you’ve heard people compare Avatar to Dance of Wolves, they’re right—plot-wise. They’re also seriously disrespecting Dances with Wolves. Kevin Costner’s sprawling epic took five years to wrangle together, but it was worth it. The story of a Union Army lieutenant who befriends a band of Sioiux Indians won seven Oscars, including Best Picture. Well worth the three hours.
Tombstone
Year: 1993
Director: George P. Cosmatos
Purchase: Amazon DVD | Amazon Download | iTunes
If you like your Westerns full of energy and with names you know like Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, you’ll love Tombstone. Kurt Russell is Earp, a retiring lawman, whose plans get F-ed up. Val Kilmer is great as Holiday, and as long as you put any issues of historical accuracy aside, a great time can be had here.
True Grit
Year: 1969
Director: Henry Hathaway
Purchase: Amazon DVD | Amazon Download | iTunes
Charles Portis’ famous novel was first put on celluloid by Henry Hathaway, and it’s known for being the only film John Wayne won an Oscar for. Wayne is the crusty old-timer with a soft center who helps a stubborn girl track down her father’s murderer in Indian territory.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Year: 1962
Director: John Ford
Purchase: Amazon DVD | Amazon Download | iTunes
Two screen legends, Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne, get matched up in this John Ford-directed classic about a senator who owes his career and life to a rugged gunslinger. One of the last classic black and white Westerns, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance also gave us a great quote: “This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
No Country for Old Men
Year: 2007
Director: Joel & Ethan Coen
Purchase: Amazon DVD | Amazon Download | iTunes
Is No County for Old Men really a Western? Ehh. It’s debatable. But this stomach-tightener from the Coen brothers delivers suspense in spades. The film is basically one big chase scene, with Josh Brolin as a man who finds a huge stash of cash and then gets hunted by the ruthless Javier Bardem. The nastiest Best Picture winner ever.
My Darling Clementine
Year: 1946
Director: John Ford
Purchase: Amazon DVD
The infamous Shootout at the O.K. Corral gets the Hollywood treatment in this John Ford classic starring Henry Fonda as Wyatt Earp. A really entertaining script is fleshed out wonderfully by Fonda and the supporting cast, and the tender touch Ford applies to the characters works quite well.
Red River
Year: 1948
Director: Howard Hawks
Purchase: Amazon DVD | Amazon Download | iTunes
A darker and noticeably more offbeat John Wayne stars as a Texas rancher who’s forced to deal with flak from his adopted son (Montgomery Clift) during the first cattle drive from Texas to Kansas along the Chisholm Trail. Director Howard Hawks executes perfectly here, crafting a film that has proven to have staying power.
The Wild Bunch
Year: 1969
Director: Sam Peckinpah
Purchase: Amazon DVD | Amazon Download | iTunes
You could call Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch “Tarantinoesque,” if you needed to describe this violent classic to someone unfamiliar with it, but it’s more than that. The |
full of information about Thai sex tourism, written mostly by experienced travelers; self-proclaimed authorities on the subject.
As the largest economy in Southeast Asia, Thailand is a story of success in terms of economic growth over the last few decades. As a result, rapid urbanization has prompted younger generations to flock to the cities in search of the promise of Western “success”. It’s the idea of the American dream, but in a context where the means of achieving that dream aren't very realistic. The consequences of this are extreme urban poverty, overcrowded cities, poor sanitation and a lack of sustainable employment, leaving those unprepared with little choice but to sell their bodies. For men, this usually means dangerous construction jobs, where high-turnover manual labor is abused for low wages as the country tries to keep up with a demand for infrastructure. Work-related deaths are common. For women, the sex industry has emerged as a societal norm, an evolved form of a centuries-old business, and an inevitable end for many women growing up in a country known worldwide for its liberal sexuality.
The forums I browsed suggested that the lady-of-the-night is not nearly as prominent in Hua Hin as she is in Bangkok, but would still be relatively easy to find if one were interested. In my browsing I read that Soi Bintabaht was the de-facto red-light district of Hua Hin where bars with names like “Love”, “Valentine”, and “Get Lucky” might be found. I didn’t bother looking up where the street was, snapping my computer shut and locking the suspiciously lightweight door behind me as my hunger finally won. I enjoyed a personal pizza and a mojito in a dimly-lit bar called Fat Cat where a Swedish expat in a white sportcoat improvised jazz trumpet and three-quarter bass over songs he played off his iMac.
As the mojito settled in, I wandered through narrow, crowded streets, giggling incredulously as women in skimpy outfits tried to pull me into their respective bars. In the daylight, the coed workforces of legitimate massage parlors all wore matching t-shirts. At night, those establishments closed, and the women outside of massage parlors wore skin-tight dresses and high heels, implying the legendary “happy ending”. Ages ranged from (hopefully) 18 to 40+. Women appeared seemingly more desperate with age. Perhaps they were just more confident salespeople. They stepped into my path almost on instinct in attempts to bait me in. I noticed other westerners seated inside open-air bars with women hanging all over them. I kept my pace, looking for something less sinister. I found myself wandering down a street where hundreds of people mingled between bars and clubs. It was lit with red neon, saturated with plastic tourism and Thailand cliches.
Most women in the sex industry are independent contractors, dressed in suggestive clothing, hanging out around certain bars trying to get you inside. Once that’s complete, their job is to keep you buying drinks. A drink is around 150 baht, which is roughly the price of a drink in the U.S.. According to societal norms, you might eventually pay what’s called a “bar fine”, a fee payed to the establishment permitting the girl to leave for the night. Until the bar fine is payed, the girl is stuck there. Presumably once you leave the bar the girl is free to negotiate whatever for however much she pleases. While the over-the-phone and internet prostitution that occurs in major cities is common to the discreet traveling businessman, the lifeblood of the industry is based in this “bar girl” culture.
I was skeptical, though, every time I saw an attractive girl. Common to the sex industry in Thailand is the elusive and mysterious “ladyboy”. Lady-boys are incredible creatures. They are as beautiful as the most beautiful women you've ever seen, but cater to a specific type of sex-tourist. Many have had extreme procedures done to appear as women: breast implants, hormone therapy, even cosmetic surgery. Yet, they have a certain something that keeps them men no matter how female they might appear. I can’t even count the number of people who tried to warn me about them. “Make sure you check for Adam’s Apples.” The Adam’s Apple was a universal symbol for masculinity. “They might look like girls, but you cant get rid of an Adam’s Apple.”
After another loop around the block, I felt the end of the night looming and worked up the nerve to sit down somewhere. I arbitrarily chose a bar called Heaven. I plopped down on an empty couch near the back. Actually, the entire place was empty aside from two men shooting pool behind a wall of hanging beads. The couch resembled one you’d see in a thrift store back home. I already had a good buzz but I ordered a Bombay and Tonic. The female bartenders, well aware that I was the only paying customer in the room, poured it exceptionally strong. A girl in a red dress sat at one of the tables looking at her cell phone. She delivered my drink and then sat down next to me, uninvited. She was extremely beautiful. I checked her throat carefully. All clear. As an American I wasn’t used to women being so forward, but I appreciated the attention.
We sat in awkwardness for a few seconds before she spoke. “Where you from?” she attempted in broken English over the music. Her voice was high-pitched, but I figured that could easily be faked by hormone pills. I checked her up and down for signs of masculinity. Her curves seemed undeniable. Her name was Pak. I never got a spelling, but that’s what it sounded like. The language barrier kept my flirtations limited to the non-verbal; raw, instinctual. The drinks kept coming. I rested a hand on her leg. It felt just like flirting with an American girl but without a fluid conversation. She touched my arms, which are covered in tattoos. She seemed impressed.
“Do you have?” I said, pointing at my tattoos, then back at her. She immediately lifted up her dress revealing teal g-string panties and a butterfly tattoo on her lower back. It was in this moment that I realized that she might be a working girl, but the alcohol attenuated my suspicion. It was irrelevant, I thought. I was having fun. She pushed up my left sleeve, pointing at the one on my left shoulder. I knew she wouldn't know the English word, so I pulled out my phone and typed “jellyfish” into the translator. Thai letters appeared. She knew what it was immediately and giggled. I typed in “butterfly” and pointed towards her back. She laughed again. I got another round of drinks. I had 2000 baht in a hidden pocket in my shorts (about $70), and wasn’t feeling fiscally conservative. The two guys in the back had taken off, and she pointed towards the pool table, inquiring if I wanted to play. I fancy myself a decent pool player, so I agreed, polishing off my drink just as another round arrived.
Pak explained that she was actually from a small village in Cambodia, right on the border of Thailand. She emigrated for work so that she could send money to her family. When she confirmed that she worked in this bar, I was initially surprised, then disappointed that her interest in me was strictly professional, but our interaction continued because I liked her. I doubted that she came to Hua Hin to be bar girl. She lived in Bangkok first, but couldn't find good jobs so she went south, hoping to eventually become a bartender. I asked her if she liked Hua Hin. She smiled and said “Yes”. I couldn't help but think about Greg Anthony. My gut reaction to the news of his arrest was shock. I thought this guy was someone to look up to, but upon reading the news my opinion of him changed in an instant, and he quickly went from respectable to complete dirtbag. Yet here I was, a respectable guy, about to shoot pool with a woman who was likely a prostitute, and yet I didn't feel like a dirtbag. I didn't feel like a bad person. I was just a young man in a bar with a young woman. I wrestled around inside this moral gray area as I took another drink. She slid me the chalk while she racked.
I thought I’d impress her with a good break but I underestimated my blood alcohol content. She made her first shot, missing her second. Yes! A chance at redemption! I was stripes, and made my next two. She hit her next four solids, missed one, and handed me the cue. I missed. She finished out the rest of her balls and stared the 8-ball right into the corner. I was impressed. I underestimated her. Then again, she probably does this for a living. Another round of drinks came, and we played again. She won the second game easily.
I don’t know if I was too drunk to compete or if I’m actually really bad at pool, but I was losing my ability to function. It was getting late. Bars in Thailand close at one a.m., as far as I’d read. I still couldn't get my mind off of Greg Anthony. I went from respect to disgust, but the more I got to know Pak the less I thought of him as a scumbag basketball analyst. She was a real woman, not the subject of my predatory desires. I didn’t feel like I was taking advantage of her. On the contrary, I was in her world, and felt as if she was taking advantage of me. I was in the mood for dancing, and I could hear a distinct dance beat coming from the club across the Soi. While we tried to play our third game I pulled out my cell phone/translator and typed “Dance with me”. She tried to dance with me at the table. I pointed across the street. She shook her head no and rubbed her thumb against two fingers. I leaned in and whispered a slurred “Tao Lai, Khap?” How much? It was one of the only things I knew how to say.
I don’t remember how I got back to the guesthouse.
I woke up face-first on that rock-hard mattress with a throbbing headache. Unsure how the night actually ended, I reached for my pocket to realize I wasn't wearing pants. I became increasingly concerned with the circumstances in which they came off. I found them bunched up at the end of the bed, diving into the pockets with urgency looking for my stack of cash. My memory became a haze towards the end of the night, but I vaguely remember being front-and-center of a tourist-packed nightclub called “Click”, near a DJ who played terrible American pop music. I danced until I was sweating, and left as soon as I lost my balance and fell backwards onto a grinding twosome. I found my money stash in its entirety, less the cost of drinks, relieved that I didn't spend it all in one night. I flashed back to Pak trying to convince me to take her with me. I think she even offered a discount, but I kissed her hand and said “khap kun krap,” (thank you) before stumbling out into the street.
I can’t say I didn't have a good time. Despite my complex moral dilemma I thoroughly enjoyed her company. The idea of buying sex filled me with discomfort and disgust when reading the Greg Anthony story, but I realized that it might only be disgusting from an American perspective; from a culture and economy where there are so many alternatives to prostitution. But in Thailand, where poverty runs deep and opportunities are horridly limited, who is to say there is any better option? Its a harsh realization, one that most in the Western world will never be faced with, but realities are relative, and its possible that the alternatives to working as a bar girl might be worse than playing three games of pool against a drunk tourist. These women aren't slaves; they aren't forced into this industry by a maniacal authoritarian pimp with threats of violence. They are victims only of circumstance, limited in opportunity and driven by survival instincts. It’s not to say “prostitution is a good thing”, but for a desperate girl with a hungry family in a poor village in Cambodia, it may not be as simple as getting a job at Wal-Mart or McDonald’s.
I hope Pak gets everything she came to Thailand for. I hope her family loves her as she does them, because I got the impression that her sacrifices were solely out of love. We are all doing the best we can with the opportunities we have, and as I walked into 7/11 for a bottle of water I wondered what circumstances surrounded the woman who was solicited by Greg Anthony. Maybe she solicited him. I wondered whether morality can be as black and white as the Western world would have us believe.
I finished packing and checked out of the hostel, sauntering towards the main drag of Hua Hin in the direction of Sam Roi Yod National Park. I intentionally followed the streets I remembered from the night before. The town was silent and empty, but the ghosts of the previous night zoomed past in both directions as my memory came flooding back. I walked past the alley where Heaven was, and glancing through a mess of electrical wires at an obscured street sign I realized that I had unintentionally spent my evening on Soi Bintabaht, the red-light district I’d read about. I had found it completely by accident. Maybe it found me. I reached for my cash again, reassuring myself that it was in fact in my pocket. I turned the corner from the quiet alley onto a busy thoroughfare, hoping to soon stumble across a different kind of service, free of all ethical dilemmas: coffee and a greasy breakfast.JERUSALEM (JTA) — Palestinian officials are demanding an apology from the new United Nations chief after he said it was “completely clear that the Temple that the Romans destroyed in Jerusalem was a Jewish temple.”
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also told Israel Radio in an interview Friday with its New York correspondent that “no one can deny the fact that Jerusalem is holy to three religions today,” including Judaism.
On Sunday, Adnan al-Husseini, the Palestinian Authority’s Jerusalem Affairs minister, told the Chinese news service Xinhua that Guterres “ignored UNESCO’s decision that considered the Al-Aqsa mosque of pure Islamic heritage.” He also said Guterres “violated all legal, diplomatic and humanitarian customs and overstepped his role as secretary general … and must issue an apology to the Palestinian people.”
Xinhua also spoke with an adviser to P.A. President Mahmoud Abbas, Ahmad Majdalani, a member of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, who said that Guterres’ comments “undermine the trustworthiness of the U.N. as a body that should support occupied peoples” and that Guterres “should clarify his remarks that give Israel a green light for more measures against Jerusalem.”
Guterres also told Israel Radio that he would not initiate a new peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, but that he did believe in a two-state solution and would be willing to assist in a peace process if asked.Much as I love spinning and yarns of pretty colours, I distinctly lack confidence in dying pretty yarns and more so, being sure I would get what i wanted.
This isnt exactly what I wanted. I wanted a colour, any colour, with subtle darker and lighter waves to it, now, the crap knows how many things I have read and watched on how to dye, firstly the whole “kettle dye” which is kind of what Im after seems incredibly hit and miss. I do not want to nuke things in the microwave, I do not have helper, heck, I cant even get my ipad to type the letters I want, because the keys arent standard size. I most certainly dont have an entire garage or room I can devote to the idea of dyeing yarns. I did buy two large pots, for cleaning and other fleece type related activities.
Now, because of the colour it is, this photo actually doesnt do it justice at all. In any photo i have taken ove it it either looks redder or bluer than it is, or more uneven.. For the most part its cadburys purple..
I dont like purple… So the question is, what do i do with around 160g of purple?
Share this: Share
Facebook
Reddit
Google
Email
Pinterest
This entry was posted by Liz on Friday, May 8th, 2015 at 3:44 pm and is filed under Spinning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.The latest entry in the Macdonald-Laurier Institute’s Great Canadian Debates series tackles the resolution “Canada must stop coddling its spoiled seniors”
OTTAWA, Oct. 24, 2016 – A prominent newspaper columnist and a well-known former seniors’ rights advocate will square off over whether Canada panders too much to its seniors the latest entry in the Macdonald-Laurier Institute’s Great Canadian Debates.
On Oct. 25, 2016 at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente will argue in favour of the resolution: “Canada must stop coddling its spoiled seniors”.
Susan Eng, a lawyer and former executive vice-president of the Canadian Association of Retired Persons, will argue against.
The event will be moderated by Peter Milliken, former speaker of the House of Commons.
We in Canada have of course always had the utmost respect for our elders. But with a wide array of tax breaks, discounts and privileges, some would say this increasingly wealthy and powerful demographic has had it too good for too long. Politicians know that seniors vote, and competition to woo a growing population of retirees is always fierce at election time.
Others would argue that after all they have done for their country, seniors deserve to get something back, and many of them are still among the most vulnerable Canadians.
So who is right, is it time for Canada to stop coddling its spoiled seniors?
Where: The Canadian War Museum, 1 Vimy Pl, Ottawa, ON
When: Oct. 25, 2016 at 7 p.m.
Who: Margaret Wente and Susan Eng
For tickets, click here.
To read more about the Great Canadian Debates series, click here.
***
Margaret Wente is a columnist with the Globe and Mail.
Susan Eng is a lawyer and seniors’ rights advocate.
The Macdonald-Laurier Institute is the only non-partisan, independent national public policy think tank in Ottawa focusing on the full range of issues that fall under the jurisdiction of the federal government.
For more information, please contact Mark Brownlee, communications manager, at 613-482-8327 x105 or email at mark.brownlee@macdonaldlaurier.ca.A report of a greyhound being thrown into the freezing sea in Hartlepool is not believed to be an isolated incident.
RSPCA officers are now investigating two reports of the animals being flung into the sea and suspect they are connected.
Putting them in the sea at this time of year is potentially life-threatening to this breed Rita James
Photographs of the dog being flung into the sea, near the Brus Tunnel area, have sparked national outrage among dog-lovers and RSPCA officers are still urging anyone with information to come forward.
The Mail previously reported that a member of the public had witnessed three men with nine muzzled greyhounds at the sea, through the Brus Tunnel area of the town.
And, after walking out on a structure into the sea, one of the men was seen repeatedly throwing a dog into the water and yanking it back out on a long line.
A second person, who was some distance away with his children, came forward with photographs from what was believed was the same incident.
However, it later emerged the photographs had been taken a week earlier.
A spokesman for the RSPCA, said: “We are still making inquiries after we received a report that a group of men with a number of dogs were seen in Hartlepool repeatedly throwing one of the dogs - a greyhound - into the water last Thursday, November 2.
“An inspector attended the scene but the group were no longer there.
“Since then we have been contacted by a member of the public who provided photos of what appears to be a man throwing a greyhound into the water the week before, Thursday, October 26.
“Anyone who may have witnessed either of these incidents, or may have more information, should contact us on 0300 1234 999.”
Rita James, a spokeswoman for the charity, CAGED, Campaign Against Greyhound Exploitation and Death, said incident could easily have killed the dog.
She said: “Greyhounds are not a hardy breed at all and there is no body fat on them to provide insulation.
“They are hyper sensitive to temperatures and they suffer a lot of ailments.
“Putting them in the sea at this time of year is potentially life-threatening to this breed.”
Rita said greyhounds also have very thin necks and if the animal was dragged out of the sea by a rope around its neck, it could cause terrible injury.
The witness who took the photographs and who did not wish to be named, said he and his children were left shaken by what they saw happening to the dogs.
He said: “They were being carried out to the end of the structure and unceremoniously flung in from a height of about 4ft and a distance, through the air, of 6ft. The waves were quite strong.”Lewis lung adenocarcinoma growth was retarded by the oral administration of delta9-tetrahydrocannabinol (delta9-THC), delta8-tetrahydrocannabinol (delta8-THC), and cannabinol (CBN), but not cannabidiol (CBD). Animals treated for 10 consecutive days with delta9-THC, beginning the day after tumor implantation, demonstrated a dose-dependent action of retarded tumor growth. Mice treated for 20 consecutive days with delta8-THC and CBN had reduced primary tumor size. CBD showed no inhibitory effect on tumor growth at 14, 21, or 28 days. Delta9-THC, delta8-THC, and CBN increased the mean survival time (36% at 100 mg/kg, 25% at 200 mg/kg, and 27% at 50 mg/kg, respectively), whereas CBD did not. Delta9-THC administered orally daily until death in doses of 50, 100, or 200 mg/kg did not increase the life-spans of (C57BL/6 times DBA/2)F1 (BDF1) mice hosting the L1210 murine leukemia. However, delta9-THC administered daily for 10 days significantly inhibited Friend leukemia virus-induced splenomegaly by 71% at 200 mg/kg as compared to 90.2% for actinomycin D. Experiments with bone marrow and isolated Lewis lung cells incubated in vitro with delta9-THC and delta8-THC showed a dose-dependent (10(-4)-10(-7)) inhibition (80-20%, respectively) of tritiated thymidine and 14C-uridine uptake into these cells. CBD was active only in high concentrations (10(-4)).Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, has vowed to return the country to “moderate Islam” and asked for global support to transform the hardline kingdom into an open society that empowers citizens and lures investors.
Mohammed bin Salman al-Saud: The young hothead who would be king Read more
In an interview with the Guardian, the powerful heir to the Saudi throne said the ultra-conservative state had been “not normal” for the past 30 years, blaming rigid doctrines that have governed society in a reaction to the Iranian revolution, which successive leaders “didn’t know how to deal with”.
Expanding on comments he made at an investment conference at which he announced the launch of an ambitious $500bn (£381bn) independent economic zone straddling Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, Prince Mohammed said: “We are a G20 country. One of the biggest world economies. We’re in the middle of three continents. Changing Saudi Arabia for the better means helping the region and changing the world. So this is what we are trying to do here. And we hope we get support from everyone.
“What happened in the last 30 years is not Saudi Arabia. What happened in the region in the last 30 years is not the Middle East. After the Iranian revolution in 1979, people wanted to copy this model in different countries, one of them is Saudi Arabia. We didn’t know how to deal with it. And the problem spread all over the world. Now is the time to get rid of it.”
Earlier Prince Mohammed had said: “We are simply reverting to what we followed – a moderate Islam open to the world and all religions. 70% of the Saudis are younger than 30, honestly we won’t waste 30 years of our life combating extremist thoughts, we will destroy them now and immediately.”
The crown prince’s comments are the most emphatic he has made during a six-month reform programme that has tabled cultural reforms and economic incentives unimaginable during recent decades, during which the kingdom has been accused of promoting a brand of Islam that underwrote extremism.
The comments were made as the heir of the incumbent monarch moves to consolidate his authority, sidelining clerics whom he believes have failed to support him and demanding unquestioning loyalty from senior officials whom he has entrusted to drive a 15-year reform programme that aims to overhaul most aspects of life in Saudi Arabia.
Central to the reforms has been the breaking of an alliance between hardline clerics who have long defined the national character and the House of Saud, which has run affairs of state. The changes have tackled head-on societal taboos such as the recently rescinded ban on women driving, as well as scaling back guardianship laws that restrict women’s roles and establishing an Islamic centre tasked with certifying the sayings of the prophet Muhammed.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A woman sits behind the wheel of a car in Riyadh last month. Photograph: STR/EPA
The scale and scope of the reforms has been unprecedented in the country’s modern history and concerns remain that a deeply conservative base will oppose what is effectively a cultural revolution – and that the kingdom lacks the capacity to follow through on its economic ambitions.
The new economic zone is to be established on 470km of the Red Sea coast, in a tourist area that has already been earmarked as a liberal hub akin to Dubai, where male and female bathers are free to mingle.
It has been unveiled as the centrepiece of efforts to turn the kingdom away from a near total dependence on oil and into a diverse open economy. Obstacles remain: an entrenched poor work ethic, a crippling regulatory environment and a general reluctance to change.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A promotional video for Neom, a new economic zone on the Red Sea coast
“Economic transformation is important but equally essential is social transformation,” said one of the country’s leading businessmen. “You cannot achieve one without the other. The speed of social transformation is key. It has to be manageable.”
Alcohol, cinemas and theatres are still banned in the kingdom and mingling between unrelated men and women remains frowned upon. However Saudi Arabia – an absolute monarchy – has clipped the wings of the once-feared religious police, who no longer have powers to arrest and are seen to be falling in line with the new regime.
Economically Saudi Arabia will need huge resources if it is to succeed in putting its economy on a new footing and its leadership believes it will fail to generate strategic investments if it does not also table broad social reforms.
Prince Mohammed had repeatedly insisted that without establishing a new social contract between citizen and state, economic rehabilitation would fail. “This is about giving kids a social life,” said a senior Saudi royal figure. “Entertainment needs to be an option for them. They are bored and resentful. A woman needs to be able to drive herself to work. Without that we are all doomed. Everyone knows that – except the people in small towns. But they will learn.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A screengrab from the promotional video for Saudi Arabia’s new economic zone. Photograph: YouTube
Saudi society is rigid, its youth restless. The prince’s reforms need to succeed Read more
In the next 10 years, at least five million Saudis are likely to enter the country’s workforce, posing a huge problem for officials who currently do not have jobs to offer them or tangible plans to generate employment.
The economic zone is due to be completed by 2025 – five years before the current cap on the reform programme – and is to be powered by wind and solar energy, according to its founders.
The country’s enormous sovereign wealth fund is intended to be a key backer of the independent zone. It currently has $230bn under management. The sale of 5% of the world’s largest company, Aramco, is expected to raise several hundred billion dollars more.He becomes the eighth director on the FSF's board. The full list of their names and biographies can be found at http://www.fsf.org/about/staff-and-board.
"Matthew Garrett is a truly committed defender of users' freedom. The FSF is fortunate to have him on the board of directors," said FSF president Richard M. Stallman.
A developer specializing in the interactions between operating system kernels, platform firmware and system security, much of Garrett's work has focused on mechanisms for avoiding the oft-suggested tradeoff between user security and user freedom, ensuring that users have ultimate control over which software their devices will and will not run.
FSF executive director John Sullivan said, "Matthew has generously donated his time and expertise to advise the FSF on many issues in recent years, especially Restricted Boot and other disconcerting trends at the intersection of hardware and proprietary software distribution. His willingness to increase his involvement in FSF technical and policy leadership is fantastic news for our members and supporters."
Earlier this year, Garrett won the Free Software Foundation Award for the Advancement of Free Software. He holds a PhD in genetics from the University of Cambridge, and presents frequently around the world on the topic of free software in wider society.
On accepting the invitation to join the board, Garrett said, "It's been almost thirty years since the Free Software Foundation was founded, and in that time free software has become an indispensable part of computer use everywhere, creating an entire new generation of users and developers for whom free software has always been ubiquitous. Unfortunately, the number of threats to user freedom has also increased over that time. The FSF continues to campaign against attempts to restrict the rights of users and developers to be in ultimate control of the software that they use and the devices that they own, and I'm proud to be able to be a part of that."
About the Free Software Foundation
The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom) software -- particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants -- and free documentation for free software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use of software, and its Web sites, located at fsf.org and gnu.org, are an important source of information about GNU/Linux. Donations to support the FSF's work can be made at https://donate.fsf.org. Its headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA.
More information about the FSF, as well as important information for journalists and publishers, is at https://www.fsf.org/press.
Media Contacts
John Sullivan
Executive Director
Free Software Foundation
+1 (617) 542 5942
campaigns@fsf.org
The above image is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 by nekonoir on Flickr.This story originally appeared on xoJane.com.
Dear person smoking their e-cig next to me in this coffee shop,
I really hate your e-cigarette.
I’m proud of you for taking steps to quit smoking and, yes, I would much rather you vape than smoke. Smoking is terrible, and I’m not calling for a sweeping ban of e-cigs.
But please, I am imploring you, stop vaping indoors. I know it’s “just water vapor,” but it is water vapor that smells terrible. The vapor that is wafting over from your table to mine does not smell like pancakes; it smells like a synthetic blend of sugar-free butterscotch candies and diacetyl. Sure, this is “better” than cigarette smoke, but stepping in cat poop is better than stepping in dog poop, and both are still terrible options.
I realize that you are breaking no laws. You are technically allowed to “vape” indoors. In large indoor spaces, your habit is not such a big deal. I can walk away from you or you will eventually walk away from me. I may be temporarily annoyed, but this too shall pass.
But just because you are “technically allowed” to do something, that doesn’t mean you should do it. In smaller spaces — spaces from which I cannot escape — in planes, cafes, and restaurants, you need to put that thing away. You are being rude. Like eating a large amount of garlic before boarding a 10-hour flight or wearing strong perfume to an expensive restaurant.
I’m sure you are experiencing a sense of freedom the likes of which you’ve never felt. You no longer have to brave the elements to get your nicotine fix. This must be especially nice if you live in an area with extreme weather. This freedom may let you live out smoking fantasies you never thought possible. I get it; the no smoking signs in airplane bathrooms are so admonishing, even I have been tempted to dismantle those smug little smoke detectors. After enduring all of the restrictions imposed on smokers, I can see how it could be easy to now view the world as your own personal “vaping lounge,” but I really wish that you wouldn’t.
In the case of restaurants and cafes, you are interfering with the food. Flavor is a combination of taste and smell, and with the smell of pina colada air freshener floating under my nose, I am having a hard time enjoying my coffee. Your bubble gum vapor is not welcome when I’m eating a grilled cheese. And — I may be overstepping my bounds here — but I really wish you wouldn’t exhale bacon flavored vapor around my beer. We’ve already established that bacon-flavored beer is pretty terrible. I know you can still smoke in a lot of bars, but I don’t go to those bars. Besides, that’s what the patio is for.
I don’t think I’m being completely unreasonable. Even e-cig companies seem to agree with me:
Even if you are at an establishment that allows vaping and someone sitting next to you seems uncomfortable or requests you to stop vaping, the best thing to do would be to respect their request. At work, it is a good idea to inform your colleagues about what you are doing. Smokers have been notorious because of a few rude ones who blow their tobacco smoke right into people’s faces. But since vaping is so new, the opportunity still exists for the community to create a positive view of this culture.
Currently, you are not creating a positive view of this culture.
Between vaping liquid being called things likes “lizard juice” and those ridiculous holsters, you need all the goodwill you can generate. Subjecting people to cloying, food-esque scents is not the way to go about it. Besides being annoying, you may be giving people headaches or allergic reactions.
I am glad you quit smoking. If the e-cigarette helps someone achieve that goal, I support their decision to purchase and use one. But please be mindful of those around you. Because while vaping is considerably safer than traditional cigarettes, it just doesn’t smell that great.
Claire Lower is a freelance writer living in Florida.
Contact us at editors@time.com.Every year our US-based editors team up with Lonely Planet’s expert authors to compile a list of US destinations that are prime for the next year. Best in Travel 2013 already covered two places we think the world should be looking at – San Francisco and the Gulf Coast – but here we wanted to dig deeper and shine a light on 10 places in the US that travelers should add to their wish lists for the coming year. Our 2013 picks are literally all over the map: once-in-a-lifetime northern lights, new top-tier museums, moose trails, Polynesian paradise and barrels of bourbon. Enjoy, and send us a postcard!
1. Louisville, Kentucky
Could it be that the new Portland is in… Kentucky? Louisville has asserted itself as a lively, offbeat cultural mecca on the Ohio River. New Louisville, also known as the East Market District or NuLu, features converted warehouses used as local breweries, antique shops and the city’s coolest restaurants. On Bardstown Rd in the Highlands you’ll find a hipster strip of shops and bars, not to mention many ‘Keep Louisville Weird’ stickers. Bourbon reigns in Louisville. This is the traditional jump-off for the Bourbon Trail; with bourbon’s current wave of popularity, new upstart microdistilleries, including some in and around Louisville like the small-batch Angel’s Envy, are giving the old names in bourbon a run for their money. Try for the first Saturday in May to witness the ‘greatest two minutes in sports,’ the Kentucky Derby.
The coolest hotel in town is 21c Museum Hotel, an edgy contemporary hotel with scissor chandeliers and loft-like rooms.
On Louisville's Urban Bourbon Trail
Photo by Marty Pearl, courtesy of Louisville Convention & Visitors Bureau
2. Fairbanks, Alaska
Have you seen aurora borealis (aka the northern lights)? The sensation of seeing Arctic skies crackle with smoky blues, greens and reds has long drawn off-season travelers way north. 2013 will be big, marking the end of a fiery 11-year-cycle, when sunspots are particularly feisty, making for a big show in the Fairbanks sky 240 nights a year. Go. From May to mid-August daylight is too strong to see much, but by late summer they start to appear, and Fairbanks is the place to be. On the ground, curious foodies can sample traditional Athabascan cuisine at Taste of Alaska (call to book in advance) at the Morris Thompson Cultural & Visitors Center, or take part in a unique pub-crawl, The Great Fairbanks Pub Paddle. Open all year, the 414-mile Dalton Highway plies north of Fairbanks into the Arctic, and air taxis reach the pristine 800-sq-mile Gates of the Arctic National Park, but the light show will be best back in Fairbanks.
A favorite place to stay is Ah, Rose Marie B&B, a homey Dutch-built cottage that takes its breakfasts seriously.
A stunning display of aurora borealis over a cabin near Fairbanks, Alaska
Photo by Todd Paris, courtesy of |
.co/fJSxcSEpVy — Andrew Stroehlein (@astroehlein) March 31, 2017
The Kurdish diaspora is largely opposed to increasing Erdoğan’s powers, with the authorities serving his administration being accused of using summary execution, rape, and torture against Turkey’s Kurdish population by the United Nations.
Consequently, supporters of the authoritarian president abroad seem intent on discouraging diaspora Kurds from participating in the referendum.
Several hurt in clashes at Turkey’s Brussels consulate https://t.co/FTyTghOsMR pic.twitter.com/m2Jshk2Z6G — EURACTIV Global EU (@eaGlobalEU) April 1, 2017
One of the victims, an elderly Kurdish woman, said she was pinned down and beaten in the street by a young man who stabbed her in the throat and under her arm.
“I was covered in blood,” she later said. “Like ISIS he had come to behead me.”
https://twitter.com/KomNewsCom/status/848116713258459136
The authorities in the Netherlands are on “high alert” after the violence in neighbouring Belgium, according to NRC Handelsblad. Large numbers of Netherlands-based Turkish citizens are expected at the De Scheg sports centre in Deventer, where some 30,000 will cast their ballots.
Hundreds of Turkish migrants rioted in the city of Rotterdam when the Dutch government prevented Turkish government ministers from attending rallies in the country, prompting Ergodan to denigrate the Dutch as “Nazi remnants”.
While some European countries, such as Sweden, caved in to Turkish pressure and allowed rallies to take place, others adopted the same position as the Dutch, prompting an angry response.
“I’m telling you Europe, do you have that courage? If you want, we’ll send the 15,000 refugees to you that we don’t send each month and blow your mind,” threatened interior minister Süleyman Soylu during the dispute.A dustup over a bike lane in Baltimore now has the city re-evaluating its overall bike lane expansion plans, reports The Baltimore Sun. As Sandy Smith reported for Next City, the way the city introduced new bicycling infrastructure this year on Potomac Street, in the waterfront neighborhood of Canton, caused confusion. Even opponents were contradicting each other about whether the street was too busy for a bike lane or not busy enough to warrant it. The city announced its intention to tear out the new bike lane, citing concerns about access for fire department equipment.
The Baltimore Sun reports another neighborhood in North Baltimore now has similar concerns about fire safety and design, and Mayor Catherine Pugh has ordered a review of the city’s bike lanes and parking spaces citywide.
Bicycle advocates, understandably, expressed their concerns. “We were all excited to see the progress the city was making,” Mark Edelson, a lawyer who filed a lawsuit to stop the demolition of the Canton bike lane, told the Sun. “We’ve very concerned about the recent path of regression.”
City Councilman Ryan Dorsey told the Sun that many of Baltimore’s poorest residents lack access to vehicles — making bike-friendly streets essential.
The mayor rebuffed the idea that she is against more bicycle infrastructure. “The message that has gone out is just so wrong,” Pugh told the Sun. “This is about protecting everybody. I think about the number of fires that I’ve gone to in just a short time here. What if somebody can’t get to that?”
Edelson co-authored a Sun op-ed last week accusing the city of abandoning a yearslong public planning process around bicycle infrastructure, noting the safety issues. “We spoke with members of the Baltimore City Fire Department to understand the implications of the International Fire Code, which appeared to be selectively applied,” the op-ed said.
Safety is not a new issue for bike lane and parking planning. When the same concerns came up in Oregon, a collaborative process led to the establishment of statewide bike lane and parking spot guidelines that take into account prevailing fire department vehicle standards — in the year 2000.
According to the Sun, Pugh points a finger to the administration of her predecessor, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, for approving the bike lane without what she deemed proper planning. “It is difficult at best to maneuver on that street,” she said to the Sun. “If you lived on that street, you would want a fire truck to be able to get down your street.”Glenn Maxwell says it has been "painful" to be batting further down the order than wicketkeeper and captain Matthew Wade at state level, believing the decision may have hurt his chances of a Test recall this summer despite an impressive recent first-class record.
The electrifying all-rounder is back in an Australian uniform this week for Sunday's first one-dayer against New Zealand at the SCG but was overlooked for a first ever Test appearance on home soil when selectors changed more than half the squad for the pink-ball Test against South Africa in Adelaide.
'I think because he's captain and he chooses the batting order': Glenn Maxwell would like to bat higher in the order for Victoria. Credit:AP
Not helping his cause this season has been where Wade, the Bushrangers captain and recalled Test gloveman, has had him batting for the defending Sheffield Shield champions.
In the crucial match against NSW at the SCG last month that featured most of the Test squad and led into the selection of the new-look line-up for Adelaide, Maxwell batted at No.6, behind all-rounder Marcus Stoinis at No.3, Peter Handscomb at No.4 and Wade himself at No.5. In the other match Wade and Maxwell have played alongside each other in the Shield this season the captain has also batted himself above the all-rounder.This article is about the HOPE Scholarship in Georgia. For the national tax credit, see Hope Scholarship Credit
The HOPE Program (Helping Outstanding Pupils Educationally) created in 1993 under the supervision of Georgia Governor Zell Miller, is Georgia's unique scholarship and grant program that rewards students with financial assistance in degree, diploma, and certificate programs at eligible Georgia public and private colleges and universities, and public technical colleges[1]. HOPE is funded entirely by revenue from the Georgia Lottery and is administered by the Georgia Student Finance Commission (GSFC). Students can benefit from HOPE in several ways.
Georgia Governor Zell Miller was responsible for the creation for the HOPE Scholarship
The HOPE Scholarship program is for students who have demonstrated academic achievement and are seeking a college degree. There are several ways to become eligible for the HOPE Scholarship, either by graduating from high school as a HOPE Scholar or by earning it while in college. For more information, please review the HOPE Scholarship regulations. The HOPE Grant program is for students seeking a technical certification or diploma, regardless of the student's high school grade point average or graduation date. For more information, please review the HOPE Grant regulations. The Zell Miller Scholarship program is for students who have demonstrated academic achievement and are seeking a college degree. Generally, to become eligible, a student must graduate from an eligible high school with a 3.70 GPA and a minimum score on the SAT/ACT.
As of 2006, more than $3 billion in scholarships had been awarded to more than 900,000 Georgia students.[2] As of 2018, HOPE has already helped around 1.8 million students from Georgia enroll in college[3].
The program is entirely merit-based, meaning that a person's eligibility for the scholarship is based on their academic achievement in high school or college. Previously, traditional-college-age students whose family income exceeded $100,000 per year were disqualified from the program.
To receive HOPE Scholarship funding, students must meet one of the following academic requirements:[4]
Graduate from a HOPE-eligible high school with a 3.0 grade point average for college preparatory diploma or a 3.2 grade point average for other diploma types.
Complete a HOPE eligible home study program with a 3.0 grade point average.
For all Georgia high school graduates who begin their high school careers during or after the 2008-2009 school year must graduate with a 3.0 grade point average.
Graduate from an eligible high school, complete an eligible home study program, or earn a GED, and score in the national composite 85th percentile or higher on the SAT or ACT tests.
Graduate from an ineligible high school or complete an ineligible home study program, and then earn a 3.0 grade point average on 30 semester hours or 45 quarter hours of college degree-level coursework. This option allows for payment of the first 30 semester hours or 45 quarter hours after they are taken.
Earn a 3.0 grade point average at the college level on degree coursework after attempting 30, 60, or 90 semesters hours or 45, 90, or 135 quarter hours, regardless of high school graduation status.
And all of the following other requirements.
Be enrolled as a degree-seeking student at an eligible public or private college or university or technical college in Georgia.
Meet HOPE's Georgia residency requirements.
Meet HOPE's U.S. citizenship or eligible non-citizen requirements.
Be in compliance with Selective Service registration requirements.
Be in compliance with the Georgia Drug-Free Postsecondary Education Act of 1990. A student may be ineligible for HOPE payment if he or she has been convicted for committing certain felony offenses involving marijuana, controlled substances, or dangerous drugs.
Not be in default or owe a refund on a student financial aid program.
Maintain satisfactory academic progress as defined by the college.
The Hope Scholarship regulations and requirements are codified in Georgia law and has undergone a number of changes by the Georgia Legislature.[5]
The scholarship is now based on lottery revenue. Books and mandatory fees have also been eliminated. The scholarship is now capped at 127 credit hours. A student has only 7 years in order to receive payments for the scholarship. For the 2011-2012 school year, the scholarship will pay for 90% of tuition of the 2010-2011 school year.For HOPE recipients who attend private colleges in Georgia, an equivalent amount is applied toward tuition, currently 3,600 for the 2011-2012 year.
There is also another scholarship within HOPE called the Zell Miller Scholarship. In order to qualify for this scholarship, a student must meet all of the requirements of the HOPE Scholarship. A student must also graduate with a 3.7 High School HOPE GPA and must have a score of 1200 (CR+M) on a single administration of the SAT or a 26 ACT Composite and must maintain a college cumulative GPA of a 3.3. This Scholarship will pay for 100% of tuition, including $4,000 at private colleges. Books and mandatory fees have also been eliminated.
Fall 2011 HOPE HOPE Scholarship for Tuition (based on several GA Univ Rates of $2298 * 90%) = $2068.20 per semester (assumes 15 hours) - HOPE per hour ($2298 * 90%/15) = $137.88 per hour - HOPE for Fees = $0 - HOPE for Book Allowance = $0
In 2005, a decrease in lottery revenue led to questions about whether sufficient funding would be available to continue offering the scholarship in its present form. Several suggestions were made to decrease the program's costs, including tying the scholarship to standardized test scores or checking students' college GPAs more frequently to avoid paying tuition for students who had dipped below 3.0. Political rivals of Governor Sonny Perdue criticized his management of the program, and HOPE's future became an important state political issue. Much of that year's debate was rendered moot when lottery sales increased the next year.
History [ edit ]
January 14, 1991: Zell Miller is inaugurated as Georgia's 79th governor. He introduces legislation before the General Assembly to establish a lottery. A statewide referendum must be passed to amend the Georgia Constitution to allow a lottery.
January 31, 1991: Resolution to put lottery amendment before voters passes the Georgia House 126-51 and is adopted by a 47-9 vote of the Georgia Senate.
November 3, 1992: Georgia voters pass the lottery amendment 1,146,340-1,050,674.
November 1992-August 1993: Governor Miller establishes three distinct and individually funded lottery programs: the HOPE Scholarship Program, a voluntary pre-kindergarten program for four-year-olds, and an instructional technology program.
June 29, 1993: The first Georgia Lottery ticket is sold, sparking a windfall of unprecedented lottery sales. Georgia's first year of sales brought in a national record of $1.13 billion, providing $360 million for the three education programs.
September 1, 1993: Georgia's first HOPE Scholarship is awarded to Matthew Miller of Snellville, Georgia to attend Gwinnett Technical College.
July 1, 1994: HOPE makes its first expansion to cover four rather than two years of tuition. In addition, mandatory fees and a $100 per quarter book allowance will be paid for the first time.
July 1, 1995:
The $100,000 family income-eligibility cap for HOPE is abolished.
Governor Miller decides to give students who lose their HOPE Scholarships after their freshman year a second chance. If the student completes the sophomore year with a cumulative B average, they will receive HOPE their junior year.
Nontraditional students (who graduated before the HOPE program began in 1993) may qualify for HOPE after their sophomore year.
July 11, 1995: President Clinton models his America's Hope program, a tax credit for the cost of two year of education beyond high school, after the success of Georgia's HOPE Program.
July 1, 1996: Private college students for the first time must earn and maintain a B average to receive HOPE. As a result, the previous $1,500 grant is changed to a $3000 scholarship.
November 3, 1996: Entering freshmen high school students (Class of 2000) must now earn a B average in the core curriculum courses of English, math, social studies, foreign language and science to receive the HOPE Scholarship upon graduation.
July 1, 1997: Nontraditional student may now qualify for HOPE after their freshman or sophomore years.
November 18, 1997: The Georgia Student Finance Commission adopts a policy to allow home school students who maintain a B average during their first year in college to retroactively qualify for a HOPE Scholarship during the 1997-1998 school year.
April 1998: The National Association of State Student Grant and Aid Programs (NASSGAP) releases a study that says Georgia is ranked Number One among the 50 states in academic-based student financial aid because of the HOPE Scholarship.
June 29, 1998: The Council on School Performance releases a study that concludes: "We found that recipients of Georgia's HOPE Scholarship are more likely to remain enrolled in college, have higher college grade point averages and have earned more credit hours than students without the scholarship."
September 1, 1998: Five years after its inception, the HOPE Scholarship has awarded 319,000 students more than $580 million.
November 3, 1998: Georgia voters elect to create a Constitutional amendment protecting the HOPE Scholarship Program from legislative and political tampering.
May 17, 1999: For the second year in a row, the National Association of State Student Grant and Aid Programs ranked Georgia Number One among 50 states in academic-based student financial aid because of the HOPE Scholarship.
September 29, 1999: Yomaris Figueroa of McDonough, a freshman at Georgia State University in Atlanta, was congratulated by Governor Roy E. Barnes as Georgia's 400,000th HOPE Scholarship recipient.
March 2000: For the third year in a row, the National Association of State Student Grant and Aid Programs ranked Georgia Number One among 50 states in academic-based student financial aid because of the HOPE Scholarship.
July 1, 2000: Students can receive the full benefits of Georgia's HOPE Scholarship and the federal Pell Grant making a college education for Georgia students even more affordable.
October 2000: Seven years after its inception, the HOPE Scholarship has more than 500,000 awards totaling $1 billion.
March 2001: For the fourth year in a row, the National Association of State Student Grant and Aid Programs ranked Georgia Number One among 50 states in academic-based student financial aid because of the HOPE Scholarship.
April 2002: HOPE reaches new milestones: More than 600,000 students have received HOPE awards totaling more than $1.5 billion. Also, thanks to HOPE, for the fifth year in a row Georgia leads the nation in providing academic-based financial aid.
March 2003: The Georgia General Assembly created the Improvement of the HOPE Scholarship Joint Study Commission. The purpose of the Commission was to identify and recommend actions to ensure adequate funding of the HOPE program for years to come.
April 2003: For the sixth year in a row, the National Association of State Student Grant and Aid Programs ranked Georgia Number One among 50 states in academic-based student financial aid because of the HOPE Scholarship.
January 2004: After meeting throughout the latter half of 2003, the HOPE Study Commission made its recommendations in January 2004.
May 2004: House Bill 1325 was signed into law, creating the most significant changes in the HOPE program since its beginning.
January 2007: The HOPE program reaches the milestone of assisting 1 million individual recipients.
May 2007: The new HOPE Scholarship high school grade point average calculation and transcript exchange project was implemented, in accordance with House Bill 1325 passed in 2004.
July 2008: The HOPE Scholarship award amount for students attending private colleges was increased from $3,000 per academic year to $3,500 per academic year. Senate Bill 492 was implemented, which increased the Georgia residency requirement for the HOPE Scholarship to 24 months for students who did not graduate from high school as a Georgia resident. In addition, changes were made to the treatment of post-secondary coursework taken while in high school, for purposes of the HOPE Scholarship and HOPE Grant eligibility. House Bill 152 was implemented, which allows home study student, ineligible high school graduates, and GED recipients to gain HOPE Scholarship eligibility by scoring in the 85th percentile on the SAT/ACT.[6]
March 2011: Georgia Governor Nathan Deal, together with state legislative leaders, pushed a new law into effect, raising the GPA requirements for HOPE and eliminating payments for books and mandatory fees. The new HOPE Scholarship, or HOPE Lite, will now be based on Lottery revenue. The new scholarship within HOPE, the Zell Miller Scholarship, will cover 100% of tuition for those students who graduate with a 3.7 HOPE GPA and receive a score of 1200 (CR+M) on the SAT or a 26 ACT Composite at public colleges ($4,000 at private colleges), and maintain a 3.3 GPA while in college. Books and fees have also been eliminated for this scholarship as well. These changes also added additional academic rigor requirements to take effect in stages starting in 2015 and going through 2017. These requirements define the type and number of specific core academic courses required for graduation eligibility for the Hope Scholarship, including raising the required GPA for students to be eligible for the HOPE Grant to 3.0.[7] Although these changes have taken some of the strain off of Georgia's finances, it has also resulted in about 1/4th of all Technical College students dropping out of college and increases in the accrued debt of those who remained.[8]
March 2013: State Representative Stacey Evans introduces House Bill 54 to reverse some of the changes to the HOPE Scholarship program and, she claimed, help more Georgia students realize their dream and the original purpose of the HOPE program.[9] Her ideas were incorporated into House Bill 372 which lowered the required GPA for HOPE Grants (the HOPE Scholarship for Technical Schools) back to the original 2.0 and bringing back 5,000 students into Technical College in the first year alone.[10]
Award history [ edit ]
Fiscal Year HOPE Recipients HOPE Awards 1993–1994 42,797 $21.4 million 1994–1995 98,399 $83.7 million 1995–1996 122,978 $133.7 million 1996–1997 128,355 $153.2 million 1997–1998 136,663 $173.2 million 1998–1999 141,103 $189.0 million 1999–2000 148,194 $208.6 million 2000–2001 169,173 $276.6 million 2001–2002 195,860 $322.6 million 2002–2003 212,631 $361.7 million 2003–2004 222,552 $405.8 million 2004–2005 222,272 $427.0 million 2005–2006 212,587 $436.0 million 2006–2007 207,345 $452.1 million 2007–2008 202,368 $459.6 million 2008–2009 216,201 $522.6 million 2009–2010 248,213 $640.0 million 2010–2011 238,489 $679.0 million
[6]
Awards [ edit ]
The money provided to HOPE Scholars varies and depends on the type of institution as well as the student's specific enrollment.[4]
Public institutions [ edit ]
Tuition for number of hours enrolled whether full-time or part-time,,
Private institutions [ edit ]
Full-time students: $1,800 per semester, $1,300 per quarter
Half-time students: $900 per semester, $670 per quarter
Application procedures [ edit ]
To apply for the HOPE Scholarship, students must follow the registration demands of the school they chose.
Public colleges, universities, and technical colleges [ edit ]
Students planning to attend a public college, university, or technical college have two options for applying for the HOPE Scholarship.
Complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA): By using a GAcollege411 account and accessing the FAFSA application from GAcollege411, applicants can reduce the amount of time it takes to complete this form.
Or one can apply for the HOPE Scholarship by: electronic application, or printable paper application.
Private colleges and universities [ edit ]
Students planning to attend an eligible private college or university must complete the HOPE/TEG application to be considered for the HOPE Scholarship
Goals [ edit ]
The HOPE program has two stated goals:[citation needed]
To offer academically superior students who would not otherwise be able to afford college the opportunity to receive higher education and To offer an incentive to academically-superior students who can afford to attend college to remain in the state of Georgia, countering the "brain drain" phenomenon Georgia was experiencing prior to the program, when many talented students were attending universities in other states.[4]
Criticism [ edit ]
Non Traditional Students were not grandfathered in with the 2011 Changes.[11] This has led to allegations of age discrimination[12] because students who had not received the grant before Summer 2011 and had graduated from high school more than seven years past were disqualified based on a new "seven year" criteria[13][14][15] that has in subsequent years been modified. Critics were with Governor Nathan Deal and the sponsors of the bill that caused this change.[citation needed]
Similar scholarship lotteries in other states [ edit ]Superman Lives began development in 1994 as soon as Warner Bros. reacquired the rights to Superman from the Salkinds. It was to be directed by Tim Burton, starring Nic Cage and written by Kevin Smith. This film never got going, or in Burton's words was "made in his head" but he made the error common in films that never get made in that he "forgot to film it". The story was to be an adaptation of the immensely popular comic book Death Of Superman and Warner Brother's after chucking out various scripts went with Clerks writer/director Kevin Smith. Smith seemed the perfect choice to write Superman Lives but had a formidable advisory in producer and former hairdresser Jon Peters who's obsessions with gay robot's, giant spiders, space dogs and Polar Bears would make Smith's work a little difficult. Peters had produced the first two highly successful Batman films and both he and the WB discovered that they made more in merchandising than from the actual movies themselves. Jonny boy's problem is that he wants Superman to be more like a trip to Toys'R'Us than a kick ass movie. So he added pointless contraptions, suits and doo-hickies to the film purely to make toys of them. When Burton arrived one of his first acts was to trash Kevin Smith's script. He wanted to bring in all his own writers and thus began the Smith vs. Burton catfight. Smith threatened legal action in 2001 for Burton's 'Ape Lincoln' ending in Planet Of The Apes which he had done in a Jay & Silent Bob comic years before. Burton claimed not to read comics and never to have read anything by Kevin Smith. Now whenever Smith signs bootleg Superman Lives scripts he writes F*** Tim Burton. if anyone has one of these bad boys I'd appreciate it if they can scan it in and send it this way! Nic Cage was cast as Supes - much to the dismay of pretty much everyone. Cage is a comic book fan and took the Superman gig with much enthusiasm and also came up with this quote which I thought I'd include as it's pure cheese "I hope I can still do this because I think it will be a very enchanted movie." Wanting to reach out to the kids Cage went on "It's OK to be different because Superman is different. If one child sees that and says'maybe I'm Superman' then I've done my job." I actually quite like Nic Cage and enjoy his films it's just I think he was the wrong choice for this role - casting such a big name as Superman is generally a bad idea. The producers of the original Superman movie wanted Robert Redford to be The Man Of Steel but director Richard Donner wisely persuaded them to go with the then unknown Christopher Reeve. This decision was based on the fact that the audience would be seeing a star in tights and wouldn't believe the character. This is why Cage was a much loathed choice for the role, people just weren't ready to buy Cage as Superman. Burton and Cage eventually left the project. With both saying it took "too long" and the were right. The film was to be based around the Death and Return of Superman comic book story arc. After Burton left various directors were linked including Oliver Stone and Robert Rodriguez but nobody committed. Scriptwriters came and went each writing screenplays that didn't do The Man of Steel justice. The WB eventually made a decision to put Superman on ice and go with the rootin' tootin' Will Smith classic Wild, Wild West as their big summer blockbuster. Things didn't go quite as planned and the Jon Peters produced western bombed. It seems giant spiders DON'T equal success at the box office after all! Edward Gross Articles SUPERMAN LIVES - Part 1: The Development Hell of an Unmade Film
SUPERMAN LIVES - Part 2: Writer Kevin Smith
SUPERMAN LIVES - Part 3: Nicolas CageIn the wake of the tragic terrorist attack in Tunis which killed a number of cruise ship passengers, Steven Jones looks at how the industry is reassessing the risks it faces.
As the “MSC Splendida” and “Costa Fascinosa” arrived in the capital, Tunis, tourists spilled out and headed to the usual hotspots. Almost immediately they were caught up in a brutal massacre as jihadi gunmen disguised as soldiers sprayed bullets at the scores of Western holiday makers. In total 19 died and many more were injured.
Security ashore
It can perhaps be a little bewildering when stepping from the cossetted luxury of the latest giant cruise ship into a new port of call, but of course each has their own harsh realities which can seriously impact visitors.
Eqypt has long suffered from terror attacks in its Red Sea tourist resorts, and Mexico and some Caribbean islands have seen cruise ship passengers robbed, raped and even murdered. The sunny, smiling image of the cruise idyll does not always sit well alongside the real conditions of the countries being visited.
Tunisia has now perhaps seen the 360 degree ripple of the effect which itself started with the Jasmine Revolution which set off the domino effect of the Arab Spring. With the collapse of regional partners and rise of Islamic State, it has perhaps been a country very close to, if not in the firing line.
Security advice
According to the UK Government, there is a high threat from terrorism, including kidnapping. Attacks could be indiscriminate, including in places visited by foreigners. After the attack at the Bardo museum in the centre of Tunis the UK believes that further attacks are possible.
While the US advice is that, terrorism also remains a significant concern. Tunisian nationals have been involved in international terrorism, and international terrorist organisations have on multiple occasions called for attacks in North Africa, including in Tunisia.
So was the risk of attack properly assessed by the cruise company, tour operator, and did the tourists themselves have access to sufficient information to make an informed decision?
Avoiding problems
Cruise operators have a duty of care for the passengers on board the vessel and they will organise trips on behalf of passengers. Some experts believe that it would be difficult to hold a cruise operator or the tour operator liable for events such as terror attacks as there may be no way of envisaging such a terrible event.
Given the wealth of risk analysis tools, or guidance from governments and the responsibility imposed by the International Ship and Port Facility Security (ISPS) Code, there is a real emphasis and impetus behind cruise lines analysing risks effectively and of guiding passengers accordingly.
The trust and blind faith that passengers can sometimes display means that the duty of care which cruise operators have to extend to their passengers runs even deeper than perhaps may reasonably be expected. There can be a naivety displayed by some cruise passengers, and they may need protecting not just from criminals and terrorists, but from themselves.
Share this story:
TweetEdmonds police arrested a 62-year-old man Wednesday night in connected to the death of his roommate. (Photo: KOMO News)
EDMONDS, Wash. - Edmonds police arrested a 62-year-old man Wednesday night in the death of his roommate.
An autopsy determined the 45-year-old woman had five blunt-force trauma injuries to her head. She also had injuries to her noise and cheek bones that were consistent with being stomped, court documents say.
Officers found the woman dead on Monday night, after they responded to a call of'suspicious circumstances' at the home on 236th Street Southwest.
Investigators saw blood throughout the studio apartment, court documents say. The man, who court documents say was drunk, told them that the woman had fallen.
He suggested that the woman might have overdosed from a combination of alcohol and medication.
Officers went back to the home on Wednesday night and took the man into custody. He was questioned, then booked into the Snohomish County Jail for investigation of second-degree murder.
He told detectives that he and the woman had an argument on Thursday, Dec. 15. He denied killing her, court documents say.
But court documents say he also told detectives: "I'm a mellow person. Women can drive men crazy and... anyway it just escalated from me doing chores here and there and everywhere and that, ah, I don't know. I just lost it."The Malone family wanted to speak about the shooting of their dog by a Wynnewood police officer at the Wynnewood City Council meeting, but the topic was removed from the agenda. (Steven Anderson / KOKH)
An update to a story FOX 25 first broke in July. The family of a dog, that was shot and killed at a child's birthday party, by a Wynnewood Police officer is speaking out.
They were demanding answers at a City Council meeting Monday. They are now asking for that officer to be removed from the force.
It's now been weeks since Vickie Malone's son's fifth birthday party. Her yard, that was once filled with playing kids is now empty. She says her son is still too afraid to go outside.
"We finally got them so they will come back outside and play. They don't really play like they used to,"says Malone.
On Saturday, July 16th, a birthday party was going on at the family's Wynnewood home. Officer Franklin came to serve a warrant, but he went to the wrong house.
"He said he was serving a warrant. We have yet to see that warrant. I mean we've seen a copy of it, it wasn't our address," says Malone.
The person he was looking for was not at that address. While Franklin was on the property, he shot and killed the family dog.
"That officer had been here a couple of times. He knew who lived here, he knew that we had kids, and why he pulled out a gun in a residential neighborhood with a house full of kids, I don't know," says Malone.
The family wants answers, and an apology. Something they say they never got. They showed up to a public meeting Monday at City Hall. They asked the council to remove Officer Franklin from the force, but the council said there was nothing they could do.
"That man should not have a gun. he should not be allowed to carry a gun. And this is not the first time that he has put others in danger. He should lose his job over this," says Malone.
Officer Franklin was also the officer involved in a high speed police chase, involving a group of motorcyclists FOX 25 showed you earlier this year. As of right now he remains on the force.
Stay with FOX 25 as we continue to follow this story.Karl Rove has been rather chatty of late. He’s taken a hammer to Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) over the birther nonsense and to Herman Cain for basic unpreparedness. MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell thought Rove was “trying to circle the wagons around Mitt Romney as an inevitable nominee.” While I saw where he was coming from, I had a different take. Rove isn’t circling the wagons around Romney. He’s circling the wagons around the Republican Party as a legitimate political party in the United States.
Rove is not alone in this endeavor.
“Any other issue that gets injected to the campaign is not good for the Republicans,” Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) said Tuesday. “Republicans should want this election to be what American presidential elections have always been: a referendum on the incumbent’s record. Barack Obama cannot win a second term running on his record. Zero chance. So anybody who talks about anything else is off-subject.”
Former Florida governor Jeb Bush, who has pretty much stayed out of the Republican primary process, told my colleague Jennifer Rubin of “Right Turn,” “Republican candidates should categorically reject the notion that President Obama was not born in the United States. It is a complete distraction from the failed economic policies of the president.”
Even televangelist Pat Robertson, master of the extreme and repugnant, has cautioned the GOP. “Those people in the Republican primary have got to lay off of this stuff,” he said Tuesday. “They’re forcing their leaders, the front-runners, into positions that will mean they lose the general election.... They’ve got to stop this! It’s just so counterproductive!”
While their comments are focused on nominating someone who could beat a vulnerable incumbent, the secondary and more pressing objective is to save the party from being overtaken by the radical fringe. Unfortunately, their concern is coming years too late. At the height of the birther craziness, responsible Republican leaders remained mute while the legitimacy of President Obama was questioned, despite ample evidence to the contrary. In the early days of the Tea Party movement, when extremists armed themselves with incendiary rhetoric and some with actual guns, responsible Republican leaders turned a blind eye and a deaf ear. The result of the GOP’s flirtation with the fringe is the once-unfathomable phrase “front-runner Herman Cain.”
The former Godfather’s Pizza chief executive is woefully unprepared for a run for the White House, let alone a victory that puts him in the White House. As Time’s Swampland reported on Monday, Cain has little to no presence in key states, including New Hampshire and South Carolina. The same goes for Iowa, according to a report from Slate last week. And yet, despite all his policy gaffes and head-scratching antics from his campaign, Cain rides a wave of growing support.
The just-released New York Times/CBS News poll gives Cain (25 percent) a four-point edge over Mitt Romney (21 percent). But it’s a statistical tie since the margin of error is plus or minus three percentage points. In Iowa, Cain (37 percent) leads Romney (27 percent). In New Hampshire, Romney’s home-field advantage as the former governor of Massachusetts who also owns a home in the Granite State comes into play. He leads Cain by 22 points. But in South Carolina, Cain is riding high.
South Carolina is where Perry’s birther play and Cain’s rise spell trouble for the Republican Party. A poll of Republican primary voters by the State newspaper showed that one in three believe that Obama is a Muslim and 36 percent believe the president was born in another country. To get their votes, win the primary and possibly save their campaigns, who knows how much lower Cain, Perry and anyone else barely hanging on will go. But there is one ray of hope for the GOP. The NYT/CBS News poll shows that 80 percent of those surveyed who expressed support for a specific candidate say it is “still too early to say for sure” that they’ll vote for that person. Where they decide to put their support ultimately will determine whether the Republican Party's nose dive into political oblivion will be averted.The Republican National Committee paid tribute to Abraham Lincoln on Twitter on Sunday by sharing a quote from the 16th president on what would’ve been his 208th birthday.
“In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count,” the quote read. “It’s the life in your years.”
The same quote and image was also posted to President Trump’s Instagram feed.
Just one little problem: Lincoln never said that.
The RNC’s tweet (@GOP) More
It appears the quote first appeared in a 1947 advertisement for a book about aging by Dr. Edward J. Stieglitz.
The flub did not go unnoticed on the Internet, as Twitter users mocked the GOP by gleefully sharing their own misattributed Lincoln quotes.
|
320s is temporary, but it did bring up an interesting question. As enterprise SSD endurance is heavily dependent on write amplification, how would Intel's SandForce based SSD 520 handle enterprise workloads given that its effective write amplification is often times less than 1x?
If you were able to average 0.5x write amplification with Intel's SSD 520, your 5000 p/e cycle MLC NAND would behave more like 10000 p/e cycle NAND. While that's still short of what you get from eMLC, it is perhaps enough to be a better balance of price/performance for many SMB enterprise customers.
It was time to do some investigating...The American Time Use Survey is an ongoing program from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that asks thousands of people, as you might guess, what they did during the last 24 hours.
Using the data for 2015, I simulated days for different groups of people so that you can see the hours they typically spend in a 24-hour period. The interactive below shows the results.
Each row represents an activity, and each gray line represents the hours spent in one person’s day. I ran 100 simulations for each demographic group. The orange line shows the median hours for each activity.
For some activities, such as household work and leisure, the number of hours spent varies a lot, which is why you see a lot of criss-crossing lines. However, for other activities, such as sleeping and work, there’s more of pattern, which is why you see a lot of lines headed in the same direction.
Tip: Switch to the absolute scale to compare various demographics. This puts the horizontal scale for every activity at 0 to 24 hours.
More on How Americans Spend Their Day
A Day in the Life of Americans
I used similar data to simulate an average day for 1,000 Americans.
Most Common Activities
See the half-hour breakdowns for a day, by sex and age group.
Counting the Hours
Here are the half-hour distributions for all Americans.
Nerd NotesC++ User Group Meetings in October 2013
published at 04.10.2013 18:00 by Jens Weller
Also in October a lot of C++ User Groups are meeting again. For Europe its 6 User Groups meeting, with a new one in Wroclaw, Poland!
The listing of all to me known meetings:
So, thats 12 C++ User Groups meeting in October, again, please contact me if I forgot about one. For Europe its nice to see that a new C++ User Group is taking shape in Wroclaw, Poland. Also there is some activity in Spain, more about that in November :)
And, as November gets closer, Meeting C++ will happen soon. I'm looking forward to meet some of you there!
Join the Meeting C++ patreon community!
This and other posts on Meeting C++ are enabled by my supporters on patreon!For 35 years, the family of Kelly Cook has waited for answers. Decades have come and gone, but still, the 15-year-old’s death remains a mystery.
Marnie Kathol is Kelly’s younger sister. She fights back tears whenever she talks about her loss.
“I feel ripped off,” Kathol said. “I feel my family has been ripped off…and my family now–my children.”
“It’s shocking that we’re still sitting here 35 years later still talking about it, with no more answers than we had 35 years ago basically.”
Watch archive below: Files upon files fill RCMP shelves, but investigators said they were no closer to finding Kelly Cook’s killer on August 31, 2010 than they were in 1981. Nancy Hixt has the details of the mysterious case.
April 22, 1981 started out like a normal day in the small farming community of Standard, Alta., about 70 kilometres northeast of Calgary.
Kelly got a phone call from a man using the name Bill Christensen, who said he wanted a babysitter. Another girl had turned him down, and gave him Kelly’s number.
Hours later, a car showed up at the Cook family home. That was the last time Kelly was seen alive.
“I remember going to bed and waking up probably after midnight and the police were already there,” Kathol said.
The RCMP started their investigation just four hours after Kelly was taken.
Watch archive video below: There was new hope in the case of the disappearance of Kelly Cook in September 2010, when police reopened their investigation less than 24 hours after a Global News story. Nancy Hixt reports.
For weeks, searchers scoured rural properties and outbuildings.
Two months later, Kelly’s body was found in an irrigation canal south of Taber. She had to be identified through dental records.
“We have a lot of questions, but it’s kind of scary to think that we might one day have the answers, and they might not be what we are looking for.”
Investigators have worked tirelessly on the case for decades.
There’s a special room dedicated to the files for the Cook homicide, it’s filled to the roof with boxes and boxes of evidence.
More than 2,000 possible suspects have been looked at, and police confirm the investigation remains active.
RCMP believe this was a well-planned crime.
They have a sketch of the man they believe is responsible, but no arrests have ever been made.
“It’s just life now,” said Kathol. “It’s just what we’ve had to learn to live with. There’s no acceptance in it, there’s no ‘closure,’ if you want to use that word.”
While the Cook family has always hoped for justice, after 35 years, they say the thought of an arrest is almost as scary as living with the mystery.
“If it all changed tomorrow and we had all those answers, I don’t know if any of us are prepared for that. Justice makes that individual accountable, but it doesn’t bring her home, it doesn’t change it.”
A $100,000 reward is being offered by the Village of Standard for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Kelly’s killer. Anyone with information is asked to call the Serious Crimes Branch South Airdrie “K” (AB) Division at 403-420-4900 or Crime Stoppers 1-800-222-8477.PALO ALTO – Tesla fired hundreds of workers this week, including engineers, managers and factory workers, even as the company struggles to expand its manufacturing and product line.
The dismissals come at a crucial point for the company, which is pushing to increase vehicle production five-fold and reach a broader market with its new Model 3 sedan. The electric vehicle maker missed targets for producing the lower-cost sedan, manufacturing only 260 last quarter despite a wait list of more than 450,000 customers.
The company said this week’s dismissals were the result of a company-wide annual review, and insisted they were not layoffs. Some workers received promotions and bonuses, and the company expects to hire for the “vast majority” of new vacancies, a spokesman said.
“As with any company, especially one of over 33,000 employees, performance reviews also occasionally result in employee departures,” a spokesman said. “Tesla is continuing to grow and hire new employees around the world.”
For more Tesla news follow us on Flipboard.
In multiple interviews, former and current employees told this news organization little or no warning preceded the dismissals. The workers interviewed include trained engineers working on vehicle design and production, a supervisor and factory employees.
Workers estimated between 400 and 700 employees have been fired. Tesla refused to say how many employees were let go, although the company expects employee turnover to be similar to last year’s attrition.
The spokesman said most of the dismissals were administrative and sales positions, and outside of manufacturing. Tesla employs about 10,000 workers at its Fremont factory.
Workers spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared reprisals from the company. Employees said the firings have lowered morale through many departments. Several said Model X, Model S and former SolarCity operations seemed to be targeted.
Juan Maldonado, a production worker, felt the tap on his shoulder on Thursday. He worked at Tesla for nearly four years, and said he heard about 60 other workers in his section of the factory were dismissed.
Maldonado, 48, said he ran late for work twice in recent months, but thought he had straightened things out with his supervisor. Now, he said, “I’m going to try to find a job.”
CEO Elon Musk said factory output will increase production to a half-million electric vehicles in 2018. The company expects to deliver about 100,000 vehicles this year.
Musk has told investors the company is focused on Model 3 production and expects to eventually build 10,000 cars a week. The manufacturing will become highly automated, but Musk told investors during the early ramp up he expected high overtime costs.
He also joked to employees they would be going through “production hell” to meet demand for the new car. The company said recently a manufacturing bottleneck caused it to fall far short of its goal to produce 1,500 Model 3s in the quarter.
The company has also started to cut some former SolarCity operations, which were acquired by Tesla last year. In August, Tesla told state regulators it would layoff 63 workers in Roseville, including sales and administrative staff. Tesla lost $336 million in the second quarter.
Like the Argus Facebook page for neighborhood news and conversation from Fremont and beyond.
This week’s dismissals have not been reported to the state Employment Development Department, a spokeswoman said. The state generally requires companies to report layoffs of more than 50 employees in a 30-day period.
Tesla said the performance-based departures were not considered layoffs and not subject to state notifications. It also said the moves have generally boosted worker morale, as high-performing employees have been rewarded.
The clean energy company — maker of luxury electric vehicles, battery storage and solar roofs — has failed to post an annual profit even as its stock has soared on promises of revolutionary products. About 450,000 customers have placed $1,000 deposits for the Model 3.
Tesla has faced ongoing discontent from some factory workers, who have complained about work conditions and wages below the auto industry average.
Tesla has a hearing before the National Labor Relations Board in November for charges that company supervisors and security guards harassed workers distributing union literature. Tesla denied the accusations.
Openly pro-union workers were among those fired this week. Some believe they were targeted.
The company denied union activities played a role in the dismissals.
Michael Harley, managing editor at Kelley Blue Book and Autotrader, thought the dismissals could be an effort to improve vehicle production.
“It’s no secret that Tesla’s Model 3 development and ramp-up for production has been derailed,” Harley said. “A major change in staff – whether dismissal or layoff – is an indication that there is an upper level movement to put the train back on the tracks.”Labor-Starved Pear Farmers Buckle Under Bumper Crop
Enlarge this image toggle caption Deena Prichep/for NPR Deena Prichep/for NPR
It's always a bit sad to say goodbye to summer corn and tomatoes, and settle into fall.
There are consolations, though — like the new crop of pears. Over 80 percent of America's fresh pears are grown in the Pacific Northwest, and this year's harvest is slated to be one of the biggest on record.
But some of the fruit is rotting in the orchards because there aren't enough workers to pick them.
Mike McCarthy farms about 300 acres of pears in Oregon's Hood River Valley. He has about 60 workers harvesting in his fields, but would like to have about 30 more.
"Normally we would have picked these Comice [pears] at least 10 days ago, but we're just getting here now," says McCarthy. "And it's not a good thing."
Many farmers are short-staffed this year. For McCarthy, it's the third year in a row he has had a labor shortage. He's tried the employment office, but those workers didn't have any agriculture experience, and they didn't last more than a couple of days. He's looked for workers in Arizona and California, but found those states facing similar shortages.
And he even went through the government's H-2A visa program to recruit foreign workers, even though it's pretty costly for a small farm. But by the time his application was processed, the harvest season was underway. McCarthy estimates the labor shortage will cost the region $10 million to $20 million this season.
"The bottom line is there are not enough experienced agricultural workers in the United States to harvest the crops," he says.
This is undeniably hard work, and like all agriculture jobs, it's seasonal. But good pickers can earn over $200 a day. And McCarthy, like many growers out here, provides free housing. His workers tend to stay, many of them for decades. The problem is that no new workers are taking the place of the ones who retire.
Farmer Jennifer Euwer also has an aging workforce; many of the workers who gained amnesty under the 1986 IRCA ruling are still on the farm. And Euwer acknowledges that the labor is exceptionally hard.
"Pears are the heaviest, densest thing. You know, they don't float. That's why you bob for apples. Nobody bobs for pears," Euwer laughs.
"I don't know if the people who eat the fresh fruits and vegetables in the United States quite realize who is providing that to them," Euwer says. "They're the people really who are feeding the United States."
Though many workers stay for decades, their kids, like 18-year-old Angel Najera Perez, are moving on. He starts at Boise State University in the spring, hoping to major in engineering, or materials science.
"It's very hard work," Najera Perez says, as he puts in a final season to earn some college money. "Yeah, the young people are going to college. They don't really want to work here anymore."
According to Bruce Sorte, an economist with Oregon State University, Najera Perez's experience is quite common — and it leaves a gap.
"There's two things that really affect the labor supply. One is, what's the alternative — where else can they work?" Sorte notes. "And then the other thing is, of course, the status of immigration policy in the United States has a huge impact."
Sorte says the future really comes down to better guest worker programs. And that's why McCarthy is meeting with his congressman this week. But he's a bit skeptical, because it's a meeting they've had before.
"Unfortunately there's such gridlock in Washington they can't figure something out," sighs McCarthy. "I don't think we can hold our breath for that."
While he doesn't have too much faith, McCarthy is hoping these conversations bear some fruit — maybe for next year's harvest.SCOTTISH rugby claimed a unique double last night when Tim Visser was voted Players’ Player of the Year at the 2011-12 RaboDirect PRO12 awards and Glasgow full-back Stuart Hogg collected the Young Player of the Year title.
Edinburgh winger Visser was the only player to be named in the league’s ‘Dream XV’ for a third year running and is a former Young Player winner, but he was stunned to discover at the ceremony in the Cardiff Hilton last night that he had also topped the poll of his fellow players in Ireland and Wales.
It is less of a surprise when one considers that he has beaten his own try-scoring tally for the second year in a row, going from 15 last season (14 in the league) to 17 this season, again topping the league charts with 13, and adding four in the Heineken Cup this time. Visser’s tally with Edinburgh stands at 37 in 57 league matches and 43 in 74 overall.
Coming from a player in the side that has struggled to make any impact in the league, finishing second bottom in the PRO12 this season, it underlines the quality of finishing that has Visser earmarked for a call-up to the Scotland tour squad this summer.
Hogg held off competition from Ben Morgan, the Scarlets No8, and Leinster’s Ian Madigan to lift the Young Player title.
Glasgow beat Connacht 24-3 at the weekend to reach the RaboDirect play-offs, while Edinburgh rounded off their season with a 44-21 win over Treviso.
Glasgow’s managing director Nathan Bombrys said: “Glasgow Warriors have already enjoyed a very positive weekend, and Stuart Hogg and the team being recognised with these awards caps a truly memorable 24 hours.
“Stuart thoroughly deserves to be named Young Player of the Year. He has been consistently excellent for us and has the potential to develop into an even more fantastic asset in the years ahead.”Free Of Debt ready for G1 Blue Diamond Stakes Adelaide trainer Chris Bieg has known from day one Free Of Debt was a colt with considerable talent. On Saturday, the trainer gets the opportunity to test the unbeaten two-year-old …
Silver Slipper a good guide to the Golden Slipper 2019 The lure of two Group One runners in Melbourne would usually be sufficient to convince Paul Snowden to head south for the weekend. But such is his anticipation ahead of …
Material Man starts All Star Mile campaign Perth jockey Lucy Warwick expects to be racking up the frequent flyer points in coming weeks as she jets across the country to ride Material Man. Trained in Western Australia …
Blue Diamond Stakes: Beau Mertens reunites with Brooklyn Hustle Beau Mertens is hopeful the opportunity to reunite with Brooklyn Hustle in the Blue Diamond Stakes can deliver him a first win at racing’s elite level. Mertens rode Brooklyn Hustle …
Happy Clapper into All Star Mile Field Triple Group One winner Happy Clapper has secured the first wild card for the $5 million All-Star Mile at Flemington. The winner of the Epsom Handicap/Doncaster Mile double at Randwick …
2019 Golden Slipper favourite set to resume Godolphin head trainer James Cummings believes whatever wins the Silver Slipper will go on to play a starring role in the biggest two-year-old races of the autumn. Cummings saddles up …
2019 All Star Mile ruled out for The Autumn Sun Star colt The Autumn Sun is officially out of contention for the $5 million All Star Mile and has been withdrawn from the vote. With 10 of the 14 runners …Any illusion the story of poor dead Alan Kurdi wouldn't feature heavily on the Conservative campaign trail was shattered Thursday morning with the arrival at the Sheraton Vancouver Guildford hotel of the morning paper.
There, on the front, was a profoundly sad photo of the lifeless little body of the three-year-old refugee washed up on the beach, face in the surf.
It ran four columns wide, above the fold.
The picture had already appeared elsewhere. It had been on the evening newscasts the night before as well. But one could choose then whether to see it.
But there on the front of the paper the picture was impossible to avoid as it rested outside hotel room doors and on breakfast tables.
One Conservative staffer accompanying the campaign said he nearly threw up when he saw it. He'd heard about the pictures, and was trying to avoid them.
There was also the news that Vancouver was just waking up to, that Alan Kurdi and his family had ties to Canada, and might have been trying to find their way here.
One of the photos sent around the world of Alan Kurdi's lifeless body, carried by a paramilitary police officer, after a number of boats capsized near the Turkish resort of Bodrum early Wednesday. (DHA/Associated Press)
The heart-sickening death of a beautiful boy was now the only news that mattered.
Conservative Leader Stephen Harper had already seen the pictures by the time the papers hit the street.
He saw them Wednesday night on the internet, as many other people did.
He was in his suite at the Sheraton with his wife, Laureen. He looked for the pictures on purpose. And what he saw was shocking, he later told reporters, and it forced the Harpers to think back to when their strapping university-aged son Ben was just three.
As Harper told the story to reporters, his voice wavered and cracked with emotion.
Plans changed
There had been plans for a morning photo op. The campaign team had been deployed, as had security, and things were ready to go. The event was cancelled at the last minute. Harper's motorcade was prepared, but it remained parked behind the hotel.
The leader was somewhere inside, said to be in a meeting.
Kory Teneycke, Harper's key communications advisor stood outside the hotel smoking a cigarette and pacing as he talked on the phone.
News was arriving from Ottawa that Immigration Minister Chris Alexander was holed up inside the arrivals area of the Ottawa airport, while news crews waited outside. Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau had sharp words for Alexander in his morning press conference, and was calling for Harper to apologize to the boy's father.
Defence Minister Jason Kenney had been scheduled to talk at a Conservative campaign event about how the party was "protecting the integrity" of Canada's refugee system.
But it was not the right day to talk about immigration cheats, and the event was cancelled. It soon became clear the day would change in other ways, too.
The infrastructure policy announcement planned for the day was scrapped. The event would go on, but there would be none of the music and hoopla, none of the campaigning.
Instead, Harper would speak to this one issue, and then he'd take questions.
Questions, promises and politics
Today is a different sort of day, Harper acknowledged, because of those photos of little Alan.
It's what everyone is talking about, Harper said. And he told the story of how he and his wife had come to see those pictures, and to feel their emotional impact, the night before.
"It's a terrible tragedy," Harper said, "And I know all of our hearts go out to those who are touched personally by this tragedy."
As Harper spoke, across town Alan's aunt sobbed while telling the story of the difficult path to Canada the boy and the brother and mother who drowned with him would never follow.
Tima Kurdi: 'It has to be a wakeup call for the whole world" 1:42
"To be honest, I don't just want to blame the Canadian government. I'm blaming the whole world for this, not helping enough the refugee[s]," Tima Kurdi said through tears.
That question, of more help for refugees was what Harper was forced to answer at his own news conference in Surrey.
Every one of five questions asked was about Alan, or how the government would respond to the refugee crisis to which Alan's photo so painfully drew the world's attention.
"We could drive ourselves crazy with grief if we look at the, as I say, millions of people who are in danger, then tens of thousands who are dying," he offered.
"Our message has been the same all along: We are admitting more refugees. We promised that earlier in the campaign. It's one of our campaign commitments, but that is not a solution in itself."
Harper said the solution was to go after the root cause of the crisis, which he said was the horrible violence perpetrated by the fighters of the so-called Islamic State.
Perhaps the Conservatives had felt the issue had been put to bed, or that it was safe now to turn it into an attack.
Just a couple hours later at a rally in Delta, B.C., Harper referred to the heart-sickening picture, referring to the boy by name.
"It has shockingly reminded us all of the nature and of the scale of the violence in that part of the world," Harper said. "This is only one of millions of stories, and last October we were brutally reminded that such terrorist violence can come to this country."
It seems it is Harper's view that the drowning of Alan, his brother Galib and his mother Rehana — and the many more lost refugees — was not the result of the coldness of governments, the bungling of bureaucrats or the painful international policies that restrict the flow of Kurdish travellers in particular from Turkey's shores.
No, this tragic death was caused by ISIS, who must be fought.
Conservative Leader Stephen Harper stresses the continued need to combat ISIS in light of the Syrian refugee crisis and Kurdi family tragedy. 1:12
"Our opponents look at that image yesterday and say we should be doing more to help the people there," Harper told the small crowd of Conservatives gathered around him in a barn. "But how do our opponents honestly — how do our opponents, the Liberals and NDP — look at this story and reach the conclusion that we should not be fighting ISIS?"
It had not yet been 24 hours since the photo had become a symbol of the plight of refugees. And here it was now, a symbol of how the Liberal Party and the NDP were getting their foreign policy wrong.
NDP leader Thomas Mulcair responded to Harper's attack.
"No amount of military action would have saved that boy's life on that beach today," he said.UPDATE: We made it!!!! Do we even need to tell you how grateful we are? OK we do. We are soooo grateful and we feel so embraced by this wonderful online community of backers who felt MANA was a project that simply had to get made. But wait! We still have more than 2 days to go, so here's what we're gonna do: help up reach $48.000 and everyone who has backed the project with $50 or more will receive an original MANA poster by Chris Pothitakis printed on premium quality paper! You can choose one of two designs below, let's make it happen!
Hello and welcome to the MΑΝΑ Kickstarter campaign page! We’re here to introduce you to 4 extraordinary women who have raised over 300 children in the last 50 years. MANA is a feature documentary by women, about women, to empower women.
TELL ME MORE
It all started in 1962, when six best girlfriends, who had met in the schools and on the streets of Piraeus, decided to run away from home and join a convent. They were 20 years old, which might seem like a ripe old age now, but back then you couldn’t don a habit unless you had your parents’ consent or where over 21 - and the girls had neither. They were dragged back home and unceremoniously locked in their bedrooms, but there was no stopping them now! They escaped a total of three times and were forced to live in hiding for a total of three years. Their parents had recruited the police and even had the church issuing official statements forbidding the girls to walk through monastery doors. You see, they didn’t just want to become nuns. They wanted to start their own monastic order and raise other people’s children, which was the next best thing to becoming single mothers. And this was the only way they could make their dreams come true without society getting in the way.
Newspaper clipping of the girls' first arrest in 1962.
It took them a few years, but the four surviving members of the most fierce gang in Greek Orthodox Church history, have gotten single motherhood down pat. Sisters Maria, Dorothea, Parthenia, and Kaliniki have been running the Lyrio Children’s Village for over forty years, sheltering abused and unwanted children, who all call them “Mana”. This is the title of the film documenting their tumultuous lives and the work they do, which we hope will empower women across the board. MANA is a story of devotion and believing in children, the future, and how family bonds don't require blood relations.
WHAT MAKES LYRIO DIFFERENT TO OTHER ORPHANAGES?
Contrary to other orphanages/foster homes, children are not required to leave once they turn 18. They can stay put until they can stand on their own two feet, and when they do move on, most of them keep in touch and make sure to help the nuns raise the next generation.
Perched up high on a mountain overlooking the Aegean Sea, it is structured like a miniature village with five “houses”, sheltering over 65 children. The nuns grow their own vegetables and the children are taught by in-house volunteers and even have a psychologist come in on a regular basis so teenagers can discuss matters that cannot be broached in the presence of their black-clad “mothers”. Founded in 1967, the Lyrio Children’s Village is one of longest-running institutions for abandoned children in the country and it’s safe to say it’s a world unto its own…
WHY DOES THIS FILM NEED TO GET MADE?
These accidental feminists aren’t interested in public relations and never have been. They don’t do TV shows and they don't have fundraising dinners, they just do the work.
As shocking as this may sound, the Lyrio Children’s Village is not funded by the government or the church! It has only managed to survive through personal sacrifice and hard work, as the nuns made sure to take jobs before taking their vows, to ensure their dream would come true. They are ingenious and business savvy and they are more resilient than you could ever imagine. Word of mouth has been their staunchest supporter so far, and most of their donations come from people who take a sincere interest in what they do.
That’s why we feel MANA is a documentary that deserves to get made: it portrays a slice of Greek life that doesn’t make headlines because it’s not directly associated with the credit crunch and has no sensationalist potential. It’s about a handful of people channeling their spirituality in very practical, meaningful ways that make this world a better place.
WHO WE ARE
We're an all-girl team (OK, almost!) that met at the right place at the right time and decided to join forces on a project that pretty much says it all about how we feel about our place in the world.
DIRECTOR / PRODUCER: Valerie Kontakos
Valerie was born and raised in NY, studied film at NYU and dived into documentary head-first when she met up with the inimitable David and Albert Maysles (Grey Gardens)
Why should you trust her? Because she made "Who's on First?" (click to watch) and won a bunch of awards - and she can do it again!
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: Despina Pavlaki
Despina studied Communication and Mass Media in Athens and Creative Documentary in Barcelona. She decided to stick to documentary when she realized reality is stranger than fiction.
Why should you trust her: Because prior to transitioning into documentary production she selected films for festivals in Greece and Cyprus and she knows a good story when she sees one!
PRODUCTION ASSISTANT: Elisabet Pujado
Elisabet studied audiovisual communications in Barcelona and is doing her internship at Exile Films.
Why should you trust her? Because she studied at Pompeu Fabra, one of the most prestigious educational institutions in her country, which could land her any internship she damn well pleased, but she chose to come to Exile Films in little old Greece instead. Girl is committed to the cause!
PRODUCTION ASSISTANT: Eftychia Kousi
Eftychia is a social media whiz and an interpreter and subtitlist who finally saw the light and stepped on the other side of the mirror.
Why should you trust her? Because she's a born and bred riot grrrrl and is so good at her new job, we believe she was a producer in a previous life!
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Pantelis Mantzanas
Pantelis is an ace DP with some outstanding titles to his name, including Syllas Tzoumerkas' "Homeland", which conquered festivals from Karlovy Vary to Venice.
Why should you trust him? Because he likes to wear pink, which means he's in touch with his feminine side, plus all the kids at Lyrio love him!
WANT TO BECOME PART OF THE MANA COMMUNITY?
You can follow our office life, movie progress and shooting anecdotes on Mana - The Documentary Facebook PageStroll recovered from another difficult qualifying performance – having got knocked out in Q1 to line up 17th in Canada – to deliver a mature charge through the field to finish ninth.
And on the back of early season frustrations, and mounting criticisms about whether he should have been signed by Williams, Lowe said the importance of the result should not be underestimated.
"You couldn't overstate it, to be honest, on so many different levels," said Lowe, when asked by Motorsport.com about Stroll's performance.
"The way he drove today and the result he got, it feels like a race win.
"Actually coming off the pit wall, with the instinct of how I felt, I started heading towards the podium!
"It was only ninth, but it seriously felt like a race win because we know it has been a very, very difficult introduction to the sport for him."
Stroll's ongoing struggles earlier in the weekend had prompted some intense talks between Lowe and the Canadian driver's father Lawrence in Williams offices on Saturday evening.
But, although accepting things on track had not gone to plan, Lowe said the team had always remained convinced that Stroll had talent that was not being untapped by the nature of the 2017 cars and tyres.
"We have all felt for him especially in the team, willing him to get better and to make the progress," added Lowe.
"I think he went out there today and showed that he could drive. The talent was all there, the race craft was fantastic. Those points didn't fall in his lap, he went and fought for them.
"He handled some pretty tricky situations, like the traffic in Turn 1. There was lots of stuff that could have easily been mishandled.
"The benefits are immeasurable – he is going to have himself so much more confidence that he now knows what it takes.
"You know they say in this sport that when you win your first race, all the rest of them are so much easier. I am sure it is the same with points. I hope we will see that. He is out of the starting blocks and we will see that in play now."Demographic Matchmaking Cut From The Division, New DLC Details Emerge
Soon to emerge from a prolonged stint in development, Ubisoft’s post-pandemic shooter The Division has evolved rather significantly throughout the course of its production.
The companion app, for example, was axed from the new IP as it was said to give players an unfair advantage, but it isn’t the only feature that won’t make the final cut come March. According to The Examiner, Ubisoft now plans to omit demographic matchmaking from The Division, which would have taken strides to ensure players are paired with other survivors of a similar skill level and age group.
Alas, said feature will be left on the cutting room floor, with Creative Director Magnus Jansen explaining the reason behind the decision.
“It’s important for us that you notice matchmaking as little as possible. We don’t want people filling in a form or talking too much. We try to not show you the matchmaking so that when you walk into the DarkZone it’s completely seamless, there’s no wait, there’s no lobby, all of that is handled as you get close to the DarkZone. For the matchmaking, what we’ve ended up focusing on is the ping, experience, connection and focusing on as close to you as possible.”
News of demographic matchmaking being axed arrives on the heels of Ubisoft and Amazon Studios’ live-action short film, The Division: Agent Origins. To commemorate its launch, free DLC is available to those who redeem the code ‘AGENTORIGINS’ via Ubisoft’s official site when the shooter launches. It’ll unlock four sets of gear for the Paramedic, Firefighter, Police, and Hunter classes.
The Division is set for release across PS4, Xbox One and PC on March 8. Meanwhile, a closed beta for the shooter will hit PS4 later this month.
[Source: The Examiner]Composite photo of a series of images taken in the forests of Russian Far East shows adult male walking past camera trap followed by adult female, three cubs.
For the first time, a family of endangered Amur tigers have been photographed in the wild showing the adult male, followed by the adult female and three cubs, the Wildlife Conservation Society announced Friday.
A composite photo of a series of images snapped from the forests of the Russian Far East shows the entire family as it walked past a camera trap.
"We have collected hundreds of photos of tigers over the years, but this is the first time we have recorded a family together," said Svetlana Soutyrina, deputy director for scientific programs at the Sikhote-Alin Biosphere Reserve who set the camera traps. "These images confirm that male Amur tigers do participate in family life, at least occasionally, and we were lucky enough to capture one such moment."
Here's a slideshow of the passing tigers in video form:
A network of camera traps were established throughout the Sikhote-Alin Biosphere Reserve and Udegeiskaya Legenda National Park (adjacent protected areas) as part of a 2014-15 project to better understand the number of endangered Amur tigers in the region.
The biggest surprise was the series of 21 photographs showing the entire family of Amur tigers passing the same camera trap in the span of two minutes.
"Although WCS's George Schaller documented sporadic familial groups of Bengal tigers as early as the 1960s, this is the first time such behavior has been photographed for Amur tigers in the wild," WCS Russia director Dr. Dale Miquelle said. "These photos provide a small vignette of social interactions of Amur tigers, and provide an evocative snapshot of life in the wild for these magnificent animals."
Every 10 years an ambitious survey is conducted involving hundreds of scientists, hunters and volunteers to determine an estimate as to the number of remaining endangered Amur tigers in the wild. In 2005, there were an estimated 430 to 500 tigers.
Results of the survey taken in February will be released by summer.
Follow David Strege on FacebookThree days ago, PBS did a piece on the climate change debate and featured Richard Muller as an alarmist (self-described converted ex-skeptic) and Anthony Watts as a skeptic (and later others such as Judith Curry):
If you listen to those 9.5 minutes, you may agree with me that Anthony Watts was speaking as a lukewarmer. It doesn't mean that I sharply disagreed with something; I didn't. (Well, I found Anthony's focus on the urban heat islands excessive and at one point, he almost denied that there exist any natural climate drivers – but I must have overinterpreted a sentence.) But he was surely not speaking as a partisan.But the very fact that PBS dared to interview the man behind the world's most visited climate website caused an explosion of anger among the climate activists and, unfortunately, not only the climate activists. Let me mention some of these reactions. Get Energy Smart Now Dot Com thinks that the interview is "demonstrating the shallown |
of people ask me, 'Why don't you like this quarterback? He's so accurate.' I'll be like, 'He's not accurate at all.' And then they'll be like, 'He had a 75-percent completion percentage.' I'm like, 'Really? I had no idea.'"Then I'll go watch the tape and then 24 of his 30 throws were screens and bubbles. Well, that's why I don't think that because he really had four throws in the game that I considered are NFL throws and they were all over the place. So you've got to look at it all and I think a guy like C.J. – me guessing because I don't know his stats – but that stuff is not going to show up like other people."But we did see the qualities that I think it takes to be successful in the NFL and we'll see how he develops them and how much he can handle the pressure week in and week out. When you have a tough guy who is smart and has the ability to make all the throws, I think he has a good chance to play in this league."You can listen to the entire interview with Shanahan on KNBR.The Big 12 Conference announced Friday it has reached an agreement on a 13-year media rights deal with ABC/ESPN and Fox.
The deal is worth $2.6 billion, an average of $200 million per year and worth $20 million per school, industry sources told ESPN.
The package will run through the 2024-25 school year. ABC/ESPN and Fox will share the league's football inventory, while ABC/ESPN will be the exclusive provider for Big 12 men's basketball.
ESPN spokesperson Josh Krulewitz declined comment.
"The stability of the Big 12 Conference is cemented," Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby said. "We are positioned with one of the best media rights arrangements in collegiate sports, providing the conference and its members unprecedented revenue growth, and sports programming over two networks."
The deal includes a "grant of rights" agreement, meaning if a Big 12 school leaves for another league in the next 13 years, that school's media rights, including revenue, would remain with the Big 12 and not its new conference.
The grant of rights is huge for the Big 12's stability. Just last year, it appeared the league would implode by losing Texas and Oklahoma to the Pac-12. However, both schools stayed. The Big 12 did lose Missouri and Texas A&M to the SEC but replaced them this season with West Virginia and TCU.
"Today's announcement, coupled with the hiring of Bob Bowlsby as our league's new commissioner, is a great example of how well the Big 12 is positioned for the future," said Texas athletic director DeLoss Dodds, chairman of the Big 12 ADs. " This contract ensures the Big 12 Conference will continue to be one of the premier conferences in the country."
The Big 12's $20 million per school average is slightly behind the Pac-12's $21 million per school media rights deal and on par with the Big Ten's per school average. The Big 12's deal also will rank ahead of the SEC's and ACC's per school averages -- at least for now. The SEC is expected to have a more lucrative deal in the coming months.
For now, there are no plans for expansion for a league that just last fall was looking for replacements.
"We have no active agenda for expansion of the conference at this point in time," Bowlsby said. "That doesn't mean that we are oblivious to what might be other opportunities going forward, but I really believe that a period of calm would be advantageous to us and college athletics in general.... We have a lot going for us and we ought to be slow to share that unless somebody brings extraordinary cache."
Without being specific, Bowlsby said there are provisions in the new deal and an ongoing dialogue for "active issues, changing circumstances" and potential changes should there ever be league expansion and changes such as the re-establishment of a Big 12 conference championship game in football if more teams are added.
The new deal means the Big 12 and Pac-12 are the only conferences with telecast agreements with two over-the-air national networks in ABC and Fox.
The Big 12 joins the Big Ten and Pac-12 as the only conferences with grant of rights media deals.
Brett McMurphy covers college sports for ESPN. Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.Email Share +1 116 Shares
Amid increased transgender visibility and pro-trans policy changes at the federal level, a leading transgender advocacy group is seeking to recreate an influential survey to monitor developments in the trans experience.
Four years ago, the questionnaire — titled “Injustice at Every Turn” and jointly organized by the National Center for Transgender Equality and the National LGBTQ Task Force — was the most extensive survey ever taken of the transgender community and found widespread anti-trans discrimination.
Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, said her organization is renewing the survey to obtain updated data years later.
“The survey data is used by all activists, almost all journalists, so we wanted everybody to have the most up-to-date data,” Keisling said.
According to NCTE, as of Friday, a total of 12,000 people have committed online to taking the survey — almost double the 6,400 who took the 2011 survey. Keisling said she doesn’t have a goal in mind for the new survey other than an increased number of respondents and outreach to populations such as seniors and people of color. Transgender people can register here to take the survey, which will be online Aug. 19.
“Honestly, we want to see if things are improving,” Keisling said. “It’s been five years. There seems to have been a lot of cultural and policy movement, and we want to see if that’s impacting people’s lives.”
Among the findings of the survey in 2011: Transgender people faced double the rate of unemployment, nine-in-10 say they experienced harassment or discrimination on the job and 19 percent said they were refused housing because of their gender identity.
Many of the questions in the new survey would be the same, but others will be added for more complete data on the trans experience. For example, one question on the 2011 survey found 41 percent of respondents reported attempting suicide and another found one-fifth experienced homelessness at some point in their lives. The updated survey will include follow-up questions on whether these incidents of suicide and homelessness occurred in the past year for more accurate data.
Another new change is redirecting those who complete the survey, which will be anonymous, to a form allowing them share personal stories of anti-trans discrimination. The intent is to add the sense of personal experience for potential use in advocacy work at a later time.
Keisling said the personal story option portion of the survey will add to efforts for advocacy on transgender rights not just on Capitol Hill, but in state capitols and media situations.
“Everybody can opt out of that if they want, but it’s just really important for advocacy to be able to tell real people stories and to be able to find individuals who can come forward and tell their own stories,” Keisling said.
In 2011, the transgender survey was a co-project of NCTE and what is now the National LGBTQ Task Force. This time around, the Task Force has stepped aside to keep the project within NCTE.
Rea Carey, executive director of the Task Force, said in a statement to the Blade her organization is excited about the survey and supporting the launch, but opted to leave it to NCTE.
“Together, the National LGBTQ Task Force and NCTE agreed that NCTE would be the sole producer of the report this year and we look forward to seeing the results,” Carey said. “Like our work together on Injustice at Every Turn, NCTE, the National LGBTQ Task Force, and our movement will be able to use the data to continue to make the case for increased attention to the needs of all transgender people.”
Also contributing to the research team for the survey is Jody Herman, scholar of public policy at the Williams Institute, University of California, Los Angeles. As a consultant to the project, she’s working on survey question design to ensure it’s on par with federal surveys and will help with analysis once data is gathered.
“We’re going to design a public use data set so the data can be made available to other organizations or researchers, academics, so they conduct their own research with the data set, so I’m hoping it’ll fuel another wave of research about transgender people,” Herman said.
One reason for renewing the survey is the lack of information on transgender people in the American population at the federal level. Although the Department of Health & Human Services has included sexual orientation questions in health surveys, questions about gender identity have not been included.
Keisling said most information about groups of people in the United States comes from federal government initiatives, which she called “the gold standard for data,” but she said information is lacking for LGBT people.
“One of the most disappointing things about the federal government currently, and there has been so much progress on LGBT issues in the Obama administration…but still we do not have the federal government data for trans people, or even gay, bi people, or just queer people in general,” Keisling said. “We just don’t have them studying us as they should be yet. We’re going to keep pushing for that, but until then, we’re going to have to be collecting our own data.”
It seems unlikely a transgender-related question will be added to the questionnaire the U.S. Census Bureau distributes every 10 years and anticipated in 2020 because that survey will be reduced to a short form. Instead, transgender advocates are pushing for inclusion in the American Community Survey, the annual survey with more extensive questions.
Keisling said there are dozens of other surveys to which LGBT questions could be added, including many conducted by the Department of Health & Human Services. The best way to look at the issue, Keisling said, is through agencies. Just last week, she said she had a meeting with the Bureau of Justice Statistics within the Justice Department.
“There’s the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there’s the National Center for Health Statistics, there are just so many, and there’s just a very small few now that are beginning to count LGBT people,” Keisling said.
Jamal Brown, a spokesperson for the White House Office of Management & Budget, responded by saying policymakers for years have collected data on LGBT populations, but acknowledged more work remains.
“LGBT people are not uniform, with experiences shaped by a diversity of factors including age, race, gender, socioeconomic background, education, and disability,” the spokesperson said. “And without improved data, there’s no way to adequately describe these differences and what they mean for LGBT Americans.”
But Brown said an interagency review is underway to evaluate federal data gathering for LGBT people and “develop recommendations that will inform federal statistics in the future.” The White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs held its first interagency meeting on the issue April 9.
Once the data from the latest transgender survey is obtained, Keisling said she expects it to show where anti-trans discrimination exists and that it will help lead the way to fixing it.
“But we’re also going to disseminate the information to the state LGBT groups, to local HIV service organizations, the federal government probably will use the survey in different ways and the media, which has become such an important public education around trans issues, will be no doubt using the survey,” Keisling said.
Keisling said much like the 2011 questionnaire, she predicts the survey will reveal the problems facing transgender people are compounded when they’re part of racial minority groups because of persistent racism.
For example, the 2011 survey found black transgender people live in a significantly higher rate of poverty. Thirty-four percent reported a household income of less than $10,000 a year. That’s more than twice the rate for transgender people of all races (15 percent), four times the general black population rate (9 percent) and more than eight times the general U.S. population rate (4 percent).
But Keisling said the data from the updated survey will “absolutely” be a tool to help ameliorate those compounded problems going forward.
“When you’re trying to move forward, it’s important to understand where you are and which moves forward are the most urgently needed, and this survey will really help with that,” Keisling said.A private in the U.S. Army Reserves and another man are facing drug-related charges after authorities seized $3 million worth of cocaine shipped to the Bronx.Mark Soto, 23, and Xavier Herbert-Gumbs, 24, were arraigned Friday in Manhattan on charges of criminal possession of a controlled substance, according to a statement from Bridget G. Brennan, New York City's special narcotics prosecutor. Bail was set at $400,000.Both Soto, who's in the Army Reserves, and Herbert-Gumbs live in Puerto Rico.An ongoing investigation by state and federal prosecutors identified the pair as members of a major narcotics trafficking network. Both were arrested Thursday during traffic stops in the Bronx.Authorities say Herbert-Gumbs possessed 110 pounds of cocaine, which was pressed into brick-shaped packages. Soto was arrested a short time later with about 26 pounds of cocaine in the trunk of his vehicle, prosecutors said. Soto's vehicle also contained an identification card with Herbert-Gumbs' name and photograph, they said.Investigators say the cocaine had been transported from Boston to New York.Soto's attorney did not immediately return a call for comment. An email to the Army Reserves press office for details about Soto's assignment was not immediately returned.A number for Herbert-Gumbs' attorney went unanswered Saturday. Herbert-Gumbs' occupation wasn't immediately clear.Just how much does the Trump administration want to cut Medicaid? No one -- including the White House -- is really sure.
$600 billion? $800 billion? Or a stunning $1.4 trillion over the next decade?
"It's north of $610 billion, but it's not $1.4 trillion," according to a senior official from the White House Office of Management and Budget.
CNNMoney has spent the past two days trying to figure out exactly how much President Trump wants to carve out of Medicaid, which covers more than 70 million low-income children, adults, senior citizens and disabled Americans.
Medicaid has long been a target of Republicans. They call for slashing the program in both the health care bill that passed the House earlier this month and the president's budget released this week.
While Congress isn't expected to adopt Trump's wish list, the budget does provide insights into how the administration would overhaul Medicaid -- a program the president once promised he wouldn't touch.
Related: America's safety net is at risk from Trump's budget ax
Here's why it's tough to know how big Trump's Medicaid cuts are.
The White House's budget summary tables show that reforming Medicaid would save $610 billion over the next 10 years. That's done mainly by turning it into either a block grant, which would give states a fixed level of funds, or a per capita program, which would send states a set amount of money based on enrollment. Either one could greatly reduce federal support.
The GOP health care bill would also make those changes, but the Trump budget would go even further, according to White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney. The Republican bill also opts for a slower rate of spending growth than Republicans include in their legislation to repeal major portions of Obamacare.
Now this is where it gets confusing.
The president's budget assumes that the House bill becomes law. That legislation, which also calls for eliminating enhanced funding for Medicaid expansion under Obamacare, would reduce spending on the program by $839 billion, according to the latest Congressional Budget Office analysis. (An updated score is due Wednesday afternoon.)
The White House budget, however, doesn't clearly state the spending impact of this assumption on Medicaid. It contains only an opaque reference on line 666, titled "allowance for Obamacare repeal and replacement," which reduces spending by $1.25 trillion over the next 10 years. This stems not only from the bill's Medicaid changes, but also the restructuring or elimination of various Obamacare subsidies and possibly other items.
Plus, part of the Medicaid cuts in the House bill comes from converting Medicaid into a block grant or per capita program. But that shift is already included in the estimated $610 billion in Medicaid reform savings in the White House budget.
Mulvaney told lawmakers on Wednesday that the reduction in Medicaid spending from the president's budget and the House bill can't be added together because they "contain some of the same factors."
Bottom line: We don't know how much the Trump budget would cut from Medicaid.
Related: Trump's first budget: Trillions in cuts
The confusion has left many health care and budget experts across the political spectrum guessing at the figure. Many say it looks like the White House would combine its Medicaid spending cuts ($610 billion) with the House bill's reduction ($839 billion) for a total of around $1.4 trillion. This would equal nearly half of the program's budget in 10 years.
"Ultimately, Medicaid would face a nearly 50 percent cut in the year 2027 relative to current law," the Concord Coalition, a deficit watchdog group, said Tuesday.
The conservative Heritage Foundation and the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities agreed Tuesday that the spending reductions appeared to be additive.
Related: Medicaid covers a lot more people than you might think
Cuts of this size would have a devastating impact on Medicaid, said Robert Greenstein, the center's president.
"Under the budget, states would face even deeper Medicaid cost-shifts and feel compelled to impose further cuts to Medicaid benefits and eligibility in order to cope with the diminished federal Medicaid funding they would receive," he said.In recent years, we have seen an increase of micro software-house building amazing security software and actively contributing to re-define how we do security. Personal projects quickly turning into powerful tools used by thousands of people to improve the security of many systems around the world. We live in exciting time, where a small team can build things that are going to shape the future of infosec. At NibbleSec, we support and celebrate those successes.
Vincent Bénony to talk about his experience with the Hopper Disassembler: Today, we askedto talk about his experience with the
A: Hi! This is a long story...I started programming when I was very young, with the Oric Atmos (if any of you remember this computer). Back then, I was 7 and I’m not sure that I understood what I was doing. I continued on the Amiga, where I really discovered the assembly language with the Motorola 68000. By the way, these were my very first steps with reverse engineering. Like many other guys at that time, I started looking at the anti-copy schemes of games. Each time, it was a really fun challenge. Then, I moved to the demo scene and continued coding small demos. Naturally, I chose to study computer science at the university where, later on, I defended my PhD in the field of cryptography. That was the time when I got back to security and reverse engineering.
Q: When did you realize that Hopper was something more than a personal project? How did this happen?
A: I started working on Hopper as a hobby project, as I was not able to afford the price of an IDA license. At that time, I realized that I didn’t need to have such a powerful tool, and that only a few of IDA's features were really useful to me. Being a OS X user, I really don’t like the look-and-feel of most Qt applications as they're just a raw transposition of Windows versions; they feel like aliens in my OS, and most of the UX habits cannot be transposed to these UIs. Qt is a great toolkit - I love it, and I use it for the Linux version of Hopper - but I really think that each version has to be customized for the targeted OS… So, I decided to write a very little program to do interactive disassembly. And the project started to grow. It was developed at night, after my daily job, and when my children were sleeping :) And then, the Mac App Store was announced… It changed many things. A friend of mine - Hello Sebastien B. :) - told me that I should try to see if there are people interested in such an application on the Mac App Store. I really doubted at first, but I tried anyway… and then… a miracle. I rapidly encountered many people who were interested in the idea of a lightweight alternative of IDA for OS X. The project started to require a lot of time. I received a lot of very positive feedbacks from users, hence I had to make a choice between my job and Hopper…I decided that I had to take my chance. Today, I'm always amused when I look at the very first screenshots of Hopper. It helps me to measure the amount of work that has been done :)
Q: As a micro software company, what are the problems and opportunities?
A: Problems are multiple. First, the development of the software by itself represents only a small part of my day-to-day job. Commercializing a software is not just producing code. I have to deal with many things like the website, users support, legal aspects (accounting, taxes…), and even things that may sound anecdotical, but which take me a lot of time like drawing icons :) - btw, I’m clearly not a designer. That being said, this is only a matter of organization. And I’m always pleased to see that there are so many positive feedbacks! This is something that pushes me beyond my limits. I always try to communicate as much as I can about the software and its development. Many times, people are talking about the project on medias like Twitter, which is a really great tool to help me reaching out potentially interested people. Security conferences are also something that I’m trying to follow as much as I can. For instance, I'm trying to go to every conference in France: I’m almost sure to meet people who use this kind of software, and their feedback is always a great value! Most of the features that were added to Problems are multiple. First, the development of the software by itself represents only a small part of my day-to-day job. Commercializing a software is not just producing code. I have to deal with many things like the website, users support, legal aspects (accounting, taxes…), and even things that may sound anecdotical, but which take me a lot of time like drawing icons :) - btw, I’m clearly not a designer. That being said, this is only a matter of organization. And I’m always pleased to see that there are so many positive feedbacks! This is something that pushes me beyond my limits. I always try to communicate as much as I can about the software and its development. Many times, people are talking about the project on medias like Twitter, which is a really great tool to help me reaching out potentially interested people. Security conferences are also something that I’m trying to follow as much as I can. For instance, I'm trying to go to every conference in France: I’m almost sure to meet people who use this kind of software, and their feedback is always a great value! Most of the features that were added to Hopper v3 are things that were discussed with people I met in conferences like NoSuchCon in Paris.
Q: Being a one-person software company, how do you track and prioritize new features and bugs? Which software development model are you following? In other words, how do you make sure that you're working on something relevant?
A: I’m an academic person, hence, I was not really at ease with software development methods used by real companies. I don’t know how it works outside France, but the studies I followed were purely about the theoretical aspects of computer science and nothing else. I have a coherent vision of what I would like to reach with Hopper. I always read all messages that I receive from my customers and I write all ideas that are compatible with the initial view I had for my software on my todo list. I’m always trying to avoid mutating Hopper into something that pretends to fit the needs of everyone; I want it to be lightweight, and coherent. Once I filtered the features that I want to implement, I usually start with the most visible part, implementing bogus functional parts. This is a good way to have a rapid visual feedback. If the feature still makes sense according to my usual workflow, it is kept. I really need to see the progress on a feature, and starting with the visual parts helps me a lot! Another thing, I strongly believe that the only way to write something coherent is to be the first client of your software. I use Hopper a lot, for many things, even debugging Hopper itself :)
Q: What would you recommend to people starting or maintaing a security tool? Which business model would you recommend to turn a personal project into a sustainable source of income?
A: I'm not sure whether my very little experience in the field is really relevant. Evaluating simple things, like the product price, the targeted audience, and so on, is very difficult but it's something that needs to be done. After that, I really love to simulate things: I wrote tons of Python scripts to simulate the viability of my company for the next 10 years (with a lot of pessimistic hypothesis, to avoid future problems). If Hopper will continue to be a stable project is too soon to say, but I did my best to avoid jumps into the wild, with a no clear view on what I want to achieve. Anyway, deciding to work full-time on Hopper was one of the best thing that I've ever done: working on something stimulating is really awesome! Sometimes exhausting, but really awesome :)
Hi Vincent, would you mind telling us a little bit about yourself? How did you get into programming and security?@KurtBardella is the Publisher of MorningHangover.com and has served as the Spokesperson for Breitbart News, the Daily Caller, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Sen. Darrell Issa (R-California), Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-California). The views expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.
(CNN) The world is becoming a much more dangerous place.
Since the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States, one thing has been revealed to be true. America's adversaries, especially North Korea, have grown stronger and been emboldened.
In these perilous moments, instead of a White House focused completely on the threats at hand, President Trump's staff has been -- and continues to be -- mired in backstabbing and intrigue. Right wing news site Breitbart has been waging war on National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and some say they see the hand of President Trump's close adviser, Steve Bannon, who formerly led Breitbart and is reported to be at odds with McMaster.
On Afghanistan and other national security issues, tensions between McMaster and the "nationalist" wing of the White House staff has been increasingly evident, and Bannon is reportedly pushing to restructure the communications staff with Stephen Miller in an elevated role.
In an editorial Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal said, "Policy brawls are routine in any White House, and Lt. Gen. McMaster can surely handle his corner. The issue for Mr. Kelly -- and Mr. Trump -- is what to do when disagreement inside the White House turns into vilification of his staff from the outside."
Is it any wonder North Korea -- or any other adversary of the US -- isn't scared by Trump's threats?
Most regimes do all they can to suppress gossip and prevent stories of disorganization and lack of unity from appearing in public.
Instead, Donald Trump chooses to broadcast the chaos on Twitter.
His entire administration is unstable and throwing punches at one another.
Meanwhile, this year alone, North Korea has launched 11 ballistic missile tests -- one of which was conducted on the Fourth of July.
In a dramatic expansion of the rogue nation's nuclear capabilities, it's been revealed that North Korea has, according to one agency cited in the Washington Post, "successfully produced a miniaturized warhead that can fit inside its missiles."
Again, President Trump responded with his typical show of bravado and simplicity, warning North Korea that they "best not make any more threats to the United States" or "be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen... fire fury and frankly power the likes of which the world has never seen before."
You would think that the world's greatest superpower threatening to unleash something worse than World War III on your country might be cause for fear.
You know what North Korea's doing right now?
They're making commemorative stamps celebrating the success of their ballistic missile tests.
Maybe if the President and the White House didn't spend their every waking moment playing Game of Thrones, North Korea might take the President's threats a little more seriously.
Then again, all Kim Jong-un has to do is follow @realdonaldtrump on Twitter and you're right inside the head of the most powerful man in the world.
Because of President Trump's love of dysfunction and drama (and his appointment of Gen. John Kelly as chief of staff), we currently do not have a permanent secretary of Homeland Security. The national security adviser is under siege from someone on his own team. The attorney general has been publicly humiliated by his own boss. And President Trump's former campaign manager's home has been raided by the FBI
Follow CNN Opinion Join us on Twitter and Facebook
Every second that the President and his staff spend plotting against one another, leaking details about palace intrigue to their platforms of preference, sending tweets attacking one another, etc. is a second not being spent preparing to address the very real and dangerous threats we are facing.
If President Trump and his staff continue down this path, at some point, something horrible is going to happen that could have been prevented had they kept their eye on the ball.Who is Euron Greyjoy and what does he want? This is actually a difficult question as the character, despite his larger than life persona, is both secretive and seldom seen. This in-character and authorial secrecy have combined to keep Euron on the margins of the story even as his actions have an ever increasing importance in it. The result is that the only crystal clear thing about him is his glaringly evident sociopathy and lust for dragons. Yet there is more to this villainous character than that. Here and there in A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons there are scattered discreet little glimpses of magical foreshadowing. These glimpses, which indicate the use of blood magic, warlock arts, and greenseer abilities, can be added up and compared to other parts of the story to create a pretty coherent picture of Euron’s identity and goals.
I. The Magician
One of the usual ways overt magic has entered the story of Ice and Fire is through the private service and agendas of magicians who attach themselves to powerful figures. King Stannis and Jon Snow have the red priestess/shadowbinder Melisandre. Victarion has the red priest/sorcerer Moqorro. The Brotherhood Without Banners has the red priest/necromancer Thoros of Myr. King Ryder had a number of skinchangers in his host, among them Orell, Varamyr and Borroq. King Aerys II and Tyrion Lannister employ various King’s Landing pyromancers to highly destructive ends. Queen Cersei had a very traumatic encounter with a maegi called Maggy, currently employs Qyburn the necromancer, and has also made use of the King’s Landing pyromancer’s guild. Dany of course has had an equally traumatic encounter with a maegi named Mirri Maz Duur, cryptic meetings with the shadowbinder Quaithe, and survived an attempted murder-by-prophecy machinated by the warlock Pyat Pree. As of the end of A Feast for Crows, she is also being sought by Marwyn the Mage.
Fitting neatly into this overall pattern in A Feast for Crows, Euron reveals that he has ruthlessly enslaved three warlocks. These warlocks are obviously providing Euron with magic and are more than likely instructing him in its workings as well. This magic is definitely elemental and perhaps divinatory.
Euron’s power to influence the weather is just short of explicit. Balon is assassinated by a Faceless Man during a storm while Euron’s Silence was a day away. The storm is a necessary component of the assassination as it allows Balon’s tumble to be safely labeled a vindictive act of the Storm God. This storm seems very well timed, to say the least; as well timed as Euron’s arrival. When Asha all but accuses Euron of killing her father he deflects her barbs in a very interesting way:
When he was gone, the Crow’s Eye turned his smiling eye upon Victarion. “Lord Captain, have you no greeting for a brother long away? Nor you, Asha? How fares your lady mother?” “Poorly,” Asha said. “Some man made her a widow.” Euron shrugged. “I had heard the Storm God swept Balon to his death. Who is this man who slew him? Tell me his name, niece, so I might revenge myself on him.” Asha got to her feet. “You know his name as well as I. Three years you were gone from us, and yet Silence returns within a day of my lord father’s death.” “Do you accuse me?” Euron asked mildly. “Should I?” The sharpness in Asha’s voice made Victarion frown. It was dangerous to speak so to the Crow’s Eye, even when his smiling eye was shining with amusement. “Do I command the winds?” the Crow’s Eye asked his pets. “No, Your Grace,” said Orkwood of Orkmont. “No man commands the winds,” said Germund Botley. “Would that you did,” the Red Oarsman said. “You would sail wherever you liked and never be becalmed.” “There you have it, from the mouths of three brave men,” Euron said. “The Silence was at sea when Balon died. If you doubt an uncle’s word, I give you leave to ask my crew.” “A crew of mutes? Aye, that would serve me well.” (FfC Victarion I)
Euron very notably does not outright deny Asha’s accusation of murder. Nor does he deny that he can command the winds, leaving this to his lickspittle followers and mute crew. After the Kingsmoot we see Euron sailing wherever he will without being becalmed:
‘The wind was at their backs, as it had been all the way down from Old Wyk. It was whispered about the fleet that Euron’s wizards had much and more to do with that, that the Crow’s Eye appeased the Storm God with blood sacrifice. How else would he have dared sail so far to the west, instead of following the shoreline as was the custom?’ (FfC Victarion II)
The Ironborn are very experienced Sunset sailors and they believe that what Euron is doing is rather unusual. The whispers are certainly more than whispers, as the red priests have demonstrated the ability to influence the weather by means of blood sacrifice on three separate occasions:
‘Melisandre had given Alester Florent to her god on Dragonstone, to conjure up the wind that bore them north. Lord Florent had been strong and silent as the queen’s men bound him to the post, as dignified as any half-naked man could hope to be, but as the flames licked up his legs he had begun to scream, and his screams had blown them all the way to East-Watch-by-the-Sea, if the red woman could be believed. Davos had misliked that wind. It had seemed to him to smell of burning flesh, and the sound of it was anguished as it played amongst the lines.’ (DoD Davos I) ‘Wisps of dark smoke rose from his fingers as [Victarion] pointed at the maester. “That one. Cut his throat and throw him in the sea, and the winds will favor us all the way to Meereen.” Moqorro had seen that in his fires.’ (DwD Victarion I) ‘Near the end, before the smoking ketch was swallowed by the sea, the cries of the seven sweetlings changed to joyous song, it seemed to Victarion Greyjoy. A great wind came up then, a wind that filled their sails and swept them north and east and north again, toward Meereen and its pyramids of many-colored bricks. ‘On winds of song I fly to you, Daenerys,’ the iron captain thought.’ (DwD Victarion II)
It is obvious that Euron’s captive warlocks can command the winds by means of blood sacrifice and sorcery, the same as Melisandre and Moqorro. The only alternative is that the Ironborn sailors have spontaneously invented a false rumor about blood sacrifice which happens to correspond to an actual, working ritual (very unlikely). If he can command the winds then the storm that heralded his return to Pyke and covered up Balon’s assassination was likely as much a product of magic as the favorable winds that blow his fleet to the Shield Islands. This portends a great deal for the coming battle between the Ironborn armada and Redwyne fleet, as Euron has the ability to move his fleet at will while injuring his opponents with bad winds and storms. His conquests of the Shield Islands and raids up the Mander and along the coasts have also furnished Euron with ample victims for sacrifices on a scale far larger than those performed by the red priests.
If the Warlocks have given Euron wind magic then might they have also given him some manner of foreknowledge? The House of the Undying was overflowing with prophecy, and divination is one of the most common forms of magic in A Song of Ice and Fire. Yet, unlike with the wind magic, this is far from clear as the two incidents where Euron displays possible foreknowledge could have more mundane explanations. Euron shows up the day after a Faceless Man sends Balon tumbling to his death during a suspiciously timed storm, but it’s possible this was arranged ahead of time with the Faceless Men. In another incident, Euron knew exactly how the attack on the Shield Islands would play out, and Victarion attributes this to magical foreknowledge:
“All fell out as Euron said it would,” Victarion told the dusky woman as she bound up his hand with linen. “His wizards must have seen it.” He had three aboard the Silence, Quellon Humble had confided in a whisper. Queer men and terrible, they were, but the Crow’s Eye had made them slaves. “He still needs me to fight his battles, though,” Victarion insisted. “Wizards may be well and good, but blood and steal win wars.” (FfC Victarion II)
Of course Victarion is a rather dull |
play,” said Devils head coach John Hynes of one of his team’s new additions. “You can see he’s getting more and more comfortable every game that we play.”
“This was my first experience here, in the Prudential Center, so I was a bit nervous before the game, but under control,” said the 27-year-old who signed with the Devils this past May after playing the last two seasons in Finland. Last season he racked up 21 points (6g-15a) in 48 regular season games and another 13 (6g-7a) in the playoffs, winning the league’s best defenseman trophy (Pekka Rautakallio Award) and was a First Team All-Star in the process.
A voir ou revoir : l'incroyable sauvetage de Yohann Auvitu face à la Finlande #TeamFrance #Russie2016 #IIHFWorlds pic.twitter.com/DcKpK7EefN — Nicolas Jacquet (@Nicozzzzilla) May 15, 2016
He certainly didn’t look nervous on the ice in his debut at The Rock, as he finished the 5-4 over the New York Rangers with three assists. “I was really happy about that,” he said with a smile of his first home game in red and black, “it was a good game.”
“He has to continue to play to his strengths,” Hynes said of what Auivtu has to do to make the NHL roster this season. “He’s skated really well, he moves the puck well and I think he’s getting more and more comfortable in the hard areas of the ice – like the corners, around the net – when he doesn’t have the puck on his stick. He’s made strides every day and he has to continue to go in that fashion.”
Yohann Auvitu impressionne au camp des Devils https://t.co/YMdfCu7wpP pic.twitter.com/O1XM0XgAJF — SwissHabs (@SwissHabs) October 2, 2016
Following the Devils preseason win over their Hudson River rivals, The Hockey Writers spoke to Yohann Auvitu to get some insight into how his transition to the North American has gone and a plethora of other topics as well.
The Hockey Writers: How do you feel you are fitting in with this franchise now, since taking the ice with them for the first time in July at Development Camp? You obviously had a great game tonight.
Yohann Auvitu: Everything went so fast. I signed in May, and now it is early October; I try to adapt as fast as I can. I’m just trying to do what they ask me to do and that’s the best chance for me to make this team. I was really happy to have my first experience (in a game) here; since the time I came here in the Development Camp (which is held at the Devils practice facility) to now I see the real rink and the atmosphere here during the game was really nice.
Another side of NJ, reminds Finland with all those lakes, #dayoff with #family pic.twitter.com/IbAqBYLW02 — Yohann Auvitu (@YohannAuvitu) October 5, 2016
THW: Has the coaching staff given you any indication how they see you fitting on this team or what roster spot you are competing for?
YA: No, at the moment I’m just fighting to make the team with my qualities, and I try to work on my weaknesses. I was doing exactly the same last year in Finland. So it’s just – you try your skill here and let’s see; I’m just trying to follow the process and make this team.
THW: Is the NHL game a little faster than in the other leagues that you’ve played in?
YA: Yes. A little bit, yes; the players here have more talent, overall. It means that they can play faster so you have to read and react faster when you are under pressure.
Good to see @YohannAuvitu last night in MTL,Congrats on your first game!??#Frenchy pic.twitter.com/QLMzXe3Dm8 — Tim Bozon (@timbozon94) September 27, 2016
THW: Tonight was your second game with the Devils, but your first was earlier in the week on the road at Montreal. What was that experience like for you as a Frenchman?
YA: That was unbelievable (smiles); when you grow up in France you don’t necessarily follow hockey – especially like fifteen years ago, there wasn’t the internet, there weren’t a hundred television channels. But for the last five years, I watched a lot of the Montreal Canadiens and it was really nice to go inside the Bell Centre. It’s a little bit like Santiago Bernabeu – in Spain, if you follow soccer, that’s like a big, big stadium.
THW: How do you feel the chemistry has been with this group of players?
YA: I feel confident. The players around me have so much skill, it’s pretty easy to play with them (smiling).As a reaction to government surveillance, the ZXX typeface is embedded with disruptive designs that are meant to combat optical character recognition processes. The four options for online communications camouflage — called XED, Noise, False, and Camo — each have characteristics that keep them legible to humans, but baffling to machines.
The typeface was created by Sang Mun, a designer who also spent time as a contractor with the NSA during his Korean military service. As he explained on The Gradient blog of the Walker Art Center, where he’s a Graphic Design Fellow, “The project started with a genuine question: How can we conceal our fundamental thoughts from artificial intelligences and those who deploy them?” The texts are meant to be impenetrable by software that scans text, such as with the “Camo” style that adds scrawls of distortion, “Noise” that adds clouds of pixels, “XED” that draws optical-fooling patterns over the letters, and “False” where the alphabet is swapped, so that an “A” is secreted in a giant “Z” while you type.
ZXX is available free to download to use in your own statement against surveillance. And that’s really what it is, as Mun acknowledges that the project is really more about a visual message of advocacy to bring out the concern of being watched, rather than a super effective way to keep the NSA off your trail. As he explained in his post:
ZXX is a call to action, both practically and symbolically, to raise questions about privacy, But it represents a broader urgency: How can design be used politically and socially for the codification and de-codification of people’s thoughts? What is a graphic design that is inherently secretive? How can graphic design reinforce privacy? And, really, how can the process of design engender a proactive attitude towards the future — and our present for that matter?
Mun is currently working on ZXX ver.02, which judging from one image will involve dimensional textures. For now, you can download ZXX here.Contents show]
Welcome to the NLSS Jargon Etymologies Wiki Edit
This wiki records the many colourful phrases that originate from the NLSS and the activity of Northernlion and the Crew.
The Crew Edit
How to participate Edit
This is a list of people who do not have a wiki page. Please add/remove from as appropriately seen.
Kate, Baertaffy, Alpacapatrol, RedPandaGamer, Ryuka, Arumba, Emerson, Ohmwrecker, Crazymike, Mar, Indeimau, Mathasgames, Jetpork, Dracula Fetus, Ricky Mountain, PlayerUno, Green9090
This is a list of memes that are to be covered. Please add/remove from as appropriately seen.
power suit, salty, liondongers, why do we fall master wayne, roll fizzlebeef, dingdong/dongle/dingle, ya-ha, babbage, dog face (no space), ladies love larkin/larson, new meta, mad cuz you're bad, the real northernlion, hating RPG, #malf, Swedish Pizza, terlet
When creating a new page, the following should be included:
Name of meme. Meaning and origin of meme. If possible, stream in which the meme originated from.If you're looking for your first break as a weather presenter on national TV but have no relevant qualifications or experience you may be in luck.
The BBC is on the hunt for a new face to present daily weather bulletins - but the only requirement is you must be disabled.
An official advert posted on the corporation's vacancies website said the BBC does not currently have any disabled weather presenters and is 'actively seeking to improve on-screen diversity'.
It says: 'Do you want to share your passion for the weather by presenting weather bulletins? Do you have a disability?
The BBC is looking for a new weather presenter and says they don't need any qualifications but they must be disabled. The hunt mirrors a story line from spoof W1A in which bosses hired Muslim Sadiq Iqbal (pictured)
'The BBC does not currently have any weather presenters who are disabled and we are actively seeking to improve on screen diversity.
'You don't need to be an expert or have a qualification in meteorology.'
Staff are said to be 'furious' at the positive discrimination and some said they were'shocked' when they saw the advert.
The 'politically correct job vacancy' has been blasted with some saying the 'box-ticking exercise' sounds like a story line from the BBC's own spoof comedy W1A.
An official advert posted on the corporation's vacancies website said the BBC does not currently have any disabled weather presenters
In a recent episode of the show, bosses hired Muslim Sadiq Iqbal as a weather presenter because they wanted a bearded man to keep the broadcasting watchdog happy.
A source told The Sun: 'This feels like political correctness gone mad on the part of the BBC.
'Surely it's much more important for the weather to be presented by an expert, rather than someone with a disability?
'Everyone supports disabled people getting great jobs but it makes sense that they still have the right experience and qualifications. This feels like a box-ticking exercise.'
'W1A is meant to be a parody, not a documentary.'
The BBC has traditionally employed fully-qualified meteorologists and many of its current crop have a wealth of experience.
The BBC has traditionally employed fully-qualified meteorologists with a wealth of experience, pictured is forecaster Alex Deakin who has an astrophysics degree
Weatherman Alex Deakin has an Astrophysics degree, Chris Fawkes has a Geography degree, Peter Gibbs is a polar meteorologist and Philip Avery is a navy weather expert.
Many familiar faces had previously been employed by the Met Office - including Michael Fish who famously dismissed an oncoming hurricane in 1987.
The job advert said the BBC Academy would be running a free training opportunity to help men and women with a disability feel comfortable presenting bulletins on television and radio.
Candidates will be given a masterclass with current weather presenters as well as sessions with a voice coach.
They will even be given a session with stylist along with training presenting using an earpiece and live talkback.
'You will meet established weather presenters and members of the production team and will learn what it takes to present BBC weather bulletins,' it said.
Candidates who take part in the training will be eligible to apply for future vacancies.
A BBC spokesperson said: 'We are not advertising for a disabled weather presenter. This training opportunity is open to men and women with disabilities who have a passion for weather and the environment and who have the potential to become weather presenters in the future.I can't count the number of times I've created overloaded methods to destructure a function argument and call a version that takes arguments individually. This is most prevalent in code that takes a Point or Vector, like so:
case class Vector ( x : Float, y : Float ) class Transform { def translate ( tx : Float, ty : Float ) =... def translate ( t : Vector ) = translate ( t. x, t. y ) //... }
but there are plenty of other situations where I end up doing the same thing. Here are some examples from Scaled:
case class Region ( start : Loc, end : Loc ) class BufferV { //... def region ( start : Loc, until : Loc ) : Seq [ Line ] =... def region ( r : Region ) : Seq [ Line ] = region ( r. start, r. end ) //... } class Buffer extends BufferV { //... def delete ( start : Loc, until : Loc ) : Seq [ Line ] def delete ( r : Region ) : Seq [ Line ] = delete ( r. start, r. end ) def replace ( start : Loc, until : Loc, lines : Ordered [ LineV ]) : Loc def replace ( r : Region, lines : Ordered [ LineV ]) : Loc = replace ( r. start, r. end, lines ) def transform ( start : Loc, until : Loc, fn : Char => Char ) : Loc def transform ( r : Region, fn : Char => Char ) : Loc = transform ( r. start, r. end, fn ) //... }
Some from a game I'm working on:
public Facility facility ( Coord coord ) { return _facs [ index ( coord )]; } public Facility facility ( int x, int y ) { return _facs [ index ( x, y )]; } public Stack stack ( Coord coord ) { return _stacks [ index ( coord )]; } public Stack stack ( int x, int y ) { return _stacks [ index ( x, y )]; } public boolean scouted ( Coord coord ) { return _scouted [ index ( coord )]; } public boolean scouted ( int x, int y ) { return _scouted [ index ( x, y )]; }
You get the idea.
If we have ADTs (Scala calls them case classes), or value classes/structs, it seems perfectly reasonable to automatically destructure one passed to a function which takes arguments of the same type and in the same order.
val tx = new Transform (...) val dt = Vector (...) tx. translate ( dt ) // desugars into tx.translate(dt.x, dt.y)
This should work even if there are additional arguments to the function:
val buffer : Buffer =... val r = Region ( start, end ) buffer. replace ( r, Seq ( Line ( "Yes" ), Line ( "we" ), Line ( "can" ))) // desugars into buffer.replace(r.start, r.until, Seq(...))
I'm inclined to match purely on declaration order and type, because name matching seems likely to fall prey to minor quibbles like translate taking tx and ty whereas Vector declares x and y. However, this does restrict us to only desugaring "struct-like" types, which are unambiguously meant to be an ordered bundle of values.
I would like to allow arbitrary types to opt-into this behavior, not least because my Region example up there was cheating. The actual definition of Region is:
trait Region { def start : Loc def end : Loc def contains ( loc : Loc ) : Boolean = ( start <= loc ) && ( loc < end ) def isEmpty = start >= end }
For a variety of reasons, I didn't want it to be a case class, but I sure wish I didn't have to create dozens of overloaded methods to manually destructure a Region.
I use another pattern in my Java geometry library which would fail in these circumstances as well:
interface XY { float x (); float y (); } class Point implements XY { public float x, y ; public float x () { return x ; } public float y () { return y ; } //... public Point set ( float x, float y ) {... } public Point set ( XY p ) { return set ( p. x (), p. y ()); } } class Vector implements XY { public float x, y ; public float x () { return x ; } public float y () { return y ; } //... public Vector set ( float x, float y ) {... } public Vector set ( XY p ) { return set ( p. x (), p. y ()); } }
The XY interface makes it easy to express that you don't care whether your x,y pair is actually a Point or a Vector (or any other damned thing that has an x and y), which is very useful. But how do I know that it's OK to destructure an object that happens to implement XY?
Probably some kind of annotation like @Value which, when placed on a class or interface means that all public methods represent destructurable values:
@Value interface XY { float x (); float y (); }
and when placed on fields/methods means that those fields/methods comprise the value part of the class:
trait Region { @value def start : Loc @value def end : Loc def contains ( loc : Loc ) : Boolean = ( start <= loc ) && ( loc < end ) def isEmpty = start >= end }
I can already imagine situations where this would cause trouble. Imagine I have two traits, both annotated with @Value which are equivalent from the perspective of the types of their fields and their order:
@value trait XY { def x : Float def y : Float } @value trait PolarVec { def angle : Float def length : Float } case class Impulse ( x : Float, y : Float, angle : Float, length : Float ) extends XY with PolarVec
If I pass an Impulse to def translate (tx :Float, ty :Float) how do I know which value to use when destructuring (and for that matter, does a value trait override the value nature of the case class itself)?
Maybe the answer is just to fail, report the ambiguity, and be happy that the solution helps the programmer 90% of the time. One can always be explicit and write translate(imp.x, imp.y).
Update: 7/27
Having slept on this little exposition, it occurred to me this morning that I should at least mention Scala's extractors and how they provide a general mechanism which could also be used to accomplish this destructuring.
In Scala, each type has a companion singleton which can define an extractor for a type in the form of an unapply method. For example, the Region trait above can define:
object Region { //.. def unapply ( r : Region ) = Some (( r. start, r. end )) //.. }
This allows one to write code like so:
def foo ( r : Region ) = r match { case ( Loc ( 0, 0 ), end ) => // starts at zero, end is bound to r.end case ( start, end ) => // start is bound to r.start, end to r.end } def bar ( r : Region ) { val Region ( start, end ) = r // start is bound to r.start and end to r.end }
This abstraction is great and unifies pattern matching, destructuring assignment and my proposed feature of automatic destructuring of function arguments, but in Scala it comes at substantial performance cost.
Scala is syntactically concise, which makes it very easy to violate programmer expectations. That unapply method is actually doing:
def unapply ( r : Region ) = new Some ( new Tuple2 [ Loc, Loc ]( r. start, r. end ))
and the destructuring assignment under the hood, looks like:
val v : Option [ Tuple2 [ Loc, Loc ]] = Region. unapply ( r ) if ( v. isEmpty ) throw new MatchError val t : Tuple2 [ Loc, Loc ] = v. get () val start = t. _1 () val end = t. _2 ()
We're wrapping the data of interest into two temporary objects and then immediately unwrapping them. Yes, between the Scala optimizer and the JVM optimizer this profligacy may eventually be optimized away, but it also may not, and I should not have to worry that using a handy feature like passing a Point to a method which takes two floats might incidentally create two objects on the heap and throw them away. Stick that into an inner loop that's doing math calculations and you've just "abstracted away" 50% of your performance.
So the abstraction is good, the implementation is bad. I would definitely use one abstraction for pattern matching, destructuring assignment and this auto-destructuring of arguments, but I would do it in such a way that it was closer to zero cost. Scala already cheats and automatically optimizes this abstraction for its own ADT types (case classes) to dramatically reduce the cost, but I'd prefer to design the mechanism to be cheap for everyone rather than make user code a performance second class citizen.
The @Value annotation described above is one ham-fisted way of accomplishing that. One could also imagine a metaprogramming facility where you provide the moral equivalent of an unapply method, but it's written in code that communicates to the compiler the number, type and order of your type's value components so that when it sees:
val Region ( start, end ) = r
it can generate:
val start = r. start val end = r. endA Pakistani imam has been remanded in custody, accused of planting pages of the Koran among burnt pages in the bag of a Christian girl held for blasphemy.
The girl, Rimsha, was detained two weeks ago near the capital Islamabad after an angry mob demanded she be punished.
Here, Pakistani people give their reaction to the case and debate the future of the country's controversial blasphemy laws.
Rana Waqas Anwar, Federal government worker, Lahore
After the imam's arrest, the reaction of the public has signalled a change of attitude in society. For the first time people are discussing the cause and effects of the law.
Society is more open to discussion
This development has clearly demonstrated how clerics mould religious teachings, laws and public sentiment in their favour.
The law is spreading anarchy and injustice. It is clearly being used against religious minorities and there should be a review into this on a governmental level.
Previously, Salman Taseer (the Punjab Governor) and Shahbaz Bhatti (the Minorities Minister) have talked about amending the law. This provoked a reaction which led to their deaths.
Now I feel the society is more open to discussion. No protests have been arranged in support of Imam Khalid - but there has been public support for Rimsha.
So the time is ripe for the government to take a clear stance and introduce a bill for amendment without losing politically.
Hopefully, Imam Khalid's conviction will put an end to the vigilante justice.
Sundas Hoorain, law student, Lahore, currently in the UK
Image caption Sundas Hoorain would like to see the blasphemy law abolished
I have been involved in anti-blasphemy activism in Lahore. I helped organise a "Rally against Fear" after the murder of Governor Taseer, which then led to the formation of Citizens for Democracy - a citizen's group with the aim of abolishing the blasphemy law.
I am from a Muslim background, but I am not religious. I stand against any oppressive religious laws.
The latest case brought a change of attitude in the Pakistani civil society. Everyone, including religious parties, has come out denouncing this incident as a horrible thing.
I have been constantly sending tweets urging well-known figures to make a stand. I've been endlessly tweeting Imran Khan, for example, and he has finally come out to denounce it.
The delegitimising of the local cleric is a very positive step, because it has turned the charge of blasphemy on its head. When no-one is sure whether it is the accused or the accuser who is guilty of blasphemy, it's easier to avoid a mob situation.
I would like to see the law abolished, but I know I am getting ahead of myself here. We are far from it as long as people in Pakistan believe that it is not the law that's at fault, but the people who abuse it.
Xavier P William, Christian activist, Rawalpindi
I am a Christian. I am also an activist and I often get involved in cases of blasphemy. I've been involved in this case from the very beginning.
I am extremely concerned about Rimsha's safety. Whenever she gets released, she and her family won't be able to go back to their village.
It's time to stop the atrocities on the basis of religion
They will either have to live in hiding in Pakistan, or if they have the opportunity - leave the country.
There are also 600 Christian families who fled from the area when Rimsha was accused. They are frightened to go back, especially after learning that the burnt pages were planted by the cleric himself.
They were promised that they would be provided with shelter and food, but that never happened, so their future is uncertain.
The cleric's arrest has stirred a reaction in the civil society. This has given a fresh start to the debate about the reforms in the blasphemy laws, as this case is another example where the laws have been abused for personal gain.
This is a national issue and everyone who claims to be secular and liberal should raise their voice. It's time to stop atrocities on the basis of religion.
If we don't raise our voice now, the next generations will question our silence.
Sohail, student, Karachi
Image caption Sohail: "Maniacs should not be allowed to highjack the law"
A young girl with learning difficulties arrested under the blasphemy law was already a shocker! Planting the pages in order to get her accused is disgusting.
That is not what Islam teaches us. A child cannot be put in jail, that's the law. The case should be investigated and the girl protected from the maniacs who think they are keepers of Islam.
The imam should be charged and if found guilty, he should get the maximum punishment for inciting religious violence.
This would set an example and will make people think very carefully in the future if they are tempted to use the law to settle personal vendettas.
However, the blasphemy law should never be abolished. No-one has the right to hurt the feelings of any group - ethnic or religious.
Religious minorities should practise their faith in peace and maniacs should not be allowed to hijack the law.
Adnan, computer programmer, Lahore
I felt deeply disappointed when I heard about this incident. I cannot say I was shocked as such incidents are unfortunately not new in this country.
However, this was particularly disturbing as the girl was a minor and with learning difficulties.
It's very disturbing for me that even speaking about this law in public has become a taboo
Contrary to the popular belief in the West that the law needs to be scrapped, I think the law should stay.
The law provides a chance for the law-enforcement authorities to interfere in the matter. Otherwise, the angry mob would take it upon their honour to avenge for the alleged blasphemy.
It's not the law to blame, it's the people! The Muslim clergy have never advocated religious tolerance, though the clerics wouldn't take the blame.
The governor of the state of Punjab was shot dead by his own bodyguard for just speaking against the blasphemy law, and a wide class of the society, even well-educated people, declared the bodyguard a 'hero'! Such is the dismal state of affairs in this country.
It's very disturbing for me that even speaking about this law in public has become a taboo. The Pakistani electronic media, particularly TV, has avoided this story and renowned news anchors have avoided talking on this matter.
Interviews by Krassimira TwiggEight years is a long time to maintain singular focus on any goal, particularly one as complex and expensive as sending a robot to explore the moon. Teams competing in the Google Lunar X PRIZE—first announced in September 2007, with a deadline of December 2015—know this firsthand, which is why several of them jumped at the chance to win a piece of the $6 million being offering as “milestone prizes” to help fund some of the competition’s best ideas.
Competition organizers on Wednesday announced five finalists for these awards—Astrobotic, Hakuto, Moon Express, Part-Time Scientists and Team Indus. These teams are eligible for a cash infusion if by September 2014 they can show sufficient progress in their preparations to meet the competition’s three main goals—landing a rover on the moon, having it travel at least 500 meters and communicating from the lunar surface. This is the first time an X PRIZE competition has offered such interim incentives, an acknowledgement of the competitors’ technological achievements as well as the challenges of financing those achievements.
Three teams—Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic, Moon Express (headquartered at the NASA Research Park in Mountain View, Calif.) and India’s Team Indus—each have a shot at $1-million prizes if they can impress the judges with the hardware and software they are developing to enable a soft landing on the moon.
Likewise, Astrobotic, Moon Express, Japan’s Hakuto Co. and Germany’s Part-Time Scientists teams each stand to win $500,000 for the mobility subsystems they are creating to move their landers at least 500 meters after touchdown. Astrobotic, Moon Express, Part-Time-Scientists and Team Indus are also up for the $250,000 award for an imaging subsystem that can produce “mooncasts” of high-quality images and video from the lunar surface.
To become a finalist each team submitted documents detailing its mission plan, progress it is making on the technology required to carry out the mission, and a specific set of testing and simulation goals that meet one or more of the milestone prize categories. Each team that makes good on those goals by the September 30 deadline will win prize money.
Incoming
In preparation for the landing-system milestone prize, Astrobotic plans to test its “Griffin” lander this month at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California with help from Masten Space Systems. The Astrobotic team is an extension of Astrobotic Technology, Inc., a spin-off of Carnegie Mellon University launched in 2008 to develop space robotics and facilitate planetary missions. Masten is itself an aerospace start-up that in 2009 won part of the Lunar Lander Challenge X PRIZE sponsored by NASA and Northrop Grumman.
In this first of three planned tests—funded through NASA’s Flight Opportunities Program—Masten’s Xombie suborbital rocket will carry Astrobotic’s landing sensor package and software system to an altitude of 350 meters so the team can see how the technology works in flight.* In the second and third flights this spring Astrobotic’s landing sensors and software will actually guide Griffin as it lands. “That’s as close as we can get to a moon landing here on Earth,” says Astrobotic CEO John Thornton.
Part-timers
In preparation for claiming its milestone awards—and to put itself in the running for the $20-million grand prize—the Part-Time Scientists team is planning a large-scale mission simulation in cooperation with the Austrian Space Forum, the Vienna University of Technology Space Team and several other partners and sponsors this summer. The weeklong experiment—to be held at an iron-mining site in Austria’s Erzberg region—will test all critical parts of the team’s mission, including the landing, the deployment of their two “Asimov” moon rovers and other on-surface operations.
Part-Time Scientists is hoping to have its prototype camera ready for the imaging milestone award evaluation before midyear. The device will have low energy requirements while providing superior image quality, says team founder Robert Böhme, who works as a cybersecurity advisor in Berlin for the German government. At least half of Part-Time Scientists' 100 members are holding down full-time jobs at industrial firms or universities in addition to competing for the X PRIZE.
The camera’s basic design already meets the mooncast quality requirements but the team continues to evaluate whether the equipment’s optics can survive the high temperatures and other extreme conditions it will have to undergo during launch and deployment, Böhme says. The sensors and corresponding electronics must also be tested to determine whether they can function when exposed to high levels of radiation.
Money and momentum
Given the tens of millions of dollars needed to win the Google Lunar X PRIZE, the teams realize that the milestone awards—and even the grand prize, for that matter—will not fully finance their projects. Rather, the awards serve as recognition for solid work and enable teams to show “sponsors, investors and everyone else that we're seriously developing hardware toward a mission to the moon,” Böhme says.
Astrobotic’s Thornton likewise acknowledges that it costs a lot more money to get to space than the Google Lunar X PRIZE is paying out. In this regard, the competition is just a starting point. The awards are an incentive, he says, adding, “A lot of the challenge is generating critical mass.”
Astrobotic has already begun to build up such critical mass. Earlier this month, Astroscale Pte., Ltd., contracted with Astrobotic Technology to send the Singapore-based company’s Lunar Dream time capsule—containing the popular Japanese sports drink, Pocari Sweat—onboard Astrobotic’s first lunar mission, planned for October 2015. If all goes according to plan, this same mission will capture X PRIZE’s grand award as well. “The Google Lunar X PRIZE mission will just be mission-one of many,” Thornton says.
Based on the successful response to this round of milestone prizes, X PRIZE is considering additional milestone awards for technical achievements after liftoff—en route to the moon—although the organization hasn’t provided any further details.
*Editor's Note (2/25/14): This sentence was edited after posting. The original stated, based on information obtained by Astrobotic, that the initial test flight would reach an altitude of four kilometers.FBI Director James Comey may have claimed that the Charleston massacre wasn’t an act of terrorism, sparking howls of protest and outrage.
The White House, notably, isn’t backing him up.
Speaking on Friday about the murder of nine African Americans by a self-avowed white supremacist, Comey said, “Terrorism is act of violence…to try to influence a public body or citizenry, so it’s more of a political act. And again based on what I know so far I don’t see it as a political act.”
Asked whether the White House agreed with Comey’s assessment, a spokesman referred The Daily Beast to an earlier statement from the Justice Department, which isn’t foreclosing any avenues of prosecution at this point.
“The department’s investigation of the shooting incident in Charleston, South Carolina, is ongoing,” spokeswoman Emily Pierce said in a statement on Friday, one day before Comey spoke. “This heartbreaking episode was undoubtedly designed to strike fear and terror into this community, and the department is looking at this crime from all angles, including as a hate crime and as an act of domestic terrorism.”
An FBI spokesman, while not retracting Comey’s remarks, told The Daily Beast that the director’s “comments were made while events were still fluid and based on the best information he had at the time.”
Since Comey spoke, the FBI has had more time to look into the manifesto that the shooter had posted online to explain his actions.
“We’re going to continue to follow the facts and learn more about the incident itself and what was behind it,” said spokesman Paul Bresson “In no way do [Comey’s] comments detract from our ability to conduct a thorough investigation.”
Comey, a former U.S. deputy attorney general, has a reputation as a thoughtful and assiduous lawyer, so his views on whether the Charleston massacre is a terrorist attack carried special resonance, aside from the fact that the FBI’s investigation will help determine whether the U.S. government brings terrorism charges. Comey was also the lead prosecutor on the 1996 terrorist bombing of the Khobar Towers facility in Saudi Arabia, which at the time was being used as a temporary barracks for U.S. Air Force personnel.
Under U.S. law, domestic terrorism is defined as “activities that involve acts dangerous to human life that…appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping…” The activities must also take place “primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.”
Based on the known facts, Dylann Roof’s murders inside the Emanuel AME church last week arguably fit the bill. In a manifesto written before the shootings, Roof makes clear his particular animus toward African Americans and says that legally enforced segregation “existed to protect us from them.” According to witnesses, Roof justified his shootings by accusing black people of “taking over our country” and said, “You have to go.” He also let some churchgoers live so they could tell others what he’d done and said.
Roof had also photographed himself with pro-Nazi paraphernalia, symbols associated with Apartheid, and in front of Confederate landmarks, acts that seem to illustrate his hatred of African Americans and that could help explain his decision to attack the church.
“As a former trial lawyer, I can say it appears that Roof’s conduct warrants charging him with domestic terrorism under this federal statute,” radio show host Dean Obeidallah wrote for The Daily Beast. Obeidallah and others have noted that Roof seems to have chosen his target, the Emanuel AME Church, because of its storied African-American history going back to the early 19th century, and that attacking his victims there was arguably meant to intimidate black people generally.
Comey’s remarks were met with biting response on social media and reflected a broader debate among lawmakers and experts about whether the term terrorism should be applied to Roof’s actions. Numerous commentators have pointed to an apparent double standard, in which a radical Muslim who attacks innocent people is called a terrorist, but a radical white supremacist who does the same thing is called mentally ill or deranged.
For instance, Republican presidential candidate and South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham has called Roof “one of these wacked out kids” and chalked up his motivations to a mental problem. But in 2013, Graham used “terrorist” to describe Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the two men who bombed the Boston Marathon, motivated by what law enforcement officials said was a radical view of Islam.
“This man, in my view, should be designated as a potential enemy combatant and we should be allowed to question him for intelligence-gathering purposes to find out about future attacks and terrorist organizations that may exist that he has knowledge of,” Graham said.
The reference to intelligence-gathering is notable in the current debate over Roof’s alleged acts and his possible connections to right-wing extremist groups. In a survey conducted with the Police Executive Research Forum, university professors Charles Kurzman and David Schanzer found the vast majority of law enforcement agencies in the United States think that domestic right-wing extremist groups pose a greater terrorist threat than al Qaeda and other foreign groups.
On Sunday, the chorus of lawmakers and public officials calling the Charleston massacre terrorism grew and became at least a nascent issue in the Republican presidential contest.
“I don |
lost their jobs due to the ripple effects of his early mismanagement. Another 2,848 will join their ranks next week when the Taj finally closes, and the city’s unemployment rate — already among the highest in the nation — will skyrocket.
What does Trump have to say about the people who helped build his name, the people he so spectacularly failed? What words of inspiration does our would-be leader offer the broken city he left behind?
He tells us: He’s smart to have gotten out when he did.
Atlantic City today: boarded-up homes, boarded-up casinos
I grew up being aware of Trump — not as a cartoon character but as a boss, an ego, a money monster. My friends and neighbors were beholden to him, manipulated by him, played as cogs in his machine.
To see him on a national stage — to see people believe he’s the fiscally responsible savior we need — is more than a joke to me. It’s a real and present danger.
If you think of Las Vegas, you’re more likely to think of the photos you frantically deleted the morning after than you are to think of the thousands of servers, bartenders, dealers, housekeeping staff, performers, and subcontractors who made your wild night possible. It’s the same with Atlantic City. No one ever talks to me about it in any other terms than their last vacation. But the city means more to me than that; it’s where we made our lives.
Going home to visit is a disorienting experience these days. It’s always been necessary to drive past rundown bungalows and housing projects to get to the boardwalk. There used to be a kind of promise that the casino industry would provide opportunities that would trickle down and reinvigorate those communities; they never did. Now you go past boarded-up single-family homes to arrive at once opulent, equally shuttered casino towers and a boardwalk as sparse and silent as the streets.
I remember the enchanting, brightly colored boardwalk of my childhood; I remember the cotton candy vendors, the rickshaws, the buskers. I remember the rides at Steel Pier, and giggling as I slurped the maraschino cherries out of my Shirley Temples while my dad made funny faces at me from the piano bench when some shoobie requested “My Way” for the hundredth time. There was nothing but hope.
My father no longer plays in casino lounges; there isn’t any money in it. My mother left waitressing in 1998 to become a social worker, and the vulnerability of her clients is a reflection of the city’s creeping, insidious poverty. (Her gold-and-purple uniform still hangs in some dank corner of our basement.)
The members of the labor union she belonged to, Local 54 UNITE HERE, stand to lose their pensions when the Taj shuts its doors next week. Many of my friends’ parents were forced into early retirement, or had their health benefits suddenly rescinded.
As many as 13,000 workers have fled the region in a bid to find viable work. Some, whose homes are underwater, don’t have the luxury of going anywhere else.
For those who remain, there’s a bitter reminder of the past hope that brought them there. The letters might have been taken down, but ghosted on the side of the abandoned tower in the middle of the strip, you can still make out the name: TRUMP.
This article was originally published in October 2016.
Arielle Brousse was born in Atlantic City and currently works as a nonprofit development and communications specialist in Philadelphia. She is the creator of the Sensible Nonsense Project, a blog and storytelling series encouraging adults to consider their favorite children’s books and why those books mattered. Her heart still flutters at the sight of a boardwalk.
First Person is Vox's home for compelling, provocative narrative essays. Do you have a story to share? Read our submission guidelines, and pitch us at firstperson@vox.com.How To Remove An Impaling Object
The books all say “transport the patient with an impaling object in place” and “only take the impaling object out in the operating room.” Is this realistic? How do you actually take that knife out?
First, you need to decide if the patient belongs in the OR right now. Are they hemodynamically unstable? Is there obvious arterial bleeding? If so, don’t dawdle. Proceed to the operating room and surgically expose the problem completely.
If the patient is safe to stay in the ED, do what you need to figure out the exact anatomy of the wound (and object). This may involve imaging, usually CT scan. Once the exact position of the object is understood, build an anatomical picture of the situation in your mind. What named arteries might be involved? What other vital structures?
Given this anatomic information, a decision can then be made regarding the best location for removal. The majority of the time, this will be in the operating room. It is best to obtain optimum surgical exposure prior to pulling it out. In the abdomen, this is easy. However, some areas (skull, sinuses) are tricky and may not require exposure of the end of the tract. Visualization of the remaining hole(s) is key so that bothersome bleeding can be recognized immediately.
The object should be grasped firmly and carefully and removed in one smooth motion. Visual monitoring for five minutes will virtually eliminate the presence of bleeding. If it does occur, then deeper exploration is warranted. In the awake patient, I generally push gently on either side of the entry point prior to and during the pull to provide some sensory distraction. Then I hold pressure on the site for 5 minutes (no peeking) to assure myself that there is no bleeding.
And don’t forget the forensics! Let the police photograph the patient. Handle the object carefully so as not to disturb any fingerprints. Place it carefully in a paper bag, labelled appropriately. And always make sure that a chain of evidence form is properly filled out so it and the object itself can be handed over to the proper authorities.Skipper Dean Barker cracks the champagne as Team New Zealand celebrate victory in the Louis Vuitton Cup.
Abraham Lincoln, one of the greatest presidents of the United States provided the mantra that could help Team New Zealand reclaim the America's Cup in the land of Yankee-doodle-dandy.
"I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends," Lincoln said.
Team New Zealand carried that out to near perfection when they completed their Louis Vuitton Cup final rout of Luna Rossa yesterday, a 3min 20sec win meaning a 7-1 victory in the best of 13 series.
Yesterday's enemies now become today's friends as the Italians join forces with Team New Zealand in San Francisco to help the Kiwis plot the downfall of Oracle in the America's Cup match, a best of 17 series that starts on September 8.
Their friendship dates back a couple of years when Team New Zealand and Luna Rossa entered a design-sharing agreement to get the tardy Italians to the start line in San Francisco.
But now that their one-sided battle on the water has come to an end, the real benefits of their relationship will bear fruition for Grant Dalton's syndicate.
The two rivals share a common goal of trying to squeeze everything possible out of the impressive Aotearoa to ready her for the tangle against Oracle.
Having a tricked-up Luna Rossa to practice starts and manoeuvres over the next fortnight will be more valuable to the Kiwis than any of their "races" over the past couple of months.
The two syndicates share a bond when it comes to Oracle. They don't like the mob run by billionaire Larry Ellison and his hired gun Russell Coutts. They don't like what they've done to the America's Cup by super-sizing the boats and pricing it beyond the reach of syndicates who were genuinely interested but simply couldn't afford to compete.
Luna Rossa would much rather the America's Cup returned to New Zealand than stay in San Francisco for Ellison's next edition. They want sport's oldest contest returned to some sense of normality.
Suddenly they can both trot out another famous Lincoln quote: "A friend is one who has the same enemies as you have."
Team New Zealand and Luna Rossa have worked hard in the jury room to keep Oracle in check and will work even harder on the water over the next couple of weeks to try to make Aotearoa competitive enough to bring the Auld Mug back to New Zealand.
That remains the biggest question, the unknown quantity of this regatta - how fast are Oracle? Or most importantly, are they faster than Team New Zealand?
This event hasn't helped itself to endear fans with legal wrangles, $120 million budgets, tax-payers' money, a pathetically small fleet, one-boat races and even a death.
But the fascination of the America's Cup has lurked as much as the frustration.
Now, Team New Zealand's presence in the grand finale means the opening race will be compulsive viewing.
In fact the short dash to the very first mark will probably reveal everything about who has got it right and just who has got it wrong.We didn’t have quite as many goals this week but the one we can bring you belongs to Izzy Brown, and it was his first in senior professional football.
Headliners
Injuries have struck Vitesse down of late, including a long lay-off for Dominic Solanke, and so Brown has not only been able to enjoy a regular run of starts after his own spell on the sidelines, but on Sunday he was pressed into starting as the centre-forward away to Roda. It paid off handsomely in a strong performance capped by his first goal of the season:
He hit the bar in the second half and was eventually substituted a minute from time, when Chinese teenager Yuning Zhang came on and scored a last-gasp winner to claim a 2-1 win for Rob Maas’ side. Lewis Baker played a full match in midfield once again, Nathan was an unused substitute, and Danilo Pantic has severed ties with the club and returned to Chelsea. In an interview with the Serbian media this week he was highly critical of the Arnhem side and, at one point, appeared to rather harshly suggest that they have something against Serbian players in general. Not the best way to make an impression…
England
Nathan Aké played well for Watford in their 1-0 defeat at home to league leaders Leicester on Saturday evening having been rested for the midweek defeat at Manchester United. He was impressive at both ends of the pitch and hit the crossbar with a well-timed header late in the first half.
Patrick Bamford saw his most significant time in a Norwich shirt so far, getting around half an hour away to Swansea on Saturday after being ineligible to feature against Chelsea on Tuesday. He had one good chance and two half-chances, neither of which he could take, and the Canaries went down by a goal to nil.
Victor Moses missed both of West Ham’s matches this week through a minor injury picked up in training.
In Championship action, Tomas Kalas continued to rotate in and out of the Middlesbrough defence, not playing any part in their defeat to Blackburn but then coming back in on Friday and helping the promotion-chasers to a 2-1 win at home to Wolves. After an in-and-out spell he seems to be back in Aitor Karanka’s good graces again and is getting his fair share of playing time in a back four which is heavily changed from one game to the next.
Michael Hector turned in another impressive midfield display for Reading in their 2-2 draw at home to Fulham, claiming a league season-high sixteen turnovers in the middle of the pitch during a frenetic contest. He’s earned plenty of positive reviews for his quick adaptation to a new(ish) position and, as he approaches a summer where Chelsea will be undergoing another bout of change, adding more strings to his bow will do not harm.
Lucas Piazon was an unused substitute in that match, whilst John Swift got ninety minutes for Brentford in a 2-1 home defeat at the hands of Charlton.
Spain
Charly Musonda caught the eye once again this week with another superlative performance contributing to Betis’ renaissance. They took Espanyol apart 3-0 on Thursday with the Belgian claiming an assist and performing well under the watchful eyes of national team manager Marc Wilmots.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAwJaIl9RrA
The news of Wilmots’ interest then saw Zambia step up to the plate on Friday and offer Charly Jr a call-up to the country once captained by his father, but it was politely declined and, for now at least, a surprise call-up to Belgium’s Euro 2016 squad remains the target. He did well again on Sunday in a 2-0 win at home to Granada but in a different way this time; Betis were down to ten men for almost the entire second half and manager Juan Merino asked Musonda to sit in midfield alongside Alfred N’Diaye and adopt a more defensive role. He did that with aplomb and is yet to taste defeat in his six outings at the club.
Christian Atsu returned to the Málaga team with fifteen minutes against Valencia in midweek and then a full match away to Deportivo on Saturday.
Germany
There was also a double round of Bundesliga action this week. Andreas Christensen and Borussia Mönchengladbach helped themselves to a 4-0 win over Stuttgart before losing 2-1 at Wolfsburg, whilst Papy Djilobodji and Werder Bremen claimed a pair of 4-1 wins, the former against Leverkusen featuring an own goal from the Senegalese defender.
Italy
Juan Cuadrado played the full duration of Juventus’ dramatic Coppa Italia Semi Final against Inter in midweek as Inter won 3-0 to ensure a 3-3 aggregate scoreline and a penalty shootout. Cuadrado himself didn’t take a spot kick and he then took his turn to rest for their weekend Serie A win at Atalanta.
Nathaniel Chalobah played the last five minutes of Napoli’s 3-1 win against Chievo and Stipe Perica played twenty minutes for Udinese away to Frosinone as two of the lesser-used loanees managed to get on the pitch for a change.
France
Jeremie Boga played the last ten minutes for a Rennes team already well out of sight against Nantes, winding up 4-1 winners, but Mario Pašalić missed Monaco’s 2-2 draw at Caen with the injury that has kept him out of their last three fixtures.
Netherlands
Marco van Ginkel played a full match for PSV in a routine 3-0 win at Groningen, whilst it was very much business as usual for Todd Kane this week; NEC Nijmegen kept a clean sheet, won 1-0, Kane played ninety hard-working minutes and was booked. NEC now sit seventh in the Eredivisie, a point behind local rivals Vitesse.
Belgium
Sint-Truiden’s slide continued on Saturday with a 3-0 defeat away to Club Brugge that left them outside of the relegation play-off places on goal difference, and to make matters worse Victorien Angban was sent off for the third time this season. He picked up a pair of yellow cards in twelve second half minutes to receive his marching orders yet again, with Cristian Cuevas also earning a caution. As usual, there was no Joao Rodriguez.
Turkey
Kenneth Omeruo was back for Kasimpasa and helped them to a 2-1 win at home to Antalyaspor, but despite also playing a full ninety minutes Marko Marin ended up on the losing side as Trabzonspor lost 2-0 at Konyaspor.
Brazil
Wallace played 67 minutes of Gremio’s 4-0 Copa Libertadores victory over LDU Quito on Thursday and could feature against Internacional a few hours after this report goes live. If he does anything of note, you’ll be able to hear about it on Twitter @chelseayouth.
The right-back was, however, not named in a Brazil friendly squad this week comprised of players eligible to play at this summer’s Rio Olympics, but there is still time for him to work his way into their plans.Growing up in the city of Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, as a kid I was never shy about my fondness for all things West. Somehow, in my childhood I had developed some strong xenocentric tendencies. I’m not saying it’s right, it’s just how I was influenced as a kid. I ate up everything that came from the West – television, food, music, you name it. I seemed to be focused on America and all things American. America seemed to the birthplace of awesomeness, full of bright and shiny objects that drew me in like a Star Destroyer’s tractor beam. (Actually, that analogy holds more water than I care to admit.)
And the more I learned about and experienced Western culture, the more I grew ethnophobic – I became quickly dissatisfied with life in Kuala Lumpur. I had miserable teenage years. Not just average miserable teenage years like a lot of kids had – I had this weight on my shoulders about the country I lived in, the people around me, my surroundings, my whole outlook. In hindsight, I was probably just another ungrateful little shit who didn’t appreciate what I had, but rather moped about how green the grass was across the Pacific. I was an insufferable shit as a kid (I haven’t changed much).
But I was unwavering in one ambition that I had when I was a kid – one day to get the hell out of Dodge.
I am privileged to have parents who planned well enough to be able to send me to college abroad (I’m nowhere near as prepared, my kids are so screwed). Nothing super fancy or prestigious, just a modest college experience. Malaysian colleges were never an option, but I’ll get into why in a minute. Long story short, I left for college in New Jersey, then found a good job in New York, and I never moved back to Malaysia.
I now call New York home. When asked where I’m from, I typically reply, “I’m from New York.” Which fucking kills me, because it’s not the whole truth. But it saves me from having to explain this whole Malaysia backstory. It saves me from having to bite my tongue about the disdain that I’ve grown for my country of birth. A moment of me being slightly disingenuous saves me from having to deal with my own self-loathing and what complete and utter disappointment at my former home country.
So, why am I so fucking down on Malaysia, the land of my birth, my childhood country, the country in which 90% of my immediate and extended family still live?
It starts from the top. Malaysia is like an upside down tree. The roots are at the top, planted in a toxic pot that gets no illumination from the sun. These gangrenous roots are the government. A government that is held together by only the finest grade of corruption and greed. A government that is driven by the ethnic majority.
Ahh, the ethnic majority. You see, Malaysia is comprised of three large ethnic groups – the Malays, the Chinese, and the Indians. The Malays, who are native to the land, opened up the doors to the country to the Chinese and the Indians during the Spice Trade because Malaysia sits precisely at the perfect maritime gateway between India (who wanted Chinese tea), and China (who wanted Indian spices). That’s the super dumbed-down version of that story. What do I look like, Wikipedia? If you want more detail, Google that shit.
Fast forward 500 years later, and somehow you’ve got a ruling class with a constitution that openly favors the ethnic majority, exercises extreme prejudice, and an inculcated environment in which the ignorant are rewarded and the hardworking masses are told to shut the fuck up and keep working.
No fucking way, right? There’s no way that such a retarded country can actually exist! I mean, it’s so fucking outlandish that it’s absolutely farcical at this point. Like some insane Monty Python sketch. Yeah, well check these out:
Bumiputera discounts. “Bumiputera” is what the Malays call themselves. Princes of the earth. Can’t you just feel the ooze of racial entitlement? Basically, if you’re Malay, you’re entitled to massive discounts on all sorts of big dollar shit. You get a lower interest rate on mortgages, you get discounts, you get preferred acceptance into organizations, contracts, colleges, etc. If you’re Chinese, Indian, or any other ethnic group, you’re fucked. You get the privilege of paying top dollar, and you wait in the back of the fucking line. Lucky you!
Pizza Hut. Shit like this Pizza Hut commercial make even the most retarded used car salesman commercial in America look like a Clio winner. Marriage proposals in a Pizza Hut. Made over what is arguably the most disgusting looking food in the world it can’t even be called pizza at this point. But neither the premise nor the pizza are even close to being the most grating things about this commercial. It’s the fact that everyone’s wearing sweaters. SWEATERS!!! IN MALAYSIA!!! Where it’s consistently 100-degrees year-round, with so much humidity, you could walk outside and do the backstroke. This is the retarded standard of Malaysian advertising, of Malaysian creativity, of Malaysian cultural reflection – everything is poorly aped and incredibly shitty. This Pizza Hut commercial is a perfect 30-second microcosmic film that sums up the country.
Mat Rempit cops. Where the fuck do I begin with this? Let’s start with what the fuck a Mat Rempit is. According to Wikipedia, they are “an individual who participates in illegal street racing”, usually involving underbone motorcycles (colloquially known as Kapcai) or scooters.” In other words, they’re shitty biker gangs who ride shitty bikes, trying very hard to pretend that they’re fucking hard. It’s a fucking pathetic subculture. And now we have some genius politician who thinks that he’s “thinking out of the box” by wanting to employ these Mat Rempit shitheads to be something of a volunteer police force.
Gay and lesbian symptoms. I. Shit. You. Not. Just keep in mind that these are guidelines that have been developed, ratified, and are being rolled out by the Ministry of Education. This shit comes from the top! Make sure you read the article in the link a couple of times over. I’ve read it about 6 times now (woah, that might be a gay number!), and I still can’t decide which part fucks me off more. Is the use of the term “symptoms”? Is it the fact that someone actually came up with a list of these symptoms? Is it the suggestion for “corrective measurements [sic]”? Or is it the picture of the fucking asshole in the article that makes me want reach through my screen and beat the living shit out of his fucking stupid asshole face? Could be any of those. Most likely it’s all of it. If Malaysia wasn’t such a tiny little pissant insignificant little turd of a nation, this rampant act of bigotry might incite some fairly significant outrage. But as it is, no one gives a shit about the insufferable boil that is Malaysia so no one outside of the country draws attention when shit like this goes down. And because no one makes a massive fuss about it, the powers that be live under this delusion that what they’re doing is perfectly OK and everyone else is OK with it. What a bunch of assholes.
So what makes Malaysia stupider than other horrible countries around the world? How’s it different from destitute countries full of despair like Sudan or Liberia? In those countries, you live every day knowing full well that everything’s fucked and no one lies to you about it. In Malaysia, there is an ever-present bullshit haze of hunky-doriness that somehow allows everyone carry along each day as if everything’s cool. But underneath of it, EVERYTHING’s fucked, you’re fucked, the future’s fucked, and the impenetrable system that perpetuates an endless cycle of greed and corruption has been perfected. That, for me, is the most hurtful thing about living in Malaysia – the grand lie and the forced acceptance of that lie.
I write this freely because I now live in New York. If I lived in Malaysia, these words would likely tantamount to treason. And I’d probably be locked up and beaten for it. The government has been known to lock up and persecute citizens for a lot less.
But I needed to write all this down not because I’m angry or trying to be insurgent. I’m past that now. I’m writing this because I need to somehow exorcise Malaysia from my being. Because enough is enough.
Fuck you, Malaysia.
P.S. I’m grateful for my friends and family who are still in Malaysia, who despite my repeated urging, have chosen to remain there, either by choice or by circumstance. I respect their decision, and I can only pray the best for them. Besides, they’re the ones who keep me informed of all this bullshit. And for that, you guys fucking rock. You know who you are.ROUGH CUT - NO REPORTER NARRATION Krasna Horka castle in eastern Slovakia went up in flames on Saturday (March 10) morning. The blaze at the castle near Roznava town in Kosice region was probably caused by cut dry grass which caught fire. Eleven regional fire services were called to attend the conflagration. A helicopter dumped water onto the fire. The castle's wooden roof was completely burned and the interior of the building was destroyed, fire service officials said. Krasna Horka Castle was built up in 14th century. The first written reference to the castle was in 1333. The castle was built to protect a mining trade route. The aristocratic dynasties of Mariassy, Bebekov and Andrassy have owned the castle in the past. The castle had been restored and opened to the public in April last year.Airbus, a giant military contractor, contacted Frontex last year about what it called a “floating frontier surveillance platform” that could be used to monitor “inland waterways, and estuaries, lakes.” A Massachusetts company wanted to sell “a field-deployable Rapid DNA Analysis System” to generate DNA profiles “in 84 minutes.” A third company said it could create “algorithms to predict border crossings.”
But the most otherworldly idea belonged to UrtheCast. Its cameras, one for video and the other for still images, could be used for the “detection of borders activities,” UrtheCast said in an email to Frontex. UrtheCast said its cameras offered “an unprecedented capability for an integrated persistent space surveillance,” as well as what it called “extraction of situation awareness at certain regions, facilities or events.”
The space station was set up “for peaceful purposes” in 1998 by the United States, Russia, Canada, Japan and the European Space Agency. Is there a spy satellite lurking in its rafters? The UrtheCast solicitation pointed out that the cameras could “help to provide reliable evidences on certain events without intruding” on neighboring countries’ air space with airplanes or drones.
UrtheCast is hardly alone. More than 30 companies have been involved in commercial projects with the station, but those are generally research. Merck has studied antibodies, for example, and a subsidiary of Puma has tested coatings for golf clubs.
A spokesman for Frontex said that the agency did not accept UrtheCast’s offer, which was made in 2013, the year the cameras were launched into space from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Cosmonauts installed them the January after, though neither was fully operational for some time.Room is getting some wonderful reviews, winning TIFF’s People Choice Award. Brie Larson recently spoke to Variety about her role in Room and her friendship with Jacob Tremblay. There are some spoilers, but it’s a good read if you’re curious about how the film went behind the scenes.
When asked about the kind of material she’s interested in chasing, Larson talks about her interest in old stories and myths, as well as the power of diversity:
Oh, gosh. You know, everything for me comes back to the old stories of mythology and folklore. So basically, since I’ve been in control of what I get to choose, kind of the backbone of my choices are these really old stories. I think that’s where we get a deep, visceral connection. And I’m fascinated as to all the new ways that we can retell these stories. I mean that, to me, is our legacy. These are the things that we’ve grown up on that are so deeply within us that it reminds us where we came from. It reminds us of our universal nature. I think a lot about my little sister. She’s going to college. She is pretty in touch with what’s going on with current events. But she is a white American girl and she watches white American movies. I would love to create more space for her complication, for stepping outside of clichés and showing women and other races and other sexualities — all the complexities instead of just focusing so much on the surface issues. Because I think movies are a fantastic way for us to see the world. My sister’s looking at movies and going, “Wow, this is what the world’s like.” And I wonder what that image is that we’re showing them and if there isn’t a better way that we can show them.
It’s great to see Larson’s voice among others calling for more diverse representations. What do you think?
—Please make note of The Mary Sue’s general comment policy.—
Do you follow The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google +?With the Gamescom event fast approaching next week, game companies are starting to set up their line-ups for the much anticipated event – and Activision is no exception.
The publisher revealed its plans in a new blog post today, indicating the three big titles that it will be bringing to the show – and one of them could tie in with a long-awaited announcement.
First up, Call of Duty: WWII will be at the show, and visitors will be able to see a number of experiences with the game. They’ll be able to try out the Private Multiplayer Beta before it launches later this month, and try out its many maps and modes for good measure. In addition, there will also be access to Operation Breakout in the new War Mode, and a few other features to boot.
Next up, Destiny 2 will have a lot to showcase at the event, with plenty of PvP action to partake with the Control multiplayer mode, as well as the ability to check out the opening story campaign mission, Homecoming, in case they missed out on it during the Open Beta last month (or are itching to try out the PC beta coming later this month). But perhaps the most surprising game in the line-up is Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy. Yep, the platforming package will make its way to Gamescom, and that has us wondering.This article is about the video game series. For the work of literature, see Legacy of Cain
Legacy of Kain is a series of action-adventure video games primarily developed by Crystal Dynamics and published by Square Enix Europe (formerly Eidos Interactive). The first title, Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, was created by Silicon Knights in association with Crystal Dynamics, but, after a legal battle, Crystal Dynamics retained the rights to the game's intellectual property, and continued its story with four sequels. To date, five games comprise the series, all initially developed for video game consoles and later ported to Microsoft Windows. Focusing on the eponymous character of Kain, a vampire antihero, each title features action, exploration and puzzle-solving, with some role-playing game elements.
The series takes place in the fictional land of Nosgoth—a gothic fantasy setting—and revolves around Kain's quest to defy his fate and restore balance to the world. Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver introduced another antihero protagonist, Raziel; the adventures of both characters culminate in Legacy of Kain: Defiance. Themes of destiny, free will, morality, redemption and the hero's journey recur in the storyline, which was inspired by ancient literature, horror fiction, Shakespeare's plays and Gnosticism. The Legacy of Kain games have enjoyed critical success, particularly receiving praise for high-quality voice acting, narrative, and visuals, and, as a whole, had sold over 3.5 million copies as of 2007. In 2015, a sequel has been confirmed as "50/50".[1]
Games [ edit ]
Blood Omen, below: in Defiance) as "the mythological and geographical hub" of the five games.[2] Series director Amy Hennig described the Pillars of Nosgoth (above: in concept art, center: in, below: in) as "the mythological and geographical hub" of the five games.
Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain was created by Silicon Knights under the direction of Denis Dyack, with assistance from publisher Crystal Dynamics, and was released in 1996 on the PlayStation. In 1997, it was ported to Microsoft Windows. Dyack conceived the "vampire project" under the title The Pillars of Nosgoth in 1993, and Crystal Dynamics producer Lyle Hall chose this fantasy concept over two other proposals (one of which was Too Human).[3][4][5] Pursued in hopes of bringing a strong narrative and artistic cinema to consoles, it was built as "a game which adults would want to play", featuring an unconventional hero and gameplay that demanded thought as well as reflexes.[3][4] Developed as a 2D action-adventure game with role-playing game elements,[6][7] it debuted to positive critical and commercial reception.[3][7][8][9] Selling points included its 50+ hour length and the wide array of items and abilities the player character commands.[10] Blood Omen introduces Nosgoth, a fictional land designed with novel-like complexity,[4][6] and gives the player control of Kain, a newly resurrected vampire seeking revenge against his murderers and a cure for his vampiric curse.
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver was released in 1999 for the PlayStation and Microsoft Windows, and was ported to the Dreamcast in 2000. It originated as an independent concept inspired by Biblical themes called Shifter, devised by Crystal Dynamics' Amy Hennig and Seth Carus,[11][12] but, at the request of company executives, was integrated into the Legacy of Kain universe in pre-production.[7][12] Hennig, the game's director, likened the technological advance from Blood Omen to Soul Reaver to the evolution of The Legend of Zelda series from the Super Nintendo to the Nintendo 64—bringing the franchise into 3D while maintaining a similar style.[13] Soul Reaver was hailed as a technical achievement for its plane-shifting gameplay mechanics and its data-streaming game engine, which eliminated the loading pauses that were prevalent in PlayStation-era games.[12][14][15] It was a commercial and critical success, selling 1.5 million units worldwide,[16][17][18] but the strong reactions of players to its cliffhanger ending impelled the developers to allay concerns that it was released unfinished.[19] The game elaborates on one of the two endings to Blood Omen, taking place in Nosgoth's dark future where Kain rules an empire of vampires, and introduces a new protagonist, his lieutenant Raziel, who is executed by Kain and resurrected to exact revenge on his brothers and master.
Soul Reaver 2 had an accelerated development cycle and was released after two years, despite a switch to sixth generation consoles early in the project. It was initially targeted for release in late 2000 on the PlayStation and Dreamcast, but was reworked and released in 2001 as a PlayStation 2 exclusive, and was ported to Microsoft Windows later that year.[20] The developers' goal was to retain the elements that made its predecessor successful,[21] but they decided to eschew the "complete a level, fight a boss" flow of the previous game in favor of a more narrative-driven approach.[22] The plot serves as a direct sequel to Soul Reaver, picking up immediately after its ending. The player controls Raziel as he uncovers the mysteries surrounding Nosgoth's distant past and his own destiny. Meanwhile, Kain attempts to subvert fate and restore the world by manipulating history. While Soul Reaver was still in development, Crystal Dynamics initiated another project—a successor to Blood Omen—and when the Soul Reaver team had started work on their follow-up in late 1999, two Legacy of Kain games were in simultaneous development.[22][23]
Blood Omen 2's "creative seeds were sown" in 1999, and the finished product was released in 2002, six months after Soul Reaver 2, for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, Microsoft Windows and Nintendo GameCube.[24] It was not produced with the involvement of the Soul Reaver crew, instead being created by a new team at Crystal Dynamics under the direction of Glen Schofield.[23][25] A key point of focus for the developers was the main character, Kain;[26] Crystal Dynamics had "a huge investment in Kain as a character".[27] Shifting the focus of gameplay towards action, gore and combat instead of puzzle-solving, it retains several of the qualities which made the previous games popular, but was criticized for lacking innovation.[28][29] Despite middling critical reception, it was released on four platforms and sold well.[30] The setting, an enormous industrial city, is a departure for the series. The story picks up after the ending of Soul Reaver 2—players control a younger Kain after an unsuccessful campaign to conquer Nosgoth, as he is opposed by traitorous vampires and a new enemy.
Legacy of Kain: Defiance, the most recent entry in the series, was released in 2003 on the PlayStation 2, Xbox and Microsoft Windows. First conceptualized as Soul Reaver 3,[20][23] it represented a combined effort from the Soul Reaver 2 and Blood Omen 2 teams to consolidate and re-balance the storytelling, puzzle-solving and combat aspects of its predecessors, fusing elements from the two sub-series into one game.[23] They chose a new title under the Legacy of Kain banner to reflect this new focus.[31] The player alternates between control of Raziel and the Soul Reaver 2 incarnation of Kain in each of the game's chapters, under the premise that only one of the two will survive—emphasis was placed on cinematic presentation.[23][31] The |
," the group wrote.
One of the group's members said the message was carved using gardening tools and took less than one hour to complete.
Recent Trump administration actions criticized by environmental groups include the Environmental Protection Agency announcing it was abandoning measures that called for the disclosure of methane emissions from oil and natural gas wells.President Trump on Friday vowed to simplify America's tax code and bring jobs and businesses back to the U.S. as Republicans ramp up their push for tax reform.
In his weekly address from the White House, Trump touted the GOP's tax reform proposal, saying it would spur businesses to bring better jobs and wages to the country.
"Our framework will make the tax code simple, fair, and easy to understand. Under our plan, the vast majority of families will be able to file their taxes on a single sheet of paper," Trump said.
ADVERTISEMENT
"People will pay a lot less money. Single individuals will not be taxed on the first $12,000 of income earned. And a married couple will pay zero taxes on their first $24,000 of income."
Trump also promised to lower the corporate tax rate, arguing it would restore America's "competitive edge" and allow workers to "win again."
"We are going to restore America’s competitive edge so that American businesses and workers can win again. We will cut the corporate rate below the average of our foreign competitors—and we will reduce the top marginal income tax rate on small and mid-sized businesses to the lowest in more than 80 years," Trump said.
"It’s so important because our companies are leaving our shores and when they leave, they let go of the workers. And then they make their product and they send it back into our country," Trump added. "We don’t tax them, we don’t do anything. Those days are over."
Trump rolled out his tax plan alongside Sen. Joe Donnelly Joseph (Joe) Simon DonnellyOvernight Energy: Trump taps ex-oil lobbyist Bernhardt to lead Interior | Bernhardt slams Obama officials for agency's ethics issues | Head of major green group steps down Trump picks ex-oil lobbyist David Bernhardt for Interior secretary EPA's Wheeler faces grilling over rule rollbacks MORE (D-Ind.) in Indiana this week, and has pointed to tax reform as an area where Republicans and Democrats could work together.
But in his address Friday, Trump blasted the minority party for wanting to "substantially" raise taxes.
"The problem we have is the Democrats don’t want to cut your taxes, they want to actually raise your taxes, and raise them very substantially. We can’t afford to do that as a country, that’s why our jobs are leaving, that’s why you don’t have enough left in your paycheck," Trump said.
"We want to cut taxes and it’s going to be the biggest tax cut in the history of our country."REGINA
From underdogs one week to being portrayed as the top dogs the next, the Argos have undergone quite the turnaround in such a short time.
The team’s perception has changed dramatically, no longer being asked to comment on when Ricky Ray will return, or asked to offer a reaction to whatever distraction has befallen the franchise.
Before the Argos arrived here in Regina on Friday, their travel schedule went awry when a wildcat strike at Pearson forced a delay.
But the team got here in one piece and now has an opportunity to carry over momentum from last week’s win over Edmonton in Fort McMurray into Sunday’s game against the host Riders.
Football is a game of routine and consistency, the good teams keeping their roster changes to a minimum, the elite teams playing at a high level from one week to the next.
It’s way too early to define this Argos group, but there’s an opportunity to jump out to a 2-0 start against a Riders team that is reeling.
Saskatchewan didn’t play well against Winnipeg last week, a rivalry game to begin the season that laid bare some poor tackling by the home side.
To add injury to insult, starting quarterback Darian Durant, the heart and soul of the Riders, injured his Achilles and is out for the entire season.
Enter Kevin Glenn, an accomplished quarterback who was brought into town as an insurance policy.
When head coach Corey Chamblin addressed the media on Saturday, he was unwilling to offer any excuses for his team.
In total, there are 10 changes to Saskatchewan’s roster from a week ago, not exactly conducive to team chemistry when one considers CFL game rosters feature a 44-man lineup.
In contrast, the Argos will have two changes, the most impactful involving kicker/punter Swayze Waters, who partially tore his hip flexor in Toronto’s win over the Eskimos.
Dealing with injuries and adjusting a roster is as much a part of football as blocking and tackling.
The teams that do it best are the ones that normally have a prolonged run of success.
Shea Emry, the centrepiece trade chip the Riders received from the Argos in an off-season deal that sent Ricky Foley back to Toronto, has been placed on the six-game injured list with what is believed to be a neck injury.
As Emry sits, Foley will be introduced to the place he called home for two seasons as one of Toronto’s co-captains.
Glenn is the proverbial hot and cold quarterback who can easily light it up or struggle.
It seems there’s never a middle ground for Glenn, the starting quarterback for Calgary in the historic 100th Grey Cup in 2012, won by the hometown Argos.
The Argos have a consistent roster on their side and momentum, but there’s no assurance either will lead to anything on Sunday.
The Riders are a desperate side, even though it is only Week 2, and the team’s fan base — as much as it supports the Green and White — can just as easily grow frustrated.
“I know what kind of players they have. I know what kind of coaches they have,’’ said Argos head coach Scott Milanovich, who refused to take the bait when reminded of Saskatchewan’s changing roster. “We’re going to have to play well.”
In Fort McMurray, where Saskatchewan kicked off the pre-season by playing Edmonton, there weren’t more than 5,000 fans in attendance.
Sunday’s game won’t be sold out, but at least 30,000 fans will be on hand.
“It’s always fun to play in a game that feels important and the fans make it feel important here,’’ said Milanovich. “I think that’s why a lot of guys enjoy playing here.”
A superstitious coach, Milanovich will retain the same captains he picked for last week’s game — Jermaine Gabriel (defence), Chad Owens (offence) and James Yurichuk (special teams).
He’ll add Foley, who should get a warm welcome in his return to Regina.
“It’s obviously the loudest place in the league, it’s no secret,’’ Argos quarterback Trevor Harris said. “You have to prepare. We even started to prepare in training camp for a game like this. You have to find ways to get your cadence on silent, make sure it’s not an issue in the game.”
For Harris, Sunday marks his third career start.
“It’s new for me to be playing,’’ said Harris, who completed 24 of 27 passes against Edmonton. “I’ve been here at Mosaic a few times and I’ve played in pre-season games in the NFL. The noise level is there, but at the same time it’s something you have to deal with and we’ve prepared for it.
“Hopefully, it’s not an issue in the game.”
KEEPING IT TIGHT
Until the Argos face some adversity this season, it’s hard to tell what kind of locker room the team has once players convene to the confines of their private quarters.
They won the Grey Cup in 2012 because they found their rhythm at Regina in the season’s penultimate game, and because their locker room was tight with no agenda or ego.
“We have a great locker room,’’ said quarterback Trevor Harris, a rookie on that 2012 team. “I was telling some of the guys the other day that this is the best locker room we’ve had since 2012.
“We have guys who care for each other and it’s really awesome to see.”
One of the leaders on that 2012 team was veteran defensive back Jordan Younger, who helped groom a secondary that began the season with no CFL experience.
Younger is now the Argos’ defensive backs coach and has given the unit a swagger not seen since the 2012 season.
The Argos have a nice mix of veterans and youth, football players who have played down south but have never played the CFL game. For now, it’s all good, but it’s early and there’s a lot that awaits the team.
CHICK’S KIDS KNOW THE SCORE
The CFL lost Cameron Wake to the NFL after the B.C. Lions gave the undrafted Wake his shot at pro football.
The CFL then lost John Chick to the bright lights of four-down football, though he returned to the Saskatchewan Roughriders two years ago.
Besides being elite sack specialists, another common denominator to these two is Ricky Foley, who had the pleasure of lining up alongside Wake in B.C., and then Chick in Saskatchewan.
Wake has turned into an elite NFL defensive player, while Chick remains one of the Canadian league’s best.
“He’s full-speed every single play, doesn’t take any plays off,’’ said Foley of Chick. “I’d say that’s his No. 1 thing, on and off the field.
“John is a great guy and he’s a competitor off the field. I don’t know how many kids he has now — seven, I believe — and he competes with them the same way he competes on the football field. There are no easy wins in the Chick household. That’s what makes him who he is, his fire, energy, and I feel I play the same way. We had a good connection out there.”
Containing Chick is one of the keys for the Argos heading into Sunday’s game.
UNBEATEN REDBLACKS PUSHOVERS NO MORE
Undefeated, 2-0. Buckle up your seatbelts. The Ottawa RedBlacks are showing they’re not going to roll over for anybody in 2015.
Fresh off a Week 1 win over the Montreal Alouettes, the RedBlacks slugged out a 27-16 win over the B.C. Lions on Saturday night at a supercharged TD Place. And, speaking after the game, the RedBlacks are giving plenty of credit to the fans. Yep, the 24,000-plus who showed up Saturday are getting a huge thumbs-up.
“Thank you to the crowd, the 13th man, in the stands. They make this atmosphere what it is,” said RedBlacks quarterback Henry Burris, who connected on 23 of 29 passes for 296 yards. “They’re going to make people dread coming in here.”
Defence? They were very good, twice holding the Lions to field goals inside the five-yard line. Damaso Munoz had six tackles and a sack and Jerrell Gavins had an interception on the second play of the second half.
Offence? The RedBlacks got receiving touchdowns from Greg Ellingson, Ernest Jackson and Brad Sinopoli, all key off-season free-agent acquisitions. Sinopoli had nine receptions for 99 yards, while Chris Williams, another free-agent signing, had four for 82.
“It was a little fairy dust and some good luck,” said Ellingson, who caught a 30-yard pass for a touchdown while on his back after it bounced off the hands of Lions defender Ryan Phillips on the first play of the fourth quarter. “The DB didn’t make the play, I was concentrating and happened to get the ball into my hands.
“This feels pretty good. But we know this is Week 2 of the season and there’s a long way to go,” said RedBlacks coach Rick Campbell.
“Belief is a big part of this thing, that you believe you’re going to find a way to get it done, that (we) will find a way to step up and make plays, and our guys have bought into that.”
Running back Chevon Walker was huge for the RedBlacks, carrying the ball 24 times for 103 yards. His second effort kept several drives going.
“We play for each other,” said Walker. “If we keep being consistent and keep drives going, we’ll be all right.”Image copyright PA
The government plans to legally protect apprenticeships, so the term cannot be abused.
Under the plans, unauthorised use of the term would be illegal, as is already the case for the use of the term degree.
To legally describe training as an apprenticeship, schemes would have to provide at least a year's training and meet other requirements.
The measures will be part of the government's Enterprise Bill.
In a statement, the Department for Business Innovation and Skills said the legislation would give the government power to take action if the term is "misused to promote low-quality courses".
"If university graduates have their moment in the sun, so should people who undertake apprenticeships," Skills Minister Nick Boles said.
"Businesses know their value, so it's high time they were recognised both by the public and in law as being equal to degrees."
The government has pledged to create three million apprenticeships by 2020.
To help reach that target, public bodies, including hospitals, schools and the police, will be set targets to take on more apprentices.
Apprenticeships 'devalued'
Last month a report from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) and the Local Government Association criticised apprenticeships for failing to tackle youth unemployment.
"There is a big gap between the function apprenticeships should have in our economy and how they're being used in practice," said Luke Raikes, research fellow at IPPR said.
"The majority of apprenticeships are being used to train older people, and those who are already employed at their company, instead of taking on young people out of work."
In a statement on Sunday, Labour MP Liam Byrne said the government needed to do more to boost the apprenticeship "brand".
"The Tory-led coalition's five years allowed the devaluing of the once proud apprenticeship brand.
"They focused on re-badging in-work training for older workers as apprenticeships rather than helping create proper apprenticeship places for young people.
"Apprenticeships should be a qualification of at least level three and last two years," he said.$\begingroup$
How does the workload of a high-school mathematics teacher compare to a university-level instructor?
To give you some context, I taught grades 7 - 9 for three years and I have taught in one way or another at the university level for 15 years (first as a grad student and now as a professor). My current job is Associate Professor of Mathematics Education in an education department, but I do teach mathematics courses (mathematics content for elementary teachers) as a part of my job.
The workload itself is very different in general. As a junior high mathematics teacher, I taught 5 sections a year (two sections of one course and three sections of another course), and each course had about 30 students in it. I also had other roles, such as teacher duties (lunch duty, detention duty) and coaching (or advising student groups) responsibilities. I had one preparation period each day for which I had to complete all grading, planning, copying, etc. And of course that meant I took a lot of work home.
As a college professor at a research institution, I teach two or fewer classes each semester (depending on whether a research grant has bought me out of teaching a course), with no more than 35 students in each class, probably less. But I have more administrative duties now as a professor, and the research expectation is large enough to take up a non-trivial portion of my time. Plus, there is a great deal of one-on-one teaching while working with graduate students -- advising them on dissertation work, etc. So the general nature of the work is tough to compare. Both roles require a lot of time beyond a standard 40 hour work week.
I have never felt more physically exhausted than when I was a junior high teacher. I have never felt more mentally drained than in my current job. Both kinds of draining also have unique feelings of invigoration associated with them.
To those who have been employed in both secondary and college education, is there a level of college teaching that feels similar to high-school teaching (i.e. is teaching high school similar to teaching 4 college classes a semester)? If college education is too dissimilar to compare to high school/middle school, what are the key differences that set them apart?
Ah, so the real question is to compare the work of teaching, then?
Preparing to teach feels similar now, although I think I am better at it just because more time has passed -- I have learned more about how to target my teaching to connect to my students' thinking, how to create lessons that support conceptual understanding in balance with procedural fluency. But I'd like to think I would have gotten better at this and learned more regardless of my role. So, planning to teach might be similar if we compare class to class and assume equal time was available.
The act of delivering a lesson -- assume the same number of students in each class (which is a big assumption in some cases) -- and one major difference is probably obvious: classroom management. K-12 education in the USA is compulsory up until age 16, right? And college students have more of a choice of whether or not to be there.
But also teachers still must motivate and engage learners at every level, because all students can choose to check out mentally (either choosing not to physically show up in college or not mentally be there in secondary school).
I also agree with the person above who said no parent calls or contact. I would do this as a middle school teacher. I am literally not allowed to discuss student progress with a parent at the university level, because the student is a legal adult.
I do not agree that college teaching has to be more teacher-centered. I think that college teaching can build upon students' thinking, be interactive, and be tailored to the individual needs of students -- particularly if the class is smaller in size -- but college instructors are not required to do this.
I collaborate more with colleagues on planning and debriefing from instruction and also I conduct research on my undergraduate students' learning now as a college professor. But I would have liked to collaborate like this and to conduct action research as a teacher. I didn't have time as a newer teacher, and none of us in my department made this kind of work a priority then.
I do probably spend more time planning and grading as a professor than I did as a teacher, but perhaps because I have more time.
Class-to-class, I probably spend more time on teaching two classes now than I did when teaching two classes as a junior high teacher. But I had more students and more classes when I taught junior high.
As a college professor, we are not evaluated by our students' test scores. Our raises are not affected by student performance (although perhaps the administration could take students' performance into account a bit more?). Instead, I am evaluated by student evaluations and my reflections on my own teaching. I ramp this up by conducting publishable research related to my students' learning, however, so I am able to present data to administrators that takes students' learning into account, as least for some of my courses.
Here is how a typical lesson of mine went as a junior high teacher: Students came in and work on a warm up problem or two. We discussed that problem. We went over the previous night's homework. I presented some material, they practiced some problems with some guidance from me, we discussed the problems -- including some students coming to the board to share their work and thinking, then the students had time to work independently on the problems to get started on their homework during class. Sometimes (once a week or every two weeks), we had a more exploratory problem solving lesson involving working together in groups using manipulatives to understand concepts and develop mathematical understandings on more challenging tasks that required working together in groups.
Here is how a typical lesson of mine (for my mathematics courses for prospective teachers) goes as a college professor: Students come in and sit in their groups and start sharing their homework solutions with each other. We spend time at the beginning of the class going over homework -- mostly with the undergrads coming up to the document camera explaining their thinking and talking with each other about the mathematics. I am more of a facilitator during the going-over-homework process than I used to be. Then, I give them a task that is within their zones of proximal development (they have enough prior knowledge to get started, but they are learning new mathematics by working on the task) to solve with their groups. After they work for a while, we have a class discussion that involves students going to the chalkboard and the document camera to present their work and thinking and the class discusses. Again, I am more of a facilitator and my role is to highlight and clarify and bring out the most important ideas and reinforce them. Then, students receive homework to practice what they learn. I assign fewer homework problems now, maybe about 7, when I assigned about 30 per night to junior high students, but each of the 7 tasks requires a great deal of diagramming, explaining, etc., because the goals of the course are to develop conceptual understanding among the prospective teachers.
The nature of my teaching changed because I changed how I think about teaching over time, and I had a heavier balance on procedural fluency than conceptual understanding or problem solving as a junior high mathematics teacher (this would be different if I taught junior high today!), and I have a heavier balance on conceptual understanding now as a college professor of mathematics for future teachers -- because this is what my students need. They already have strong procedural fluency. What they need is to understand the meanings behind the procedures in order to be more effective teachers.
So, the work of teaching not only is shaped by our level of teaching (junior high, high school, college), but also it is shaped by our goals for our students' learning. That's such an important point that I'd like to end with that. (Thanks for reading all of this, if you did!)
Edited to add: I would like to share a book chapter in which I reflected upon the ways in which I think about teaching mathematics differently now than I used to think about it.
Middleton, J. A., & Jansen, A. (2011). Motivation Matters, and Interest Counts: Fostering Engagement in Mathematics, Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.Poll: Americans agree with Trump, Confederate statues should stay
A monument to Arizona Confederate soldiers stands amid other memorials at Wesley Bonin Memorial Plaza on the grounds of the Capitol complex in Phoenix Monday, June 5, 2017. Angie Wang | AP Photo
President Trump believes that Confederate statues should remain, and most Americans agree with the president.
Demands to remove Confederate memorials have sharply increased following the violence that erupted during a “Unite the Right” rally consisting of white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups — ostensibly to protest the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville, Va. In Durham, N.C., Monday, a mob tore down a Confederate statue, kicking and spitting on it.
In a series of tweets Thursday morning, the president said it was “sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart.”
Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments. You….. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 17, 2017
…can’t change history, but you can learn from it. Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson – who’s next, Washington, Jefferson? So foolish! Also… — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 17, 2017
…the beauty that is being taken out of our cities, towns and parks will be greatly missed and never able to be comparably replaced! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 17, 2017
Despite hysteric opposition from the media to the president’s suggestion that George Washington or Thomas Jefferson could be next if we start tearing down memorials, 62 percent of Americans agree with the president that the statues should remain, per a new Marist poll.
Additionally, a new YouGov poll found that a majority, 54 percent, believe the statues of Confederate war heroes are signs of Southern pride, rather than symbols of racism. A plurality of Americans, 48 percent, had the same view the Confederate flag. This reflects the results of a PRRI poll conducted last October, just before the 2016 election.
PRRI polling surprised me: 51% see Confed flag as sign of Southern pride, 41% as sign of racism. 60/33 among whites. https://t.co/88TWPBltuT — Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) August 14, 2017
What is clear is that nationwide demands to tear down Confederate memorials and flags are out of touch with a majority of the American people.
The fate of these monuments should be lawful, local decisions, made by the communities where they are. There’s no reason to attack the president for making an argument most Americans agree with when there is plenty else to criticize.
How do we stop the mainstream media from warping the national narrative? We push back together. With the truth.
Get CRTV’s free weapon against the worst the media has to offer delivered to your inbox daily: WTF MSM!?Get the biggest Liverpool FC 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
New Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini has claimed he was close to taking over at Liverpool FC three years ago and that he also had the chance to take charge of City in 2007.
Pellegrini might already have been at City had former owner Thaksin Shinawatra lured him from Villarreal in 2007 before turning to Sven-Goran Eriksson. And that was not 59-year-old Pellegrini’s only brush with the Premier League, with Liverpool also apparently interested three years ago.
In 2010, after Rafael Benitez left Anfield, Pellegrini was available following his dismissal by Real Madrid but Malaga proved his next destination.
The Chilean said: “I had twice chances to arrive here before. One was to Manchester City but with the other owners.
“Liverpool, I was very near, after Real Madrid, to arrive at Liverpool. But for different things, it was not the moment. Now it is the right moment with the right club.”
Pellegrini, 59, left Malaga to succeed Roberto Mancini, who was sacked in May just a year after guiding the club to the Premier League title.Microsoft kicked off the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update rollout a few hours ago, so the first batches of systems are already getting it, therefore the very first issues after the update are already being reported.
A number of users who have been offered the update to the Fall Creators Update or performed the upgrade manually using the Update Assistant claim the Start menu is no longer working once the process is completed and they get back to the desktop.
There are several posts on Microsoft’s Community forums pointing to various issues with the Start menu after the update to version 1709, and one of them claims that the Start menu is completely broken down. Others explain that the Start menu is “broken out of the box” and they cannot perform the typical tasks, like pinning or removing items.
Apps no longer in the Start menu
Microsoft user net4u experiences a more complex issue, with several of his apps no longer included in the Start menu, but installed on the system as they can be launched with different methods.
“The apps are still there, deeply hidden. I noticed that if I browse with Edge on Windows App Store site, as expected is opened the Windows App Store from Windows 10. From here I can open various apps that are in my Library. So there also still exist somewhere. But there are not visible in taskbar, I can't pin them to taskbar and/or start menu,” he explains.
Microsoft’s support engineers who are tracking the forums have provided nothing more than the typical workarounds which aren’t making any big difference and it’s not yet known if the company itself is aware of the problem and working on a fix.
On the other hand, it’s important to keep in mind that the Fall Creators Update is a heavy operating system and bugs like this are likely to show up, especially if the upgrade is performed manually. This is the reason Microsoft ships the update in stages, as it wants to make sure that it fixes any compatibility issues before systems are being allowed to upgrade."Time fades even legend..."
- Kain, describing the Soul Reaver
Every great story is pared down from a larger concept. The reasons vary, but the result is the same - a catalogue of the things that might have been.
This website is dedicated to preserving the deleted and altered material from the Legacy of Kain series of videogames. It is also a repository for the tools that are necessary to explore the remains of those Lost Worlds.
Because of the nature of the material discussed here, there are frequent plot spoilers for all of the games in the series. Even sections about earlier games in the series may give away the secrets of the later episodes.
Archived Update Posts: 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2018Intel has today announced that its 6-series chipset, for use with the Sandy Bridge processors released earlier this year, has a serious flaw and that the company is recalling and replacing the affected parts. The chipsets, which provide PCI Express, USB, and other connectivity to the processor, have a problem in their SATA controllers causing performance to degrade over time.
In its statement, the company states that customers who have taken delivery of systems with the P67 and H67 "Cougar Point" chipsets can continue to use their systems "with confidence," suggesting that the flaw is restricted to a performance issue and cannot cause data loss. Nonetheless, such users should contact their computer manufacturers to obtain a fixed system.
The flawed chipsets are no longer shipping from Intel, and the company has already started manufacturing corrected versions. These will reach customers by the end of February. Full production volume won't be achieved until April. Intel estimates that the full financial cost of the error will be around $700 million, with $300 million of that incurred during the first quarter due to the production interruption. The company has adjusted its investor guidance accordingly.The US Department of Homeland Security has released a list of the keywords and phrases the agency monitors online to find potential threats. Obviously posting "Al Queda" and "dirty bomb" online will get the government to start looking at you real closely, but "pork" and other oddly normal words are also on the list.
In response to a freedom of information request, the department posted its Analyst's Desktop Binder (a manual for the agency's security analysts) containing this hotlist. The keywords cover domestic security, HAZMAT and nuclear, health concern, infrastructure security and other threats.
Advertisement
According to the Daily Mail, the Department of Homeland Security says it only uses this keyword list to look for genuine security threats, not signs of general dissent. Nobody wants Big Brother looking over her shoulder—and you shouldn't have to feel like you need to censor yourself in this way—but if you're particularly paranoid about the government spying on you, you might reconsider using too many of these keywords together when you post something online. Here's the full list.
Advertisement
Analyst's Desktop Binder | Scribd via Daily Mail via @Alyssa_MilanoA nine-story condo development draws support for affordable housing, sparks opposition over size
Buy Photo Michael Dow and his wife, Melissa Dow, work on plans for a condo at a cafe in downtown Traverse City on Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2015. (Photo: Ryan Garza, Detroit Free Press)Buy Photo
TRAVERSE CITY — Long a sought-after destination for summer tourists, Traverse City's year-round population, individual wealth and real estate prices have grown in recent years, squeezing out young professionals and others from living in downtown where some condos now top $1 million.
The burst of residential development to meet new demand includes a controversial, mixed-income plan for two 9-story buildings on Pine Street at the edge of the downtown's high-rent district of shops, restaurants and bars.
The housing debate is pitting some longtime residents against a newer, younger population as city leaders weigh the size and scope of extra tall downtown building projects. The height of the proposed towers is needed, developers say, to justify setting aside nearly half of the units for lower-income renters.
“It’s a challenge because it’s different and it’s change. And change is difficult always,” said Erik Falconer, one of the developers of the project.
Concern over the affordable housing crunch is emblematic of deeper tensions in northern Michigan's premier summer resort town, where incomes and housing prices have been on the rise but roads are clogged, retail prices are rising and some locals feel priced out and forced to leave, especially recent high school and college graduates.
Supporters of the housing projects say the kind of mixed-income development allows for more people to live and work in Traverse City despite their lower wages. But a vocal group of longtime residents say the Pine Street project is out of scale and harmful to Traverse City's reputation for quaint living.
Many see the conflict as between older retirees who moved to a laid-back Traverse City and up-and-coming professionals yearning to live and work in a more dynamic and economically diverse central city.
CLOSE Traverse City business owners and residents discuss city's boom. Ryan Garza/DFP
Add in a certain number of millionaire jet-setters who've moved to the area for its beauty and waterfront vistas, and the city has become an eclectic mix of incomes and varying civic agendas.
Locals traditionally joked that a view of the bay “means half the pay.” But the economy, residents say, is increasingly empowered by entrepreneurs who start a business in order to support the Up North lifestyle.
Community fights over growth is déjà vu for Grant Parsons, a 65-year-old attorney in the city who helped lead an earlier fight against a proposed seven-story lakefront mall a generation ago.
"You can develop stuff, but there is a magic break point," Parsons said of the residential tower proposals. "I have nothing against poor people; it's just the wrong location."
Growing pains
The development debate is familiar to many expanding communities but relatively rare in northern Michigan: How to manage growth and provide the kind of affordable housing attractive to entry-level young people and lower-income service workers. Only 12% of the people who work in Traverse City live in the city of about 15,000, the latest census numbers show.
The regional economy anchored by Traverse City already has moved beyond its seasonal roots toward year-round employment. That's thanks to better-paying jobs and increasing population after decades of regional decline alongside a resurgent tourism industry.
Buy Photo Grand Traverse County's unemployment stayed below state rate (Photo: Kristi Tanner and Martha Thierry Detroit Free Press)
Corporate executives fly out of the local airport on Monday morning and return at the end of the week to their families. Some call it "lifestyle migration" for professionals who move into Traverse City with their families but still spend large portions of their week on the road — and in the skies — for their jobs headquartered in other parts of the country.
Other workers untethered from their cubicles are choosing to telecommute to their jobs as they live in and around the city known for breathtaking views of Lake Michigan.
"The message now is that our doors are open 365 days a year," said Traverse City Mayor Michael Estes.
Mike Dow is the fifth generation of his family to vacation in their northern Michigan summer home. But the former defense contractor who lived in Virginia decided to make the visit permanent about three years ago, moving his family to downtown Traverse City. Later, he largely telecommuted back to the East Coast.
"The diversity of people who find a way to make a living up here is amazing," said Dow, who recently gave up his career for writing science fiction. These days he likes to hang out in Brew, a hip coffee bar on Front Street where the iced coffee comes in mason jars.
Buy Photo Downtown Traverse City. (Photo: Ryan Garza, Detroit Free Press)
A new'micro-politan'
The look and feel of yuppie, Bohemian life is all around, a cultural addition over the past decade to the once-sleepy lull after the summer tourist burst.
There are restaurants that serve wild boar and boast of local farm-to-table menus. More and bigger planes let highly paid executives from East Coast weekly jobs slip into their beds at home in Traverse City within 15 minutes after touchdown at Cherry Capital Airport.
A liquor store turned into a trendy food cart park by a Brooklyn restaurateur operates year-round by pulling one of the food trucks indoors. A cold-press juice start-up run by an expat back from Chicago sells "Heavenly Healing" — grapefruit, ginger, turmeric among other ingredients — at $11 a bottle marketed for locals.
One booster dubbed the phenomenon "a micro-politan," a small city with big amenities, including a buzzy technology scene, a leading health care center and nearby colleges.
Tourism still king
To be sure, the region’s fortunes are still largely tied to the tourist trade. Traverse City’s permanent population of 15,000 swells by hundreds of thousands each year with a growing number of visitors. Almost one of every three jobs remains linked to tourism, officials say.
But growing events like an annual book festival keep visitors in town after the beaches clear out. To bolster the shoulder seasons, the local tourism board promotes year-round activities, including birding, fall color tours and even the hunt for wild mushrooms known as morelling.
While the state lost population between 2000 and 2014, according to census estimates, Traverse City notched a 3.5% gain, and its surrounding county surged with a 16.9% increase. Building permits for new housing units in the city for the first nine months of the year have reached a five-year high. Median household income grew in the county for the same period by 11%.
Buy Photo Traverse City's and Grand Traverse County's populations increased while state's is down (Photo: Kristi Tanner and Martha Thierry Detroit Free Press)
The resulting housing shortage has left workers and their employers anxious as some young people look for brighter shores elsewhere. “The biggest problem here is labor,” said Alex Mowczan, who runs several hotels, including one specifically built for non-tourist visitors.
Residential towers offer solution
In the Pine Street project, more than one-third, or 64 of the 162 units along the Boardman River, would be set aside for workers who earn less than many — an important addition for a destination that attracts many well-to-do but lacks affordable housing for the people who serve them.
"Our housing has not caught up to |
achievement related activities as compared to achievement contexts. This finding is consistent with the preceding results showing this first type of boredom to be the least unpleasant, even slightly pleasant, and thus, more likely to be tolerated in non-achievement settings than more aversive types of boredom. Further, this finding may be explained by non-achievement situations typically allowing for greater freedom to modify or escape boring activities than achievement settings (for boredom-specific coping strategies, see Nett et al. 2010, 2011). In addition to situational factors, there might also be an interaction of situation and person variables leading to the experience of specific boredom types. For example, extroverts might be more prone than introverts to experience reactant boredom in situations that are hard to modify or to leave (cf., Hill and Perkins 1985; Smith 1981). With respect to the possible positive aspects of boredom experiences (Seib and Vodanovich 1998; see Vodanovich 2003a for a review), it may be assumed that different types of boredom can differ with respect to their potential to initiate positive thoughts and actions. For instance, indifferent boredom experienced mainly in non-achievement settings may be related to constructive behaviors such as stimulating greater self-reflection and creativity (cf., Baird et al. 2012; Harrison 1984; Sio and Ormerod 2009). At the same time, the potential benefits of boredom in more restrictive achievement situations may be more limited. Further, our studies revealed that indifferent boredom was the least commonly experienced boredom type (16 % in university students, 11 % in high school students). Hence, the potential benefits associated with this type of boredom are likely to be outnumbered by the negative consequences of more aversive boredom types (cf., Pekrun et al. 2010).
A fifth boredom type: The case for apathetic boredom The results of our analyses suggest that the preliminary model of boredom experiences proposed by Goetz and Frenzel (2006) should be expanded to include the fifth boredom type: apathetic boredom. This boredom experience appears to be especially unpleasant, but differs from the other highly aversive boredom type—reactive boredom—in corresponding with low arousal and the absence of both positive and negative affective states. Thus, whereas reactive boredom is highly aversive and is associated with high arousal, apathetic boredom is equally aversive yet lacking in arousal—an emotion type more similar to learned helplessness or depression (cf., Fenichel 1934, 1951 for an early statement on this relationship). This pattern is consistent with empirical findings showing positive relations between boredom and depression (Farmer and Sundberg 1986; Vodanovich 2003b). Of particular concern is the relative frequency of apathetic boredom observed in the present research, namely with respect to the high school student sample in which it comprised 36 % of boredom experiences.
A five-class boredom typology 2006 5 2002 Open image in new window Expanding upon the preliminary model suggested by Goetz and Frenzel (), findings from the present research based on quantitative data obtained from real-time assessments provide empirical support for the five-class model of boredom experiences. As outlined in Fig., four boredom types are distinguished based on valence (positive to negative) and arousal, with the fifth boredom type (apathetic boredom) not falling in sequence with the others due to having very high negative valence combined with very low arousal. Our data further revealed that calibrating and searching boredom were more similar than the other boredom types with respect to the valence dimension. It is also important to note that the empirically derived model differs from the initially hypothesized model with respect to the relations between boredom types and phenomenologically similar constructs. Although the assumed relations to relevant constructs were found for the four hypothesized boredom types, the assumption that more negative types of boredom would coincide with other negative affective states was not fully supported by our data. More specifically, apathetic boredom was found to be highly aversive yet corresponded with low levels of both positive and negative affective states. However, it is important to note that as only the negative activating emotions of anger and anxiety were assessed in this study (Pekrun et al.), it is possible that apathetic boredom might correspond with high levels of deactivating negative emotions such as sadness. Finally, unlike the hypothesized model, our model does not assume directional relations among boredom types as very little is known about the temporal transition from one boredom type to another. In Fig. 5, the average level of valence and arousal when experiencing boredom is plotted in relation to the five observed boredom types. As indicated by the proximity of averaged boredom experiences to the calibrating and searching boredom types, the present findings suggest that these two specific classes of boredom experiences are most likely to represent the “typical” boredom experience from the perspective of emotion prototypes (e.g., Armstrong et al. 1983; Clore and Ortony 1991; Johnson-Laird and Oatley 1989; Ortony et al. 1987; Pekrun et al. 2010; Russel 1991). Moreover, our results significantly qualify this assertion in showing three types of boredom to be notably distant from this averaged boredom measure with respect to valence and arousal (indifferent, reactant, and apathetic boredom). The averaged boredom experience is located in the lower right quadrant of the figure—a classification based on valence and arousal that is in line with previous approaches to locating boredom according to its underlying dimensions (e.g., Russell 1980). It is important to note that the response options for our arousal dimension ranged from calm to fidgety, with fidgety likely not reflecting maximum arousal as would more extreme anchors, such as “highly agitated” or “panicked” (cf., arousal scales ranging from “as calm as one can feel” to “as aroused as one can feel” in Reisenzein 1994). Thus, when comparing the present five-part boredom typology and averaged boredom against classical circumplex models, it is possible that all of the observed boredom types and averaged boredom may be located near the lower end of the arousal scale. In sum, our results (see Fig. 5) indicate that when plotted according to the classical dimensions of the circumplex model, the identified boredom types are primarily located in the quadrant reflecting negative valence and low arousal. At the same time, they seem to also reach or even extend beyond these borders into other quadrants (e.g., indifferent boredom as a low-arousal/pleasant experience, reactant boredom as a high-arousal/unpleasant experience). Our findings do not contradict but rather expand the assumptions underlying circumplex models of affect in showing substantial within-boredom variance with respect to valence and arousal. As a consequence, from the perspective of circumplex models, a specific subtype of a discrete emotion might be rather similar to a specific subtype of another discrete emotion. For example, boredom that is negative in valence and high in arousal (i.e., reactant boredom) might be similar in valence and arousal to the “typical” experience of anger. However, although there might be an overlap in emotions with respect to their levels of valence and arousal, they may nonetheless differ in other ways not captured by two-dimensional circumplex models. For example, it is possible that further investigation of dimensionally similar emotion types based on component definitions of emotions (e.g., Kleinginna and Kleinginna 1981; Scherer 2000) could reveal differing components for emotions that are similar in terms of valence and arousal. In sum, although our approach is in line with circumplex models of emotions we do emphasize that the levels of valence and arousal previously assigned in this model to boredom represent averaged values that do not exclude within-boredom variance. Moreover, we believe that similar degrees of within-emotion variance found for boredom may also be characteristic for other discrete emotions (cf., Wilson-Mendenhall et al., 2013).On September 12 last year, President Obama made a vow in the White House Rose Garden. The previous night attacks on a U.S. diplomatic outpost and a nearby CIA base in Benghazi, Libya, killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens. “No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation,” Obama declared. “We will not waver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act. And make no mistake, justice will be done.”
Of all the questions being asked in Washington these days about what happened in Benghazi, the most important should be this: Has justice been done? And the answer to that is ‘no.’
And so, if not, why not?
There are hints that action may be imminent. Earlier this month the FBI posted photographs of three men, apparently taken by security cameras the night of the attack in Libya. “These individuals may be able to provide information to help the investigation,” says the FBI wanted poster. And this week the Italian government announced that at least 200 U.S. Marines are being transferred to Sigonella Air Base in Sicily to help assure the security of U.S. personnel in Libya and possibly carry out evacuations. That would be prudent in any case, given the ongoing levels of violence, but it could be urgent if there’s reaction to arrests or other actions taken against the suspects in the September attacks.
Meanwhile, Congress has spent eight months indulging in an inside-the-Beltway circle jerk about talking points and political plotting. So it’s not surprising most of the American people have decided it’s about time to move on. A survey by Public Policy Polling published earlier this week showed folks would rather see the Hill focused on immigration reform or background checks for gun owners. People who identify themselves as Republicans are passionate about “Benghazi” —41 percent think it’s the biggest scandal in American political history!—but of those, 39 percent couldn’t identify the country where Benghazi is located. The pollsters didn’t even ask whether justice is likely to be done.
Yet amid all the Congressional posturing and public ignorance, some shreds of information have emerged that do give a clearer picture of what happened in Benghazi and in Washington at the time of the attacks—and why it’s taking so long to nail the people responsible for the murders that night.
The Central Intelligence Agency is the elephant in the room, big and clumsy and bumping into everything, even though everyone tries to avoid mentioning it. The CIA misjudged the security threat in Benghazi and contributed mightily to the confusion afterwards. The ass-covering of then-CIA Director David Petraeus, particularly, muddled the question of what could and should be told to the public.
On Wednesday, the White House released 100 pages of emails about the preparation of the Benghazi talking points in the days after the tragedy. They were written and edited for use by members of the intelligence committees on the Hill, and only later passed along, almost as an afterthought, to UN Ambassador Susan Rice for her much-criticized appearances on Sunday talk shows.
If you actually slog through the whole stack, a couple of points become apparent:
First of all, nobody in any of the drafts that were zipping back and forth between the CIA, the White House, the State Department and the FBI on September 14 questioned the central assertion of the first bullet point of the first CIA version: On the basis of the scant evidence available at that time, it said, the attacks in Benghazi “were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the US embassy in Cairo” and evolved into a “direct assault” on the outposts in Benghazi.
This was clearly an important point for the CIA to make because it had failed completely to come up with any actionable intelligence of an impending attack in Benghazi before the event. And given the very substantial presence of the CIA in Benghazi at that time—a presence the agency actively tried to obscure in all subsequent reporting—that failure was hard to excuse. But if the attack were “spontaneous,” of course there wouldn’t have been a warning to give.
So the initial CIA drafts for the talking points were full of generalizations suggesting the agency really was aware of the overall threat environment (as was everybody else in Libya). In several early versions the agency kept making the point that it had warned the embassy in Cairo the night before the demonstrations that there were “social media reports” (my italics) “encouraging jihadists to break into the embassy.” That is, the embassy in Egypt, not Libya.
The early CIA drafts said the crowd that attacked in Benghazi “almost certainly was a mix of individuals from across many sectors of Libyan society. That being said, we do know that Islamic extremists with ties to Al-Qa’ida participated in the attack.”
But when challenged about how they knew this about Al Qaeda, the authors of the agency talking points backed down. As for the involvement of a shady Islamist group called Ansar al-Sharia, that bit of information had been reported already by journalists on the ground and in the early drafts of the talking points the CIA just cited “open sources,” meaning previously published reports. There was no indication that the agency knew anything directly about Ansar’s involvement.
The next morning all that CYA from the CIA was edited out with a few sweeping strokes of the pen by Michael Morell, the agency’s deputy director. What was left was very little because, in point of fact, the agency had few facts to muster. When Petraeus saw the end result he was disappointed. “No mention of the cable to Cairo, either?” he asked. That is, the cable that quoted the social media about an impending demonstration at the embassy in Egypt.
In December under orders from then–secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the State Department Accountability Review Board issued a report on Benghazi overseen by Ambassador Thomas Pickering and Admiral Michael Mullen, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In the unclassified version, the Central Intelligence Agency, as such, is not mentioned a single time. There are just references to people in "the Annex."
In fact, the whole picture of the "consulate" in Benghazi, as portrayed in most of the headlines and hearings, is misleading. It was not really a consulate at all by the strict State Department definition of the term, it was called a "special mission" and had grown out of the improvised presence that Chris Stevens had established in Benghazi as the envoy to the rebels during the fighting to overthrow the Gaddafi dictatorship. From the beginning, the agency was there behind the scenes. When a terrorist bomb hit the hotel where Stevens was staying during the fighting in 2011, he and his team just moved in with the CIA at their so-called "Annex."
Even after Stevens officially became ambassador in Tripoli in mid-2012 he did not take the initiative to turn the diplomatic mission in Benghazi into a formal consulate. Partly as a result, it started to fall between the bureaucratic cracks at Foggy Bottom and couldn’t command as many security measures as it should have. as it should have. As one knowledgeable U.S. official told The Daily Beast's Eli Lake, "The Benghazi compound was a U.S, intelligence station with State Department cover." The agency operation run out of "the Annex" involved at least two dozen people. The "mission" was their satellite, not the other way around. And what were the agency people doing in Benghazi? Obviously, among other things, hunting for Al Qaeda—which by last September appeared to be hunting for them, as Newsweek reported in its investigation of the case last October.
State Department security officers were too few and fortifications too weak to withstand a mob attack or a terrorist assault like the one on September 11. And it is not clear how much more like Fort Apache that compound would have had to be in order to hold off such an attack. It's doubtful there would have been enough fortification and firepower under any circumstances. In Cairo that same day, when the mob scaled the walls of the U.S. Embassy, tore down the American flag and raised the black flag of jihad, it met almost no resistance, even though the purpose-built compound there is like a fortress. With that evident weakness as an example, it’s not implausible that anyone plotting an attack in Benghazi would think his moment of opportunity had come.
Whether in Benghazi or Boston, good intelligence is the first and most effective line of defense against terrorist acts, and that intelligence is just what was lacking in Libya. But the diplomatic mission in Benghazi, thinly defended as it was, did have the possibility to “call in the cavalry" from the Annex. And that is just what happened the night of September 11. The agency sent one of its security teams, all highly trained and most or all of them combat veterans. They were the only armed force that could intervene in a timely fashion, and even they were too late to save Stevens and another diplomat. They did manage to rescue the State Department bodyguards. Then, several hours later, the Annex itself came under concerted attack and two members of the team there were killed. Could the agency have deployed its people sooner or more effectively? Probably. What were the specific protocols for mutual assistance and protection between the agency and the State Department on the ground in Benghazi? That would be a useful thing to know when deciphering the events of that night.
Why is the agency getting what amounts to a free ride in the current inquisition? Why do we keep hearing about the State Department’s failings and little or nothing about the CIA’s? One reason, presumably, is the administration’s desire to protect its spies and, especially, the work they do. If the CIA and the FBI can bring the Benghazi killers to justice, then what looks like self-serving secrecy now might just look like prudent tradecraft in the future. But the most obvious reason the agency is not in the Congressional hot seat is that the grand inquisitors of the GOP are not so much after truth or justice as they are after Hillary Clinton.
Only one thing is likely bring this tiresome spectacle to an end: a decisive move by the administration to arrest or otherwise eliminate the Benghazi killers.
For my part, I’ll be keeping an eye on Sigonella airbase.ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has launched “strikes” against militant bases in Afghanistan, hours after the army said it had found links that terrorists from across the border were behind the suicide bombing at the shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar that killed 88 people.Immediately after the bombing in Sindh province, Pakistan claimed the attack was planned in militant sanctuaries in Afghanistan, in remarks that can renew hostility between Kabul and Islamabad Military sources said that the strikes were launched on Friday night. But there have been no official word on the strikes, which, if confirmed, would be the first such operation on Afghan soil by the Pakistan army.A media report said that four camps of Jamaat-ul-Ahrar terror group were targeted in the strikes across the border of Pakistan’s Khyber and Mohmand tribal agencies.An official said the security forces used heavy weapons and mortar shells to hit several training centres of Omar Khalid Khorasani, the head of the Jamaat-ul Ahrar group.He said people living near Landikotal in Khyber Agency were asked to vacate their houses to avoid collateral damage. Some reports said that several militants, including the deputy commander of Jamat-ul Ahrar, Adil Bacha, were killed in the strikes.Islamabad has often warned Kabul authorities to prevent the use of their soil for terror activities in Pakistan. On Friday, Pakistan army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa told General John Nicholson, the top US commander in Afghanistan, that terrorist activities and inaction against militants in Afghanistan were “testing our current policy of cross-border restraint”.Pakistan army has launched “intelligence-based operations” combing operations across the country and claimed it has killed “100 terrorists” since the attack on the shrine.NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices fell and U.S. crude settled below $50 a barrel on Wednesday after government data showed crude inventories in the United States rose last week and as a stronger dollar and weaker global equities applied pressure.
A pump jack is seen at sunrise near Bakersfield, California October 14, 2014. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
U.S. crude oil stocks rose 2.5 million barrels, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in its weekly report, contrasting with expectations of a 2.3 million-barrel drawdown.
“The crude oil inventory rise was driven by a strong rebound in crude oil imports, which neared 8 million barrels per day,” said John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital LLC in New York.
Crude oil imports from Saudi Arabia rose to 1.44 million barrels per day (bpd), up from 1.32 million the previous week, according to EIA data.
Equity markets pulled lower by a weak revenue forecast at Apple Inc and the stronger dollar also pressured oil.
A stronger greenback.DXY makes dollar-denominated oil more expensive for consumers using other currencies.
U.S. September crude CLc1 fell $1.67, or 3.28 percent, to settle at $49.19 a barrel, first settlement below $50 since April. The $49.04 low hit in post-settlement trading was a September contract low.
U.S. crude dropped below $50 on Monday for the first time since April and its 14-day Relative Strength Index is below 28. A reading below 30 is considered an indication of an oversold condition by technical traders.
Crude stocks rose 813,000 barrels at the Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery hub, helping widen the spread between U.S. and Brent crude CL-LCO1=R to near $7 a barrel.
Brent September crude LCOc1 fell 91 cents to settle at $56.13.
“The fact that Cushing contributed almost one third of the increase added to today’s downside response,” Jim Ritterbusch, president at Ritterbusch & Associates, said in a note.
Pressure has been rising on the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to adjust production in the face of an expected rise in Iranian exports if sanctions are loosened. A sharp fall in the Chinese stock market and concerns about the Greek debt crisis have also added to worries about demand for petroleum.
OPEC delegates indicated this week they expected the recent price drop to be short-lived and that they would not deter from a strategy of keeping output high to protect market share.
U.S. August RBOB gasoline RBc1 initially pared losses on EIA data showing stockpiles fell, but settled 2.7 percent lower.
Distillate stocks fell less than expected, the EIA said, limiting losses for ultra-low sulfur diesel (ULSD) HOc1 futures.Abstract
In a famous experiment by Tversky and Kahneman (Psychol Rev 90:293–315, 1983), featuring Linda the bank teller, the participants assign a higher probability to a conjunction of propositions than to one of the conjuncts, thereby seemingly committing a probabilistic fallacy. In this paper, we discuss a slightly different example featuring someone named Walter, who also happens to work at a bank, and argue that, in this example, it is rational to assign a higher probability to the conjunction of suitably chosen propositions than to one of the conjuncts. By pointing out the similarities between Tversky and Kahneman’s experiment and our example, we argue that the participants in the experiment may assign probabilities to the propositions in question in such a way that it is also rational for them to give the conjunction a higher probability than one of the conjuncts.CLEAN THIS UP RIGHT NOW! The article below is considered messy. Thus, the creator needs to "clean it up" by adding information, organizing sections and overall layout, using proper grammar, and spelling if needed.
Note: This page or section is currently under construction. The author(s) are very sorry.
This article, Velvet Justice, is property of FTGian.
"My feelings are my power. So I can't see my special friends cry, because it hurts my feelings."
— Velvet Justice
Velvet Justice Name Velvet Justice Kanji ベルベット正義 Rōmaji Veruveto Jasutaisu Characteristics Race Human Age 18 Gender Female Eyes Velvet Hair Gray Professional Status Affiliation 25px Seraph Haven Previous Affiliation Tower of Heaven
Crime Sorciere Occupation S-Class Mage Previous Occupation Independent Mage Personal Status Alias Ms. Velvet
Your Highness Magic Magic Illusionary Magic
Velvet Justice (ベルベット正義 Veruveto Jasutaisu) is an S-Class Mage of Seraph Haven.
Contents show]
Appearance
Velvet is a young woman with gray hair and velvet eyes. She wears a gothic-like dress, which is very conservative. She wears a black hair band. Her room is full of books and plushies.
Personality
Velvet is a very serious person. But she likes eating cakes especially strawberry ones. She dislikes persons who don't respond to her questions quickly. She is very proud of her guild and loyal to her guild mates. She is shown sometimes silly by laughing so very loudly for a joke that is not so very funny. She loves to sing, but according to her friends she sings differently, making her angry.
History
She seems so very misterious and not revealing her past. But she stated that she was once a slave at the Tower of Heaven.
Magic and Abilities
Illusionary Magic (幻想の魔法 Gensō no Mahō): A magic that allows the user to create barriers or mirrors that can create an illusionary space and time.
Three-Layer Illusion : Velvet summons three mirrors, trapping the opponent inside. Velvet then shows the opponent a nightmare until he/she faints.
: Velvet summons three mirrors, trapping the opponent inside. Velvet then shows the opponent a nightmare until he/she faints. Illusion Barrier : Velvet summons a barrier capable of showing past events in the victim's past.
: Velvet summons a barrier capable of showing past events in the victim's past. Purple Swing : Velvet summons a mirror before the opponent, that shows a large hammer about to hit the target, making him/her faint and loose control over his/her body.
: Velvet summons a mirror before the opponent, that shows a large hammer about to hit the target, making him/her faint and loose control over his/her body. Darkness Space : Velvet traps the opponent in a cage and shows a dull, quiet place before the target, making him/her shake in fear.
: Velvet traps the opponent in a cage and shows a dull, quiet place before the target, making him/her shake in fear. Twilight's Dream : Velvet summons multiple mirrors showing bad events of the target's past and future.
: Velvet summons multiple mirrors showing bad events of the target's past and future. Time Of The Midnight's Skull: Velvet summons multiple mirrors and releases her spirit. Velvet's spirit travels through each mirrors leaving a bomb in each (shown as gift to the opponent), then explodes upon contact.
TriviaIt was a mere traffic stop, but the driver was clearly nervous — telling the police officer that she was worried that if she moved her hands, she would be shot.
Then the cop, Greg Abbott, tried to assure her: “But you’re not black. Remember, we only shoot black people. Yeah, we only kill black people, right?”
The shocking words by the Cobb County, Georgia, police officer — caught on dash-cam video during a DUI stop — have led the department to open an internal investigation into the incident, which happened last year.
Cobb County Police Chief Mike Register told WSB-TV in Atlanta, which obtained the video: “The statements was made by an individual, and they’re not indicative of the values and the facts that surround the Cobb County Police Department and this county in general.”
On Thursday, the police chief confirmed Abbott will be fired. “I don’t know what is in his heart, but I know what came out of his mouth,” Register said. “We recommend that he be terminated and we are moving forward on that.”
Previously, Abbott’s attorney also released a statement:
Lt. Greg Abbott is a highly respected 28-year veteran of the Cobb County Police Department. He is cooperating with the department’s internal investigation and will continue to do so. His comments must be observed in their totality to understand their context. He was attempting to de-escalate a situation involving an uncooperative passenger. In context, his comments were clearly aimed at attempting to gain compliance by using the passenger’s own statements and reasoning to avoid making an arrest.
Abbott’s statement, however, is concerning in part because there is some truth to it: Police really are much more likely to shoot and kill black people. And that fact has led to a lot of grievances between police and minority communities in the past few years, particularly with the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Black people are much more likely to be killed by police than their white peers
Based on nationwide data collected by the Guardian, black Americans are more than twice as likely as their white counterparts to be killed by police when accounting for population. In 2016, police killed black Americans at a rate of 6.66 per 1 million people, compared to 2.9 per 1 million for white Americans.
There have also been several high-profile police killings since 2014 involving black suspects. In Baltimore, six police officers were indicted for the death of Freddie Gray while in police custody. In North Charleston, South Carolina, Michael Slager was charged with murder and fired from the police department after shooting Walter Scott, who was fleeing and unarmed at the time. In Ferguson, Darren Wilson killed unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown. In New York City, NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo killed Eric Garner by putting the unarmed 43-year-old black man in a chokehold.
One possible explanation for the racial disparities: Police tend to patrol high-crime neighborhoods, which are disproportionately black. That means they’re going to be generally more likely to initiate a policing action, from traffic stops to more serious arrests, against a black person who lives in these areas. And all of these policing actions carry a chance, however small, to escalate into a violent confrontation.
That’s not to say that higher crime rates in black communities explain the entire racial disparity in police shootings. A 2015 study by researcher Cody Ross found, “There is no relationship between county-level racial bias in police shootings and crime rates (even race-specific crime rates), meaning that the racial bias observed in police shootings in this data set is not explainable as a response to local-level crime rates.” That suggests something else — such as, potentially, racial bias — is going on.
One reason to believe racial bias is a factor: Studies show that officers are quicker to shoot black suspects in video game simulations. Josh Correll, a University of Colorado Boulder psychology professor who conducted the research, said it’s possible the bias could lead to even more skewed outcomes in the field. “In the very situation in which [officers] most need their training,” he said, “we have some reason to believe that their training will be most likely to fail them.”
Police need to own up to these problems to do their jobs
It’s these type of statistics, along with admissions like Abbott’s in Cobb County, that explain the distrust between police and minority communities. But more than simple distrust, these issues also make it more difficult for police to do their jobs.
There’s a longstanding criminological concept at play: “legal cynicism.” The idea is that the government will have a much harder time enforcing the law when large segments of the population don’t trust the government, the police, or the laws.
This is a major explanation for why predominantly minority communities tend to have more crime than other communities: After centuries of neglect and abuse, black and brown Americans are simply much less likely to turn to police for help — and that may lead a small but significant segment of these communities to resort to its own means, including violence, to solve interpersonal conflicts.
There’s research to back this up. A 2016 study, from sociologists Matthew Desmond of Harvard, Andrew Papachristos of Yale, and David Kirk of Oxford, looked at 911 calls in Milwaukee after incidents of police brutality hit the news.
They found that after the 2004 police beating of Frank Jude, 17 percent (22,200) fewer 911 calls were made in the following year compared with the number of calls that would have been made had the Jude beating never happened. More than half of the effect came from fewer calls in black neighborhoods. And the effect persisted for more than a year, even after the officers involved in the beating were punished. Researchers found similar impacts on local 911 calls after other high-profile incidents of police violence.
But crime still happened in these neighborhoods. As 911 calls dropped, researchers also found a rise in homicides. They noted that “the spring and summer that followed Jude’s story were the deadliest in the seven years observed in our study.”
That suggests that people were simply dealing with crime themselves. And although the researchers couldn’t definitively prove it, that might mean civilians took to their own — sometimes violent — means to protect themselves when they couldn’t trust police to stop crime and violence.
“An important implication of this finding is that publicized cases of police violence not only threaten the legitimacy and reputation of law enforcement,” the researchers write, but “they also — by driving down 911 calls — thwart the suppression of law breaking, obstruct the application of justice, and ultimately make cities as a whole, and the black community in particular, less safe.”
This concept is one reason the Obama administration put an emphasis on pulling back the police’s use of military weapons. By looking like an occupying force, cops can worsen relations with their community — leading to distrust, which potentially leads to more crime and violence.
That’s why, especially in the context of racial disparities in police use of force, experts say it’s important that police own up to their mistakes and take transparent steps to fix them.
“This is what folks who rail against the focus on police violence — and pull up against that, community violence — get wrong,” David Kennedy, a criminologist at John Jay College, told me last year. “What those folks simply don’t understand is that when communities don’t trust the police and are afraid of the police, then they will not and cannot work with police and within the law around issues in their own community. And then those issues within the community become issues the community needs to deal with on their own — and that leads to violence.”
Statements like Abbott’s only give credibility to that cynicism. In that way, they make it a lot harder for police to achieve the basic roles they’re meant to fulfill.
For more on American policing’s problems and how to fix them, read Vox’s explainer.Pop star Jason Mraz harvest lettuce this afternoon at Plum Street Market Garden at MGM Grand Detroit. (Photo: Brian McCollum )
Jason Mraz wanted to get his hands into some Detroit dirt.
The smooth-rocking singer-songwriter popped in this afternoon on Plum Street Market Garden at MGM Grand Detroit, a 1.7-acre urban farm on the edge of downtown.
Mraz, a gardening aficionado who has an avocado farm at home in California, spent a couple of hours snipping lettuce, spinach and vegetables destined for area farmers markets, overseen by the Keep Growing Detroit (KGD) initiative.
"When I hit the road (to tour) for eight months, I miss it," said Mraz, who will play the Fox Theatre tonight in support of his album "Yes!" "I don't want to lose the skill or stop learning, so I get involved with other gardens, urban farming organizations and tree-planting organizations."
Joining Mraz for volunteer work at the farm were about 20 fans who had won the opportunity via a radio contest. Also on hand was Mraz's girlfriend, Christina Carano, who grew up in Royal Oak and Berkley.
Jason Mraz, second from right, and girlfriend Christina Carano, right, talk with Eitan Sussman of Keep Growing Detroit at Plum Street Market Garden. Looking on is musician Mai Bloomfield. (Photo: Brian McCollum/Detroit Free Press )
The publicity was welcomed by the nonprofit KGD, which works with local gardeners and entrepreneurs while advocating for a day when most of the fruit and vegetables consumed in Detroit are grown locally.
Mraz was the Plum Street farm's most notable celebrity visitor yet, said KGD co-direct Eitan Sussman.
"I'd love to see more of it," he said. "We appreciate the draw. We're super-dependent on the volunteer support."
Mraz does gardening and farming drop-ins at many of his tour stops, but said he recognized the unique role of urban farming in Detroit's revitalization.
"I think this is very symbolic of what's growing in Detroit, and how Detroit is growing," he said. "It's been a city of industry in the past, and who says it can't be a city of agriculture and creativity? It can be whatever it wants to be, and right now there's a lot of passion in this, right here."
Read or Share this story: http://on.lsj.com/1u65FV4So, there's already an open source driver for the Kinect -- who needs to learn how to reverse engineer USB all over again? Well, ladyada of Adafruit Industries, the folks responsible for the Kinect hack bounty and the USB logs used by the bounty winner to get a jump on his hack, has published a detailed guide on exactly how she sniffed the Kinect's USB chatter. The guide isn't for the faint of heart, but it's not completely unintelligible to someone with a bit of time and determination. If anything it serves as an excellent bit of how-the-Kinect-was-won history. We're not expecting Microsoft to reconsider its "Microsoft does not condone the modification of its products" stance on this issue, or its petty threat of law enforcement "to keep Kinect tamper-resistant," but we do hope they've learned one thing by now: they're fighting a losing battle.SALT LAKE CITY — A new study has found that marijuana is more dangerous than the public perceives it to be, contradicting a previous study that said the opposite.
The study, published Wednesday by the British Lung Foundation, found that a cannabis cigarette is 20 times more likely to cause cancer than a tobacco cigarette.
Researchers found strong evidence of a link between the drug and diseases such as lung cancer, tuberculosis and other lung conditions. Researchers also found a strong association between the drug and heart attacks, as well as suppression of the immune system.
"It is alarming that, while new research continues to reveal the multiple health consequences of smoking cannabis, there is still a dangerous lack of public awareness of quite how harmful this drug can be," said Dame Helena Shovelton, Chief Executive of the British Lung Foundation.
The research contradicts findings published in 2011 by the American Medical Association that said marijuana does not impair lung function.
The 2011 study was said at the time to be "essentially confirmatory of the findings from several previous studies that have examined the association between marijuana smoking and lung function," according to Dr. Donald Tashkin, professor of medicine at UCLA.
The new findings come as marijuana use continues to rise in the U.S. even as rates of meth and tobacco usage fall, according to a 2011 survey by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Association.
The survey found that 6.9 percent of Americans aged 12 and older used marijuana in 2010 |
methods include heat shrinking the material over round stock coil spring core. This shape allows the hose to be somewhat flexible, without allowing it to collapse on itself under suction, as a normal, woven-jacket fire hose would.[9] It uses suction gaskets. Gaskets in standard fire hose ("pressure gaskets") are designed to minimize the water leaking out between couplings. The gaskets connecting hard suction hose sections, pump, and strainer must instead prevent air from entering at the coupling, since that would spoil the vacuum and allow air into the pump intake.[10] Large diameter (4-inch (10 cm) or greater) hard suctions most often employ National Standard threaded brass connections while flex suction hose will typically use Storz fittings, which are genderless. 3-inch (7.6 cm) or smaller hard suction hose will typically use threaded fittings. In each case, the hard suction hose connection will match the fittings of the pump intake and supply hose, so that hard suction hose can be used in place of supply hose as appropriate. It is short. Typically, suction hose comes in 10 feet (3.0 m) lengths, while fire hose comes in 50 and 100 feet (15 and 30 m) lengths.[11] Since a fire engine's pump only produces a partial vacuum, it is only recommended for lifting water 3 metres (9.8 ft) or less.[2] For this reason, and because each junction is an opportunity for a crack or imperfect seal to spoil the vacuum, it is rare to see many sections of hard suction hose connected together. It is not designed for use in fire streams.[12] The airtight nature of hard suction hose, necessary for drafting, renders the hose unsuitable for the high pressure water flow needed to spray a pressurized stream of water on a fire.[13] Thus, suction hose is tested for the ability to "prevent collapse under vacuum conditions" rather than its ability to function as an attack hoseline.[11]
Hard suction hose predates steam or gas powered fire engines and has been available since at least 1888, sometimes referred to as "spiral suction hose".[14] Modern apparatus are commonly equipped with flexible suction as opposed to hard suction, due to the relative ease of use associated with flexibility, as well as the increasing rarity of employing suction hoses to pressurized water sources.
Diameter [ edit ]
Suction hose comes in multiple sizes, from 2 to 6 inches (5.1 to 15.2 cm) in diameter.[9] Large diameter hose are carried on full-size fire engines, but smaller diameters of hard suction hose can be carried on apparatus with smaller fire pump ratings, such as wildland fire engines. In the United States, NFPA 1901 requires engines to have suction hose that matches the engine's pump rating.[11] For example, an engine with a 1,000-US-gallon (3,800 l) per minute pump is required to carry 5-inch (13 cm) or larger hose,[1]:181 while a wildland fire engine will typically carry 2-to-2.5-inch (5.1 to 6.4 cm) hard suction hose.[15]
The United Kingdom, has a standardised range of metric hose diameters: 7, 9, 12.5 and 15 cm (2.8, 3.5, 4.9 and 5.9 in), with the two smallest diameters sometimes used twined to provide adequate flow rates.[16] Within this range, the 7 centimetres (2.8 in) hoses are fitted with "Instantaneous Couplings"; the 12.5 and 15 centimetres (4.9 and 5.9 in) hoses have Storz couplings; and the 9 centimetres (3.5 in) hose comes in two types, one with "Instantaneous Couplings" and one with Storz fittings.[16] Fire Service Manuals provide tables of maximum volumetric flow rates for a given pump pressure, hose diameter and total hose length. The use of these tables, is to facilitate the selection of suitable hoses, taking into account the frictional losses caused by transporting water through the strainer, hoses, pump and fire fighting nozzles, to draft water from source to the fireground.[16]
Strainers [ edit ]
Strainer with 5-inch (13 cm) Storz fitting
Strainer on a 2.5-inch (6.4 cm) diameter hard suction hose
When being used in a drafting operation from a pool, portable water tank, or other uncovered water source, the length of suction hose farthest from the pump is usually attached to a strainer, to keep foreign objects in the water from being pulled into and damaging the pump.[11] If used in a pond, stream, or other body of water, an appropriate flotation device must be used to keep the strainer below the surface and above the bottom, so that neither mud nor air are sucked into the fire engine's pump.[11] Industry accepted standard is to maintain two feet of distance from the water's surface, bottom, or any other obstruction.
The United Kingdom official guidance is to:[17]
use ropes to take to the weight of the hose and the strainer, in order to avoid putting sideways loadings on the couplings;
ensure that the strainer is a minimum of three strainer-diameters below the water surface to prevent air cavitation;
to support the hose with packing, where necessary, when it crosses a wall or other obstruction to prevent an air pocket being formed.
References [ edit ]ANALYSIS/OPINION:
The District of Columbia is too clever by half. When a federal judge ordered the city to recognize the right of residents and nonresidents to carry guns for self-defense, the city channeled Rube Goldberg, the cartoonist who drew those convoluted designs to make the easy look difficult.
Under the scheme approved by the D.C. Council, those who receive a permit to carry a handgun must be endowed with clairvoyance to avoid winding up in jail. The new ordinance makes it a crime to be within 1,000 feet of “a dignitary or high-ranking official of the United States or a state, local, or foreign government.” The alderpersons obviously think there are enough “dignitaries” on the street to render the judge’s ruling unenforceable.
Get too close to the mayor, and his protective detail will arrest you. The ordinance does limit the power of jailing permit holders by saying that they must be given “notice” that someone very important is passing by. This will be similar to the “notice” the city gives of the revenue speed cameras that the city had hidden behind a bridge or a bush with a tiny “photo enforced” sign somewhere in the vicinity.
To avoid a penalty, someone carrying a gun near a “high-ranking official” must immediately walk to his car to secure the weapon in a manner approved by Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier. While walking, he has to be careful not to approach within 1,000 feet of a “demonstration,” definition not clear, or he’ll be arrested.
The ordinance says a demonstration can be a single person standing on a street corner “engaging in any other similar conduct that involves the communication or expression of views or grievances” on just about anything that could attract a crowd of onlookers — unless the onlookers are “visitors or tourists,” who don’t count. Permit holders must ask for identification before approaching anyone.
The convoluted system isn’t actually intended to solve a problem because the city is determined never to issue a permit to anyone. The ordinance gives Chief Lanier the discretion to decide who has a “need” to carry a gun. As in Maryland now, such permits will be issued only in the rarest of circumstances to the friends of politicians and celebrities. A single mom who works the night shift at McDonald’s in a rough part of town is out of luck.
In July, U.S. District Judge Frederick J. Scullin Jr. ordered the city to come up with a licensing mechanism “consistent with constitutional standards enabling people to exercise their Second Amendment right to bear arms.” The District has responded in bad faith with a licensing scheme so over the top that it expresses the city’s contempt for Judge Scullin’s court.
Replacing a ban on concealed carry with a de facto ban may not pass muster with the judge, who had in mind a system of rules that would keep “children, felons, illegal aliens [and] lunatics” from carrying handguns.
The District’s permit scheme is reminiscent of the Jim Crow-era poll-tax laws that were intended to prevent prospective black voters and poor whites from exercising their right to vote. The newly enacted concealed-carry system enables only the privileged few to defend themselves, denying the poor and disadvantaged their constitutionally guaranteed right to self-defense. Judge Scullin will surely recognize this contempt of his court.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.Google and Facebook are now commanding 85 percent of incremental digital ad spending, with publishers left to fight it out over the leftovers. That’s why German publishers have put aside traditional rivalry and gone all-in on a major data-pooling initiative.
Axel Springer, Gruner + Jahr, RTL owner Bertelsmann Group, and Der Speigel owner are among eight of the 10 biggest publishing groups in Germany to be pooling masses of reader data, from just under 1,000 websites including tabloid Bild, and other major titles.
The raw data goes into a single platform called Emetriq, a subsidiary owned by Deutsche Telekom, which sifts through and cleans it up, to create highly targeted, quality audience segments that publishers can use to boost their advertising packages.
“Our biggest competitors are no longer conservative publishers,” said Carsten Schwecke, CDO of Axel Springer’s sales house Media Impact. “We together must combine our forces against Google, Amazon, Apple and Facebook.”
Publishers pay a flat fee to use the data segments, which can be anything from €4,000 ($5,000) to €15,000 ($17,000). The price depends on how many page impressions they have and how many ad impressions they use the data on.
“Nobody is suffering more than publishers and sales houses in Germany, because they don’t have enough data, and their data silos will never be able to aggregate enough to come even close to Google and Facebook,” said Daniel Neuhaus, CEO of Emetriq. “Even now we’re pooling it; we’re still nowhere near but we’re getting closer in quality and quantity of data.”
German publishers are no strangers to collaborations. AdAudience is a joint venture between seven of the biggest German publishing groups including Axel Springer, set up in 2010 to sell their advertising on a programmatic guaranteed basis (not remnant inventory).
It’s via this joint venture that Emetriq can access all the publishers’ data, all of which is anonymous. Publishers run a bunch of different data types: social demographic data, online log-in data intent, behavioral and purchasing data, and semantic and contextual website data, to create quality reader profiles and segments that will be attractive to advertisers.
“Cookie-deletion rate is an issue for everyone,” added Neuhaus. “That’s why it’s important to stress that when we say we have 45 million female users, they’re all active users.”
All segments created by Emetriq are sense checked against online consumer panels from research group GfK. Deutsche Telekom also puts some of its own data in. This gives it an 87 percent accuracy rate, Neuhaus claims.
The data, once segmented, is fed back to the publishers, who can then choose to run the segments through their own DMPs.
“The real benefit is to create better quality segments that clients really need, in parallel with high reach,” said Stefan Kroetz, CEO of publishing joint venture AdAudience. It’s not so complicated to create good quality on small reach, or high reach with bad quality data, but putting them together — that’s the challenge.”
The benefit for publishers is that they receive advanced, anonymous data segments from a far bigger pool than their own portfolio of brands, which they can use to boost CPMs. Given the project is still in the early stages, there aren’t many figures AdAudience is willing to part with to show CPM uplift, but Kroetz said early signs show them to be “significant.”
So far Deutsche Telekom has been the only advertiser to be allowed access, using the data for its own campaigns, and adding in data from its open DMP.
“The concept of Emetriq is to help people be innovative wherever data is needed, to make it a reality,” said Neuhaus. “The fact Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple all aggregate data and keep it to themselves and don’t share it will eventually kill innovation.”Antoine Griezmann was unable to hide his frustration with Atletico Madrid's scoreless draw against PSV in Wednesday's Champions League encounter in Eindhoven.
Diego Simeone's men had a number of chances to score an important away goal in the first leg of the round of 16 tie, but they eventually failed to break the deadlock as Luciano Vietto and Griezmann missed big chances, while Diego Godin saw a goal disallowed.
PSV were reduced to 10 men halfway through the second half following Gaston Pereiro's dismissal, but eventually held on to record a valuable draw, much to the frustration of Griezmann.
"It's annoying to just draw when you want to win," the France international told the official UEFA website.
"It wasn’t easy; it was a difficult game. We worked hard at the back and then the chance I got was a shame. I didn't get my body shape quite right and the goalkeeper did well. But it doesn't matter. I'm still full of confidence.
"When they went down to 10 players, it was perhaps more difficult because they closed shop at the back.
"It's not so bad. We're at home next time and it's a boost. At home we’re comfortable with our fans who push us on in all we do and I’m sure we’ll do well."(Longmont, CO & Brevard, NC) – Oskar Blues Brewery, the first craft brewery in the country to brew and hand-can its own beer, continued explosive growth in 2014 and earned a position in the top half of the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies in America. The average company on the list grew a mind-boggling 516 percent. Nine plus years of consecutive double digit growth (triple digit growth before that) catapulted Oskar Blues onto the list.
“As an Inc. 5000 honoree, Oskar Blues Brewery now shares a pedigree with Intuit, Zappos, Under Armour, Microsoft, Jamba Juice, Timberland, Clif Bar, Pandora, Patagonia, Oracle, and other notable alumni. You are in good company-which is exactly where you belong,” says Eric Schurenberg, Inc. Magazine President and Editor in Chief in a letter to Oskar Blues Soul Founder Dale Katechis.
Oskar Blues’ exciting growth has encompassed a number of new projects, including:
Release of the first American Nitro CANned craft beer, Old Chub Nitro.
Creating the CAN’d Aid Foundation, which has raised more than $1.2 million for ColoRADo flood relief, recycling, sustainability initiatives and more.
Opening the Oskar Blues REEB Ranch, an epic bike and beer-fueled destination in North Carolina.
A more than 40 percent increase in beer production and distribution over the past year with addition of second brewery.
Two additional Oskar Blues’ family restaurants, CyclHOPS Bike CAN-tina and CHUBurger at Coors Field, opening in the first half of 2014.
Oskar Blues Brewery has more than doubled production since 2011, packaging more than 119,000 barrels in 2013, and increasing distribution to 35 U.S. states and four countries overall. Growth was fueled by the addition of a second brewery and Tasty Weasel Taproom, both in Brevard, North Carolina, in late 2012. Both East and West Oskar Blues breweries are continuing to expand in 2014, including adding 60,000 square feet of production space in Colorado. That space will include a six-lane bowling alley that will be open to Tasty Weasel customers.
Oskar Blues has grown to become the largest American craft brewery to package beer exclusively in CANs, and currently is ranked 24th on the Brewers Association Top 50 Breweries list. Oskar Blues was named “Craft Brewer of the Year” by Beverage World Magazine in 2012.
Innovation continues to drive the brewery. Old Chub Nitro was released nationwide in 2014 as the first 16.4-ounce American craft beer on nitro in a CAN. In the two tap rooms, Oskar Blues introduced the Crowler, a recyclable 32-ounce growler CAN filled with fresh draft beer from the source. The tabletop seamer Crowler machines are a huge hit, and Oskar Blues has started a cottage industry building and selling them to other breweries and pubs.
Dale’s Pale Ale was released nationwide as the first American beer in the single-serve 19.2oz. “Imperial Pint” can to kick off 2013. Mama’s Little Yella Pils followed in Ball Corporation’s 19.2oz. “Imperial Pint” can in April. Arizona spring training baseball stadiums and Asheville Tourists’ McCormick Field, Colorado’s Red Rocks Amphitheater and Fillmore Auditorium, along with Chicago’s House of Blues, are top drivers for this new single serve package.
“Continuing to push the boundaries is what gets us up in the morning, it’s what drives us. Everything we do is a product of that drive and passion. We continue to do what we love-toss a can in your backpack for the backcountry or a grab a stovepipe (19.2 ounces) at music and sport venues,” says Katechis.
Oskar Blues also offered its “big three” beers in the CANundrum Mix’d 12-pack of cans, introduced in 2013. The 12-pack includes four each of the multi-award-winning brews-Dale’s Pale Ale, Mama’s Little Yella Pils and Old Chub Scotch Ale. Dale’s Pale Ale was named “Top U.S. Pale Ale” by The New York Times and described as “one of the quintessentially hoppy pale ales of our time,” by BeerAdvocate.com. RateBeer.com refers to Mama’s Little Yella Pils as “like summer in a can.” Mama’s Little Yella Pils also won silver at the 2011 Great American Beer Festival while Old Chub Scotch Ale earned bronze.
Oskar Blues’ passion for bikes and craft beer is the inspiration behind the new Oskar Blues REEB Ranch in Henderson County, NC, which opens to the public this month. Located about 8 miles from the Brevard-based Oskar Blues brewery, this epic beer and bike-fueled destination offers a haven for mountain bikers (including camping and accommodations), a place to grow hops, pasture land for spent grain-fed cows, and a music & event space, all against the beautiful backdrop of Dupont State Forest. The Oskar Blues REEB Ranch is home to The Bike Farm, an established bike guide and concierge service. On October 11, 2014, the Oskar Blues REEB Ranch will host the Red Bull Dreamline Ultimate BMX Dirt Bike Competition, which will bring riders and spectators from all over the country to the event.
Also, in late 2013, the CyclHOPS Bike CAN-tina, a third Oskar Blues concept restaurant opened in Longmont, CO. The quick full-service taco, craft beer and tequila eatery also serves as the official retail and full-service bike shop home for Oskar Blues’ in-house bike brand, REEB Cycles. CyclHOPS joins the two CHUBurgers (the first opened in Longmont in 2013) and Longmont’s Homemade Liquids & Solids in Oskar Blues’ stable of family restaurants. More than 40,000 burgers were sold from the Coors Field CHUBurger in the first season.
The menus at all the restaurants are created by Chef Jason Rogers and based on beer and Berkshire pork raised on Oskar Blues Hops & Heifers Farm. Homemade Liquids & Solids was recently voted one of the top five craft beer bars in the Mountain West region in a Brewers Association poll of more than 19,000 craft beer lovers.
Also in the past year, Oskar Blues established the CAN’d Aid Foundation, following the massive flooding in Lyons and Longmont, CO. Although the foundation’s immediate focus was on maximizing fundraising efforts for the expedited distribution of funds to the impacted communities, the CAN’d Aid Foundation has since developed national partnerships in a variety of focus areas, including recycling, outdoor recreation, child and family advocacy and sustainability initiatives. To date, the foundation has raised more than $1.2 million for businesses, nonprofits, families and others in need.
About Oskar Blues Brewery
Founded as a brewpub by Dale Katechis in 1997, Oskar Blues Brewery launched the craft beer-in-a-can apocalypse in 2002 using a tabletop machine that sealed one can at a time. In 2008, the makers of the top-selling pale ale in ColoRADo, Dale’s Pale Ale, moved into a 35,000-square-foot facility in Longmont, ColoRADo. The brewery has since experienced explosive growth-packaging 59,000 barrels of beer in 2011 and 86,750 barrels in 2012. In December of 2012, Oskar Blues opened the doors to an additional brewery in Brevard, North Carolina. Together, the breweries packaged 119,000 barrels of beer in 2013, distributing its trailblazing craft brews to 35 U.S. states and Washington, D.C.
http://www.facebook.com/OskarBluesCans
http://www.facebook.com/OskarBluesBrewerySoutheast
http://twitter.com/oskarblues
http://twitter.com/oskarblueswnc
http://www.youtube.com/oskarbluescansAquidabã ( Portuguese: [akidaˈbɐ̃]), anglicized as Aquidaban, was a Brazilian ironclad battleship built in the mid-1880s. The ship participated in two naval revolts; during the second she was sunk by a government torpedo boat. After being refloated, Aquidabã was sent to Germany for repairs and modernization. During a routine cruise in 1906, the ship's ammunition magazines exploded, which caused the vessel to sink rapidly with a great loss of life.
Design [ edit ]
Aquidabã off US coast, probably in 1893. off US coast, probably in 1893.
Aquidabã was 280 ft (85 m) long, had a beam of 52 ft (16 m), and had a draft of 18 ft 4 in (5.59 m). The ship displaced 4,921 t (4,843 long tons; 5,424 short tons) and had a crew of 277 officers and enlisted men. She was powered by a two-shaft engine and eight boilers; this produced up to 6,500 ihp (4,800 kW) for a top speed of 15.8 kn (29.3 km/h; 18.2 mph). Fuel stores were initially 300 t (300 long tons; 330 short tons), though after refits this was increased to 800 t (790 long tons; 880 short tons).[1]
Aquidabã's main armament consisted of four 9.2-inch (230 mm) guns mounted in two twin gun turrets, each of which was placed off the centerline, en echelon, with the forward turret offset to port and the aft turret to starboard. Secondary weapons included four 5.7-inch (140 mm) guns, two fore and two aft, and thirteen 1-pounder guns, all mounted in single emplacements. The ship was also equipped with five 14 in (360 mm) torpedo tubes; three were above-water tubes, while the remaining two were submerged in the hull of the ship. The ship was equipped with compound armor. The armored belt was 11 in (280 mm) thick in the central portion of the ship, where the most critical parts of the ship were located. This included machinery spaces and ammunition magazines. At either ends of the central section of the belt, thickness was reduced to 7 in (180 mm). The main battery turrets were protected with 7 in (180 mm) worth of armor, as was the conning tower.[1][2]
Construction and career [ edit ]
Aquidabã was built in England by Samuda Brothers; her keel was laid on 18 June 1883, and she was launched on 17 January 1885.[1][3][A 1] The ship was a slightly smaller version of the earlier battleship Riachuelo, being shorter, having a lighter draft, and being equipped with only one funnel.[1] After undergoing gunnery trials on 14 August,[4] she sailed from England on 16 December, calling upon Lisbon and Bahia before reaching her ultimate destination of Rio de Janeiro on 29 January 1886.[2]
Rebellions [ edit ]
Aquldaban bombarding the forts of Rio de Janeiro (drawing of Fouqueray, according to a Le Monde Illustré, nº 1.916, bombarding the forts of Rio de Janeiro (drawing of Fouqueray, according to a photography, published in, nº 1.916, 1893.).
Aquidabã was part of a rebellion which started on 23 November 1891, headed by Rear Admiral Custódio José de Melo. Two years later (1893), she voyaged to the United States to take part in the International Naval Review. In that same year, she was the flagship of the Revolta da Armada (English: Revolt of the Navy), once again led by de Melo.[2] On 16 April 1894, Aquidabã was anchored off the coast of Santa Catarina, near the Fortress of Anhatomirim. Early in the morning, the first class torpedo boat Gustavo Sampaio, accompanied by three other torpedo boats, attacked Aquidabã; two torpedoes connected with the battleship and she sank in shallow water, inflicting only light damage in return.[5]
The battle, which marked the first use of torpedoes by the Brazilian military, signaled the end of the revolution in Brazil. The members of the revolutionary government based in Desterro, in the island of Santa Catarina, fled to the continent; loyalist Colonel Antônio Moreira César would later regain control of the city.[6] Refloated in June 1894 by government forces,[1] Aquidabã was quickly renamed to first Dezesseis de Abril (English: 16 April), then Vinte e Quatro de Maio (English: 24 May) due to anger over the ship rebelling twice in four years.[2] Partially repaired, the ship was brought to Stettin, Germany, and Elswick, England for a full repair and refitting.[2][4] The work lasted from 1897 to 1898, and included the installation of two heavy fighting masts.[1]
Later career [ edit ]
Aquidabã seen between 1898 and 1904, as evidenced by the two heavy masts[1] seen between 1898 and 1904, as evidenced by the two heavy masts
In 1900 she was renamed again, this time to restore her original name. In 1904, the ship underwent further modernization at the island of Ilha das Cobras (English: Snakes Island), near Rio de Janeiro. This included the removal of the two heavy masts that had been installed in 1898 and two torpedo tubes.[1][2] Aquidabã made many cruises in these years to test the new technology of wireless telegraphy and to train midshipmen.[2]
On 21 January 1906, Aquidabã was scheduled to voyage to the port at Jacarepaguá, near Rio de Janeiro, to escort and accommodate the Minister of Marine and his staff, who were attached to the cruiser Barroso. They were inspecting sites for use as an arsenal. At about 10:45 p.m., when she was moored at Jacuacanga Bay, near Ilha Grande (English: Big Island), the powder magazines blew up, sinking the ship within three minutes. A total of 212 people were killed, including three admirals and most of the officers of the ship, and 36 were injured; 98 survived.[2][7]
Notes [ edit ]
^ Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905 and the Miramar Ship Index agree on 18 June.[2][3] Though the Brazilian Navy's official history of the ship gives a keel laying date of May 1883, bothand the Miramar Ship Index agree on 18 June.
References [ edit ]Written By: Jimmy Reid - Date published: 10:24 am, May 2nd, 2012 - 49 comments
Categories: class war, Economy, employment, tertiary education - Tags:
Baby boomers strike again.
In 1989, University fees for domestic students in New Zealand were less than $300. Moreover, for many students, 90% of that cost was met by the government through a fees grant. NZUSA has a very good history of fees in New Zealand.
But I just want to say thank you to the baby boomer generation.
Thanks for pulling that ladder up after you.
I think it is great that graduates are now going to have to repay their loans faster so that you can keep more of your income. Income that you’re probably earning with that fantastic degree you didn’t pay for. It’s not like we are entering the toughest job market in twenty years, with the highest housing prices and an increasing cost of living.
How about I, as a graduate, repay my loan faster when you give yourselves retrospective student loans to repay the state for that free degree you got? Or pay a general tax of thanks for that ladder we no longer have.
Yeah, didn’t think so.
Instead we get asset sales, faster repayments, higher fees and Steven Joyce telling us to be grateful.
Share this: Twitter
Facebook
RedditThe Great Recession technically began after December 2007 and ended in June 2009; it was the longest recession in duration and the largest in terms of relative decline of GDP since the end of World War II. But polls show that many Americans believe that it's not over. A May 2011 study conducted by Northeastern University's Center for Labor Market Studies examined the GDP, employment, hourly earnings, and productivity data and found why so many people feel that way. The 23-page report, "The 'Jobless and Wageless' Recovery From the Great Recession of 2007-2009: The Magnitude and Sources of Economic Growth Through 2011 I and Their Impacts on Workers, Profits, and Stock Values," concluded that "aggregate employment has not increased above the [second] quarter of 2009, and real hourly and weekly wages have been flat to mostly negative."
After a thorough walkthrough of the sobering mound of data, the study concluded that the only major beneficiaries of the recovery have been "corporate profits and the stock market and its shareholders. Most holders of savings and money-market accounts also are net losers due to declining real interest rates which have been in negative territory for many interest-bearing and money-market accounts."
The point is not to play the class-warfare card. Most major companies came out of the financial crisis of 2008 relatively unscathed, but the experience scared the heck out of most of them and prompted many to stock up on cash to be on the safe side. Lack of confidence in the durability of the recovery and in the political leadership in Washington has also made business owners cautious about expanding or hiring. Much of companies' postrecession investment has gone into machinery to make them more productive with fewer employees.
All of this explains why the glass looks half full to some people and half empty to others. For those who see the U.S. economy through the prism of the stock market and their monthly investment statements, the economy has come back from the trauma of the financial crisis reasonably well. Despite ups and downs, it has headed back in the right direction.
But people who base their assessment of the economy more on a pay stub and a monthly checking-account balance have seen little improvement -- and they wonder whether they ever will. This year's slowdown adds to their anxiety.
An economy this fragile can scarcely afford the damage that could come from partisans on the left and right playing chicken in debt-ceiling increase negotiations. It's not hard to imagine the roller-coaster ride, the likely plunges in the markets, and the moments of sheer terror that we could face over the next month.
No one would benefit from having a repeat of September 29, 2008, the day the House voted down the Troubled Asset Relief Program and caused the stock market to drop 777 points and lose $13 trillion in shareholder value.Gamers in China hoping to get their hands on the Xbox One will have to wait a little longer than expected.
Microsoft announced late Friday that “despite strong and steady progress, we are going to need more a bit more time to deliver the best experiences possible for our fans in China.”
“At Xbox, we pride ourselves on delivering first rate gaming and entertainment experiences and to allow us to deliver on that promise we need to reschedule the launch of Xbox One,” Microsoft said in a statement. “Working with our partner, BesTV, we look forward to launching in China by the end of this year.”
Microsoft wouldn’t comment on a reason for the delay. The original release in China was slated for Sept. 23.
The company is still hosting an event in Shanghai at the Oriental Pearl Tower with fans and partners on Sept. 22.
“Attendees will be able to enjoy gameplay, great music and entertainment. We will also be giving away 100 consoles to fans that attend, which they will receive when the console launches,” Microsoft said.
When exactly the Xbox One — priced at 3,699 yuan (about $600) — launches in China is unknown. Microsoft noted that customers in China that have pre-ordered will still be first to receive the console and “will also get an added bonus.”
The company added that it is working with more than 25 developers on 70 games for Xbox One owners in China. It is also in talks with more than 4,000 retailers in 37 cities throughout the People’s Republic of China.
The Xbox One was set to be the first foreign console available in China since 2000, when the country banned foreign-made gaming machines due to potential mental health effects for children. Sony announced in May that it would establish a joint venture with Shanghai Oriental Pearl (Group) Co. to start manufacturing and selling Playstation hardware and software in China, but it’s unclear when the PS4 will be available in China.
In a statement, Microsoft VP Yusuf Mehdi said that Xbox One pre-orders in China have been “beyond our expectations.”
Meanwhile, the PlayStation 4 continues to outsell the Xbox One in the U.S, as Sony’s console took the sales crown for the eighth month in a row during August.Hulu is said to be mulling selling a chunk of itself as it looks to take its increasingly expensive fight against Netflix and Amazon to the next level. The streaming-video service is holding preliminary talks with Time Warner in this regard, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter.
The two companies are said to be discussing a possible $1.25 billion investment from Time Warner, a move that would value the streaming-video platform at $5 billion and make the cable giant an equal stakeholder alongside Walt Disney, 21st Century Fox, and Comcast-owned NBCUniversal. Currently, Fox is the leading partner in the venture with a 36-percent stake and the other two companies owning 32 percent each.
While nothing is certain at this point, if such a deal does go through, it will be one of the largest infusions of cash into the 8-year-old company in recent times. The last major investment came around two years back, after Hulu’s existing owners scrapped plans to sell the streaming site to the highest bidder, deciding instead to pump in an additional $750 million into the venture themselves. Time Warner was said to be interested in making an investment at the time as well.
Why this matters: Hulu needs the money to navigate its way through an increasingly congested and capital-intensive streaming-video business. As they battle each other and a growing number of upstarts, leading OTT (over-the-top) services like Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu find themselves having to splurge billions on content acquisition in a bid to stand out.
Take a look at some of Hulu’s recent big-ticket content deals and you should get the picture: The company acquired the exclusive streaming rights to CBS’s hit crime drama CSI in a deal estimated to be worth at least $120 million in February. It then secured the rights to the classic sitcom Seinfeld for around $160 million in April. And it went one better in July, when it forked out a record-breaking $192 million to retain the exclusive streaming rights to the popular animated comedy series South Park for another three years.I'm sure Twilight wakes up being pissed for no reasons from time to time. You know, being princess and stuff.I went for darker shades this time, I usually use warm colors for the ink and shadows. Decided to experiment a bit!Hurrah for grumpy Sparkle.#2 on Drawfriend Stuff #1766 __________________Alright guys, side note.I have seen multiple comments saying that it reminds them a lot of I mean, yes his art is really amazing (that's why I'm watching him), and I can understand why some aspects of my drawing and how it turned out can remind you of his.But being told repeatedly ''hey, your drawing looks a lot like that much better artist!'' is kinda depressing to be honest.So in case some of you read descriptions, keep the comments cleanThanks and keep rocking!Last night was a celebration for a lot of reasons. It was a celebration of hockey in general, and specifically of the rising talent who will soon be the new faces of the NHL. It was a celebration of the resurgence of the Russia-Canada rivalry. For Gordie Clark's scouting staff, it was a celebration of the job they have done the last couple of years. Despite picking no higher than 59th overall in the previous two drafts, three |
been done."
All bags are put through a scanner as passengers enter Sharm airport, and carry-on bags go through a second machine at the gate before boarding.
But a scanner in the sorting area for checked-in bags often is not working, all the airport officials speaking to AP said.
One of the officials said the breakdowns in the 10-year-old CTX scanner were because operators didn't use it properly — "human stupidity," he said — rather than technical faults.
"I have seen people unplug it to save power," he said.
Another of the officials said the staff made sure the scanner was operating well enough whenever international experts came to review measures at the airport.
"We only care about appearances," he said. "Once they (higher-ups) hear something is coming, suddenly everything gets fixed.... We wish we had visits every day."
Several of the officials argued that it was "not that important" that the machine broke down because when it was working, it is only used to scan a sample of the bags, not all of them.
The scanner was one of at least five granted by Britain, and another scanner is used at Cairo's airport but only to scan luggage for flights to London and Paris, according to two security officials there. In Sharm el-Sheikh, the selective use of the scanner is even more arbitrary, three officials said.
On Friday, Russia suspended all flights to Egypt, joining Britain, which had halted flights to Sharm el-Sheikh. Ireland has also suspended flights to the Red Sea resort, while at least a half-dozen Western European governments told their citizens not to travel there.
Empty charter planes have been flying to Sharm el-Sheikh to bring home stranded Russian and British tourists. But these flights banned passengers from checking in luggage, suggesting a concern about security and luggage-screening procedures.
Egyptian authorities at Sharm el-Sheikh airport have begun questioning airport staff and ground crew who worked on the Russian flight and have placed some employees under surveillance, according to airport and security officials.
The officials from Sharm el-Sheikh airport said security checks were often lax at a gate into the facility used to bring in food and fuel. Local hotels provide food to some flights and deliver the food directly to the planes, they said.
Guards at the gate often let such deliveries go in without full searches because they know the delivery men, the officials said. Guards in a diligent mood are often bribed with a meal or two to pass the trucks unsearched to save time, they added.
"You are not going to search your friend or your friend's friend," one official said. "It's rude."
A retired senior official from Egypt's Tourism Ministry, Magdy Salim, said airport guards regularly skip security checks for friends and co-workers and often don't search people "out of respect to save their time if they look chic or if they come out of a fancy car."
"Airport security procedures in Egypt are almost (all) bad" and marred by "insufficiencies," Salim said.
Earlier Saturday, the head of the joint investigation team, Ayman el-Muqadem, said a noise was heard in the last second of the cockpit voice recording before the plane plummeted. The announcement bolstered U.S. and British suspicions it was brought down by a bomb.
However, el-Muqadem warned it was too early to say what caused the plane to apparently break up in mid-flight, adding that analysis of the noise was underway.
"All scenarios are being considered... it could be lithium batteries in the luggage of one of the passengers, it could be an explosion in the fuel tank, it could be fatigue in the body of the aircraft, it could be the explosion of something," he told reporters at Cairo press conference.
____
Associated Press writer Sylvia Hui in London contributed to this report.Researchers from the Universities of Bamberg and Bonn present causal evidence on how markets affect moral values
Many people express objections against child labor, exploitation of the workforce or meat production involving cruelty against animals. At the same time, however, people ignore their own moral standards when acting as market participants, searching for the cheapest electronics, fashion or food. Thus, markets reduce moral concerns. This is the main result of an experiment conducted by economists from the Universities of Bonn and Bamberg. The results are presented in the latest issue of the renowned journal “Science”.
Prof. Dr. Armin Falk from the University of Bonn and Prof. Dr. Nora Szech from the University of Bamberg, both economists, have shown in an experiment that markets erode moral concerns. In comparison to non-market decisions, moral standards are significantly lower if people participate in markets.
In markets, people ignore their individual moral standards
"Our results show that market participants violate their own moral standards," says Prof. Falk. In a number of different experiments, several hundred subjects were confronted with the moral decision between receiving a monetary amount and killing a mouse versus saving the life of a mouse and foregoing the monetary amount. "It is important to understand what role markets and other institutions play in moral decision making. This is a question economists have to deal with," says Prof. Szech.
"To study immoral outcomes, we studied whether people are willing to harm a third party in exchange to receiving money. Harming others in an intentional and unjustified way is typically considered unethical," says Prof. Falk. The animals involved in the study were so-called "surplus mice", raised in laboratories outside Germany. These mice are no longer needed for research purposes. Without the experiment, they would have all been killed. As a consequence of the study many hundreds of young mice that would otherwise all have died were saved. If a subject decided to save a mouse, the experimenters bought the animal. The saved mice are perfectly healthy and live under best possible lab conditions and medical care.
Simple bilateral markets affect moral decisions
A subgroup of subjects decided between life and money in a non-market decision context (individual condition). This condition allows for eliciting moral standards held by individuals. The condition was compared to two market conditions in which either only one buyer and one seller (bilateral market) or a larger number of buyers and sellers (multilateral market) could trade with each other. If a market offer was accepted a trade was completed, resulting in the death of a mouse. Compared to the individual condition, a significantly higher number of subjects were willing to accept the killing of a mouse in both market conditions. This is the main result of the study. Thus markets result in an erosion of moral values. "In markets, people face several mechanisms that may lower their feelings of guilt and responsibility," explains Nora Szech. In market situations, people focus on competition and profits rather than on moral concerns. Guilt can be shared with other traders. In addition, people see that others violate moral norms as well.
"If I don't buy or sell, someone else will."
In addition, in markets with many buyers and sellers, subjects may justify their behavior by stressing that their impact on outcomes is negligible. "This logic is a general characteristic of markets," says Prof. Falk. Excuses or justifications appeal to the saying, "If I don't buy or sell now, someone else will." For morally neutral goods, however, such effects are of minor importance. Nora Szech explains: "For goods without moral relevance, differences in decisions between the individual and the market conditions are small. The reason is simply that in such cases the need to share guilt or excuse behavior is absent."
Publication: Morals and Markets, Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1231566
Contact:
Prof. Dr. Armin Falk
University of Bonn
Institute for Applied Microeconomics
Ph.: +49 228 739 240
[Email protection active, please enable JavaScript.]
Prof. Dr. Nora Szech
University of Bamberg
Department of Economics
Ph.: +49 951 863-2637
[Email protection active, please enable JavaScript.]<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Brandon Flowers’ 2015 campaign came to a premature end on Dec. 12 when the cornerback was placed on IR with a knee injury.</span>
Shortly thereafter, the veteran sat down to watch his film.
While Flowers knew he didn’t perform up to his usual high standards, he didn’t even recognize the player he saw in his number 24 jersey.
“It didn’t really hit me until I got put on IR,” he said. “I sat back, watched film and I didn’t see myself. I have a legacy I’m trying to leave on the field. I hold myself to a certain standard. When I was going through it at the time, I knew I wasn’t playing as well as I normally play. But I didn’t realize (how) bad."
Fresh off a Pro Bowl campaign with the Kansas City Chiefs, Flowers impressed during his first season in San Diego totaling 53 tackles, 11 passes defensed and three interceptions over 14 games in 2014. However, he posted just 34 tackles, one sack and three passes defensed in 11 games last season while dealing with nagging injuries.
Still, Flowers refuses to use those injuries as an excuse. Instead, he admits that for the first time in his career, he let outside distractions affect his play. He vows to never allow that to happen again.
“It wasn’t the year I wanted to have as I was injured from day one. It was miserable. A lot of things were happening on and off the field. I let a lot of things I had going on outside of football affect me. I definitely let stuff that wasn’t inside the lines affect me as a whole. I had never done that before, and (watching myself) I just knew I couldn’t go back to that place anymore. I’ve moved past it. I’m in a good place right now.”
A full participant in the offseason program this month, Flowers feels like a new man and his old self all at once. Fully healthy and with renewed focus, he’s eager and confident he will return to his form and lead a new look secondary in 2016.
Entering his ninth season with 113 career regular season games under his belt, Flowers is the senior voice in a new look secondary that added safety Dwight Lowery and cornerback Casey Hayward over the offseason. As such, he knows it is his responsibility to lead.
“This is a new year and I’m ready to go. I think chemistry is most important right now. We have to take the whole offseason in stride and just get our chemistry right. Give credit to (General Manager) Tom Telesco. He brought in guys who have the same type character and mindset. From the first day, it felt like Casey Hayward was here for years. The same with Dwight. We’re laughing, talking and having fun like we’ve known each other for years. And we work. I just want to be a mentor to all of them. There’s a lot I’ve seen on and off the field in this league, and I try to steer guys the right way. Even if you have it all right on the field physically, there will be more things mentally you can learn to be a better player. I just want to be that bigger brother for them in the locker room.”
Overall, Flowers is bullish on the team’s depth in the secondary, especially their versatility at cornerback.Gardening in a light, slow rain at my church in Rexdale on Sunday — an hour before wedding guests arrived — the cops interrupted our weeding and planting to strike up a little chat. Nothing to worry about, the three cops said. Just dropping by to introduce themselves and let parishioners know they are part of the TAVIS police initiative in Division 23 and will be available all summer to chat, meet with youths, provide a police presence, answer questions — whatever members need.
A bullet hole in the window of a church where 18-year-old Amon Beckles was shot while he attended the funeral of a friend in 2005. ( Jim Wilkes / Toronto Star )
Don’t know if the officers knew it, but they were talking and standing on the concrete landing at the front door of the church where teenager Amon Beckles was gunned down November 2005 as he attended the funeral of his friend, also a gun victim. Torontonians recall that year as the summer of the gun. By this time in 2005, Toronto had 27 murders. This year, including Saturday’s tragic Eaton Centre killing, there have been 21 murders. By at least one measure — fatalities — we are better off seven years later. When the cops stopped by to chat, I had been listening to G98.7 FM and their Grapevine phone-in show. Not surprisingly, the majority of the callers assumed the killer was black, likely Jamaican. They blamed the violence on a far too lenient justice system; absent fathers and poor parenting. And they advocated police lock up the criminals and throw away the key.
Article Continued Below
I imagine members at my church — innocent bystanders in the Rexdale violence — would draw the same conclusions. Just last year, the church hosted another funeral of a youth killed by gunfire, five or six doors from the church. Occasionally, cop cars roar into the church’s parking lot. Sometimes, they roll silently in. Always, they are scouting and scoping for area youths — none of them members of the church. After the 2005 shooting, members had to decide if they wanted to flee the area and its gang-related feuds. Or engage in a community-focused ministry that views the violence for what it is — the public manifestation of private hell among members of our city whose reality is obviously different from those enraptured in the church in holy ecstasy. They decided to stay. So police visits are cause for comfort, not concern.
The Toronto West Seventh-day Adventist Church just happens to be in a part of the city where gunfire is not a rare event; and where too many youths solve disputes at the barrel of a gun. Still, there is no great angst, just awareness; and a resolve to be a part of the solution.
Article Continued Below
That may be a proper response to the Eaton Centre debacle — not the two main reflex actions that mark the aftermath of the Saturday shooting at the food court in which a lone gunman targeted one or two persons in some kind of personal feud and ended up injuring bystanders and killing one of his targets. People either under react by saying, “This is just an isolated incident; ignore it and go about your lives.” Those are the people who are insulated from the event. Meanwhile, those directly impacted tend to overreact with: “Toronto is a dangerous place. Do something now before we sink into oblivion.” Toronto is not a dangerous place — even if I’m hit by a stray bullet. Bad things happen downtown and uptown. There are gangs out there. Their members don’t live by our codes. Heavy sentences, video surveillance and the like seem to have little or no impact on these brazen butchers. Another approach, understandable, maybe even defensible, hasn’t helped. It says, “As long as bad guys are killing bad guys, knock yourselves out.” Problem with that approach is, bad guys don’t live on an island. Royson James usually appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Email: rjames@thestar.caHuw Lloyd-Langton, Hawkwind guitarist and member of Widowmaker, The Meads Of Asphodel and the Lloyd-Langton Group, has died, aged 61.
A statement released by Hawkwind reads: “Our great friend and fellow musician Huw Lloyd-Langton has sadly lost his long battle with cancer. He passed away peacefully last night (Thursday) at home, with his wife Marion by his side."
Lloyd-Langton played on the band's self-titled debut LP in 1970 after which he left, joining Widowmaker for two albums in 1976, before returning in 1979 to play on nine further albums. He departed in 1988, although he went on to make a number of guest appearances with the band and as solo support.
He also played as part of Leo Sayer and Steve Swindells's bands, and more recently as lead session guitarist for The Meads Of Asphodel, as well as fronting his own band, the Lloyd-Langton Group, with whom he released nine albums.
Our thoughts are with his family and friends.Note: People who bought my book dealing with Android development will probably notice this article looks like a section of the fourth chapter “UI & UX: major components for a great user experience and the Android logic”. Let’s be honest, this blog post is pretty much an enhanced translation of a section of my book. For those who don’t know about this book, written in French, the title is “Développez pour Android”. Released about a year ago, it deals with Android development in general and particularly focuses on making highly optimized Android applications. If you are interested in this book, you can buy/download it here.
I have recently seen many Android applications starting with what I call a splash screen. A splash screen is an image that takes the entire screen space and usually shows branding information about the application (logo of the company, logo of the application, etc.). This screen is generally visible for a small amount of time while the application is starting or loading some resources in the background. I am pretty sure you have already seen some of the popular Android applications below featuring a splash screen on startup:
Once again, from my point of view, the splash screen paradigm is a port of the iOS equivalent. Some of you may start thinking I hate iOS because it influences Android in a really bad way. I often consider lots of mistakes in Android applications are due to stupid ports of iOS apps to Android. However I don’t consider iOS as a crappy mobile platform. I honestly believe iOS is an awesome mobile OS. Issues are not related to OSes themselves but to how people incorrectly understand them and use them. The splash screen is one of the best example of how people are misleading OSes in general. Being widely used on iOS, the UI pattern is also actively discouraged by Apple! Indeed, if you look closely to the iOS documentation you will notice Apple encourages developers to use launch images. Launch images are very different from splash screens as they are images used to pretend an application launched rapidly. On iOS, the system displays the launch image instantly when the user starts your application and until the app is fully ready to use. As soon as your app is ready for use, it displays its first screen, replacing the launch placeholder image. As a result, supplying a launch image is the best way to improve user experience. The graphic below shows you the launch image on the right that is used in the built-in “Stock” iOS apps:
The iOS documentation clearly specifies launch images should not be used as an opportunity to display branding information. Unfortunately, rules are made to be by-passed and iOS folks understood that. I honestly can’t blame them! They have simply used a functionality offered by the framework and slightly modified launch images to use them as splash screens. What is very disappointing to my mind is the same pattern is currently happening on Android. I am strongly convinced splash screens are not appropriate on Android for several reasons I would like to share with you:
A splash screen prevents the user from using the application. As far as I know, it is not explicitly written in Android guidelines but Android has been primarily designed to help the user achieving and completing tasks rather than offering features. In order to do so, the entire system focuses on what users want to do and letting them do it as quickly as possible. This fastness is achieved by rendering the overall UI in a insanely fast fashion and never blocking the user. Some of the best examples of this are the notification area (I guess iOS users will always remember the so annoying and blocking popups - UIAlertView s - when receiving a text message pre iOS5), the advanced multitasking mechanism, the launcher widgets, the fast transition animations (I don’t have the exact numbers but the default transition between two Activity is twice as fast as the transition between two UIViewController s put in a UINavigationController ), etc. In a nutshell, being blocked is not something an Android user is used to nor wants to be confronted with.
Most of the time, it is not necessary A splash screen can be used to make resources available before an application starts. Personally I think it is not necessary in 98% of the cases. It may be useful for applications actively relying on heavy resources such as Google Earth, Sky Map, or games but this is not applicable to simple utility applications such as feed readers, social network apps, news readers, etc. You should not require a network connection at startup nor do heavy computations. Always keep in mind, Activity launching is blazingly fast on Android. The Android team at Google spent a lot of time - and I am sure they are still spending a lot of time working on it - ensuring applications and the Activity class launches very rapidly. As a result it is quite easy to have an application and its first Activity up and ready in less than 400ms. Also always keep in mind that an application displaying a splash screen is also completely up and running from a system perspective.
Displaying a launch image or splash screen in not part of the framework 1. I don’t know the exact percentage of the Android documentation I have read at least once but I assure you the number is pretty high! I have never seen a method, class or xml resource explicitly dealing with launch images or splash screens. This obviously proves the Android team never considered the launch image trick as necessary or easy to implement.
Adding once-viewed resources increase the size of your APKs. In order to make a great splash screen, one may usually need to add several resources to the APK (bitmaps, layouts, 9-patchs, etc.). This may uselessly and drastically increase the size of your APK making it more difficult to download/install. It may also drive several of your users mad if they have a pretty memory-constrained device. I think the best way to demonstrate the horrible consequences of launch images is to give the example of a universal iOS app (a universal app is an app running both on iPad and iPhone). As I previously explained, iOS fakes fast application startup rapidly displaying a launch image. If you look closely at the iOS documentation, you will notice the iPhone requires two default images (only in portrait, one for each density - 320x480 and 640x960) while the iPad requires 4 images (one for each orientation and density - 768x1004, 1536x2008, 1024x748 and 2048x1496). Knowing iOS requires launch images encoded using the PNG compression algorithm, you will likely create an application that is almost 5Mo-sized (depending on how much your launch images are compressed) and only displays a splash screen!
Implementing a great splash screen is very difficult and tedious Developing on Android requires dealing with a lot of resolutions, densities, orientations, etc. In general, the built-in resource switching mechanism is enough. In the context of splash screen development in which absolute layouts are usually required, it is generally not sufficient. Moreover, you also have to deal with Android’s Activity lifecycle. I have seen many application falsely redisplaying a splash screen in low memory conditions, because the developers forgot to save the splash-screen-has-been-displayed flag in onSaveInstance(Bundle). The worst bug I am used to see is an app auto-magically restarting itself after the user got out of it. This is mostly because splash screen are implemented using a Runnable posted with a certain delay in a given Handler. Not removing it from the Handler ’s queue in onPause() will let the application restart itself. Developers should rather focus on making their app launch time as short as possible rather than designing a well-working splash screen. Equally, designers should spend more time on making Android apps Androidy…
Users don’t care about branding at launch time. When a user is starting an application, he/she is expecting it to fully fulfill what it is intended for. Making your applications responsive and fast is part of that job. Having a splash screen or a long startup time is the best option to do the complete opposite of what the user wants. If you really need to brand your application (and I encourage you to do so to create visually unique looking apps), I strongly suggest you to style the ActionBar, add an ‘About’ screen, use the background as a display area, etc. Doing in-app branding is the best opportunity to spread your message to your users as it will remain visible on all application’s screens. Believe me, as a user, when I open the Facebook app, I already know I am using the Facebook app. There is no need to display a huge Facebook logo in the middle of my screen.
A splash screen indicates a single-entry point application. Just a few application use this technique but Android applications may have several entry points. The best examples of that are Maps, Google+, Contacts/Phone or, more recently, Facebook. This can be done very easily using the appropriate <intent-filter /> s on your entry point activities in the Android manifest. I’m not saying this is something that is easy to apprehend for a user but it’s available from a framework perspective. This feature is not supported by iOS. Because of this, lots of people falsely consider an app has a single entry point and use it to add a splashscreen.
In a multitasking context, launch images have no meaning. In an ideal multitasked environment (ideal means en environment with access to unlimited resources), a splash screen is diplayed only once: the first and only time an application is started. Indeed, once an application is started, there is no need to display the splash screen again as the application will always remain in memory. Android has been primarily designed as a massively multitasked OS and therefore doesn’t stick to the splash screen paradigm at all.
Conclusion
When Apple launched the first iOS SDK, it may have made a great decision by enabling developers to fake a fast application startup via a launch image. Unfortunately, iOS evolution - iOS now runs on several densities and devices and supports multitaking - and the fact that developers completely hacked the way launch images are used made it a big mistake. Spending time on ensuring applications are opened rapidly would have been a better option. On the other hand, Android has been built to deal with an insanely large amount of devices. Please start taking this into account and continue fighting against the iOS enthousiasts who think the iOS way is the only way. iOS and Android are both awesome mobile OSes. They both have some particularities that need to be taken into account when developing applications. Understanding an iOS app is appropriate on iOS, and an Android app is appropriate on Android, etc. is the path to making awesome multiplatform applications.Joshua Roberts/Reuters Teachers have seen more polarization in their high school classrooms since Donald Trump became president.
Politicians can be powerful role models for kids, for better or worse. And with Donald Trump in the White House, an increasing share of teenagers are mimicking the hateful language, brazen lies, and racial animus they see modeled by the president, according to a study released Thursday.
The study, conducted by the UCLA Institute for Democracy, Education and Access, details how the Trump administration is affecting American classrooms. It is based on a nationally representative May 2017 survey of 1,500 public high school teachers and open-ended answers from 850 of them, plus 35 follow-up interviews.
The results show that more students have introduced unfounded claims into discussions and lashed out at peers with differing viewpoints. Students from marginalized groups are having difficulty learning and are experiencing increased bullying, teachers report.
A non-scientific questionnaire sent to teachers by the Southern Poverty Law Center found similar concerns leading up to and immediately after the 2016 election.
The UCLA study found that teachers’ already stressful lives are becoming even more so in these politically charged times. Nearly 70 percent of teachers reported facing increased work-related stress during the 2016–2017 school year. Half of these teachers pointed to the current political environment as the driving force behind this anxiety. Indeed, for many teachers, classrooms appear to be getting more difficult to control: A fifth of survey respondents said there is a growing level of incivility among students.
“I had never seen behavior this brash. … I saw this dynamic happening on the national level, and was amazed to see such a mirror of the same thing with 14- to 16-year-olds,” said Nicole Morris, a social studies teacher in Utah, per the study.
What’s more, teenagers ― especially immigrant and LGBTQ students ― are having trouble engaging with academics, teachers report. Instead of worrying about academic subjects, these students are increasingly concerned about their safety and security.
More than half of teachers who work in schools with a high percentage of minority students said polarizing policy issues have affected students’ attendance or focus in class.
This week, a group of nine senators including Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, citing the Southern Poverty Law Center questionnaire and asking how she plans to address some of these problems.
“The Department must denounce hate and work to ensure that all students are afforded an equal opportunity to achieve their full potential. No student should have to endure harassment, intimidation and bullying to learn,” the letter said.
Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images First lady Melania Trump listens as the president speaks to reporters on the South Lawn of the White House in early October.
The UCLA survey results come during a week in which Melania Trump has given more lip-service to anti-bullying causes, which the first lady has stated is a focus for her. She preached the importance of acceptance at a Michigan middle school on Monday.
Still, the study reveals that, in some ways, the president of the United States has undermined the jobs of American educators as they seek to teach students to think critically and form consistent, coherent arguments. Over 40 percent of teachers say students were more likely to rely on information from untrustworthy sources during the last school year than in the previous year.
“It has been a terrible year for helping kids understand the structure of government. They come in ready to fight, full of bad information from Twitter and Facebook,” a teacher from Missouri told researchers, per the study.The Blocksize Political Compass
The blocksize debate has rocked the Bitcoin community for several years now. Unfortunately, due to the complexity and politics of the issue, progress is challenging. The blocksize issue is a multidimensional problem and when different people think about different angles of the problem, communication can be difficult.
Inspired by The Political Compass, this website aims to break down the blocksize debate into two dimensions.
Analysis
To find out where you stand, take the survey below:
Part 1 - The basics
The current blocksize limit is too small Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree If the blocksize limit cannot be increased in a safe, calm, patient and responsible manner, we should not increase it at all Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Most of the people who disagree with me on the current blocksize limit can be trusted and want what is best for Bitcoin Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Many are exaggerating the risks of increasing the blocksize limit Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree People on my side of the blocksize debate have a deeper and more nuanced understanding of Bitcoin, than those on the other side of the argument Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree The block reward will be around for a long time and therefore we should not currently worry about what happens when the block reward gets low, as new technology that has not been invented yet, can fix any issues linked to this Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Transaction fees are currently far too high Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Part 2 - Strategy & Vision
It is vital that Bitcoin prioritises user adoption and ease of use, as quickly as possible, to ensure Bitcoin has sufficient growth and positive momentum to win against the competition Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree VISA, traditional banks and other traditional payment systems will always have a significant competitive advantage over Bitcoin, when it comes to transaction throughput and transaction fees, Bitcoin therefore needs to be focused on other niche areas where it has a competitive advantage Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree It is simply not practical to expect many people to purchase small items like coffee onchain. Broadcasting every coffee transaction to everyone in a distributed P2P network and then expecting all participants in the global financial system to download, verify and store the data from each coffee purchase, is simply unrealistic Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree In general, it is smart to mostly use the Bitcoin blockchain in the rare occurrence when a dispute arises, since if all parties to a transaction are honest, the proof of work mechanism may not be necessary Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree It is unrealistic to expect ordinary users to validate all the rules of each block when receiving a payment Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Users should not have to worry about fees when sending a Bitcoin transaction, otherwise the system will be too complicated for ordinary people to use Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Part 3 - Economics and Incentives
If Bitcoin succeeds, it is inevitable that blocks will eventually always be full, since demand is ultimately unbounded at a low enough price Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree There should be a blocksize limit to ensure onchain transaction volume is lower than it otherwise would be Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Miners supply the blockspace, so they should be free to set supply at whatever level they wish Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Users should be required to outbid each other, to compete for the scarce space on the blockchain. If there is no bidding, spammers will take up all the space Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Spammers creating transactions to fill blocks up and increase fees, is a more serious concern than spammers increasing the size of the UTXO set Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree There needs to be a balanced approach to mitigate the impact of spam, however the existence of spammers imply blocks will eventually always be full Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree After the block reward becomes small, if the mining industry is competitive and there is no economically relevant blocksize limit, miners will only charge fees high enough to cover the marginal costs directly linked to including the transactions in the blocks, and therefore there will be no fee subsidy to pay for network security Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree After the block reward becomes small, a deep memory pool is needed, to ensure miners will always want to move the chain forward. This means we need full blocks Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree In certain circumstances a tragedy of the commons type scenario could impact the mining industry, where individual miners try to maximise their own profits by including more transactions, at the expense of the profits of the whole mining industry Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Part 4 - Technical factors
Storage costs, bandwidth costs, network latency and processing costs have been declining over time and will continue to improve at an exponential rate. Therefore it is safer to have larger blocks than in the past, and blocks can safely get larger at an exponential rate going forwards Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Currently, no users have any significant problems running a fully verifying node, unless they are attempting extreme things like running a node on a Raspberry Pi or in a remote developing country Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Miners currently have no significant issues caused by block validation or propagation being too slow Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Assessing the appropriate blocksize limit is not simple, one needs to make complex trade offs between the impact on the UTXO set size, worst case block propagation times in different mining industry structures, storage costs and other factors Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree For miners, server costs, storage costs, orphan risk costs and verification costs are costs just like the costs of electricity related to hashing, it does not matter which costs more. The most cost efficient miners should win, whatever the type of cost is Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Fixing third party transaction malleability, improving signature verification times, introducing pruned mode and fixing the quadratic scaling of signature hashing operations bug, are key improvements at least as important as transaction throughput Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree There are no significant problems related to miners building on top of blocks before they have been verified. This is just specialization, miners should be specialised at hashing while others can focus on verification Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Part 5 - User experience during the upgrade to larger blocks
The user experience for light wallets should be prioritized over full node wallet users, since these users tend to be less sophisticated and are more likely to be confused or tricked Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree When upgrading to larger blocks, it should be done it such a way that users of light wallets get the full benefits of the larger blocks without needing to upgrade Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree When upgrading to larger blocks, it is very important that users of upgraded wallets can seamlessly transact with those with old wallets, both light wallets and full nodes. There will always be some laggards and some may take years to upgrade (e.g. paper wallets, hardware wallets, nLockTime transactions) Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree When doing a hardfork the header format should change (or something equivalent). That way all users, including users with light clients, will need to upgrade for the hardfork, so there is less confusion Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree When upgrading to larger blocks, it is useful if old nodes continue to follow the new upgraded chain (A softfork) Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree It is better that non upgraded wallets stop working after the upgrade, rather than them following a different chain to the upgraded wallets Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree When doing a hardfork, the transaction format should be changed to mitigate against the risks of replay attacks Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Production of a block which some nodes consider invalid, provides an opportunity for double spend attackers, we should therefore try to keep these events to a minimum Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Part 6 - Changing the rules on block validity
A simple majority of miners and users is technically sufficient to change any of Bitcoin's consensus rules Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Whether a simple majority CAN change the consensus rules or not, it would be better if a simple majority COULD NOT change the consensus rules, as giving a minority the right of veto, gives Bitcoin users monetary sovereignty, which makes Bitcoin unique compared to the US dollar Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree We should |
} if ( a13 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a13 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a13 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a13 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a13 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a13 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a13 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a14 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a14 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a14 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a14 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a14 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a14 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a14 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a14 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a14 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a15 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a15 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a15 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a15 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a15 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a15 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a15 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a15 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a15 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a16 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a16 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a16 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a16 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a16 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a16 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a16 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a16 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a16 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a17 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a17 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a17 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a17 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a17 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a17 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a17 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a17 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a17 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a18 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a18 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a18 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a18 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a18 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a18 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a18 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a18 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a18 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a19 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a19 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a19 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a19 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a19 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a19 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a19 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a19 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a19 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } //Solving columns if ( a16 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a16 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a16 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a16 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a16 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a16 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a16 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a16 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a16 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a26 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a26 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a26 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a26 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a26 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a26 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a26 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a26 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a26 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a36 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a36 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a36 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a36 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a36 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a36 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a36 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a36 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a36 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a46 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a46 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a46 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a46 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a46 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a46 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a46 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a46 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a46 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a56 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a56 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a56 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a56 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a56 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a56 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a56 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a56 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a56 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a66 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a66 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a66 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a66 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a66 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a66 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a66 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a66 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a66 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a76 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a76 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a76 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a76 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a76 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a76 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a76 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a76 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a76 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a86 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a86 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a86 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a86 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a86 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a86 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a86 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a86 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a86 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a96 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a96 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a96 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a96 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a96 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a96 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a96 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a96 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a96 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } //Solving the row 1 column 7 //Solving rows if ( a11 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a11 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a11 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a11 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a11 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a11 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a11 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a11 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a11 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a12 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a12 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a12 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a12 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a12 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a12 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a12 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a12 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a12 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a13 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a13 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a13 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a13 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a13 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a13 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a13 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a13 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a13 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a14 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a14 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a14 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a14 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a14 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a14 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a14 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a14 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a14 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a15 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a15 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a15 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a15 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a15 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a15 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a15 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a15 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a15 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a16 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a16 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a16 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a16 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a16 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a16 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a16 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a16 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a16 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a17 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a17 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a17 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a17 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a17 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a17 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a17 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a17 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a17 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a18 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a18 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a18 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a18 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a18 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a18 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a18 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a18 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a18 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a19 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a19 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a19 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a19 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a19 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a19 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a19 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a19 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a19 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } //Solving columns if ( a17 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a17 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a17 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a17 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a17 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a17 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a17 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a17 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a17 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a27 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a27 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a27 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a27 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a27 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a27 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a27 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a27 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a27 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a37 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a37 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a37 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a37 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a37 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a37 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a37 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a37 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a37 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a47 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a47 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a47 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a47 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a47 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a47 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a47 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a47 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a47 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a57 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a57 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a57 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a57 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a57 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a57 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a57 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a57 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a57 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a67 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a67 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a67 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a67 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a67 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a67 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a67 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a67 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a67 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a77 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a77 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a77 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a77 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a77 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a77 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a77 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a77 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a77 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a87 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a87 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a87 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a87 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a87 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a87 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a87 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a87 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a87 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a97 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a97 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a97 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a97 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a97 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a97 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a97 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a97 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a97 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } //Solving the row 1 column 8 //Solving rows if ( a11 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a11 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a11 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a11 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a11 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a11 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a11 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a11 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a11 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a12 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a12 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a12 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a12 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a12 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a12 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a12 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a12 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a12 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a13 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a13 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a13 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a13 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a13 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a13 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a13 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a13 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a13 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a14 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a14 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a14 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a14 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a14 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a14 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a14 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a14 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a14 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a15 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a15 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a15 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a15 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a15 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a15 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a15 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a15 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a15 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a16 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a16 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a16 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a16 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a16 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a16 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a16 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a16 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a16 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a17 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a17 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a17 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a17 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a17 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a17 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a17 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a17 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a17 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a18 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a18 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a18 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a18 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a18 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a18 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a18 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a18 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a18 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a19 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a19 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a19 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a19 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a19 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a19 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a19 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a19 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a19 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } //Solving columns if ( a18 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a18 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a18 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a18 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a18 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a18 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a18 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a18 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a18 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a28 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a28 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a28 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a28 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a28 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a28 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a28 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a28 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a28 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a38 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a38 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a38 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a38 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a38 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a38 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a38 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a38 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a38 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a48 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a48 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a48 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a48 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a48 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a48 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a48 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a48 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a48 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a58 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a58 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a58 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a58 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a58 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a58 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a58 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a58 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a58 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a68 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a68 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a68 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a68 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a68 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a68 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a68 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a68 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a68 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a78 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a78 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a78 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a78 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a78 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a78 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a78 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a78 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a78 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a88 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a88 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a88 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a88 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a88 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a88 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a88 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a88 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a88 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a98 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a98 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a98 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a98 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a98 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a98 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a98 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a98 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a98 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } //Solving the row 1 column 9 //Solving rows if ( a11 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a11 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a11 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a11 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a11 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a11 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a11 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a11 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a11 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a12 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a12 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a12 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a12 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a12 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a12 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a12 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a12 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a12 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a13 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a13 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a13 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a13 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a13 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a13 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a13 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a13 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a13 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a14 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a14 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a14 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a14 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a14 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a14 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a14 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a14 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a14 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a15 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a15 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a15 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a15 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a15 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a15 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a15 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a15 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a15 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a16 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a16 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a16 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a16 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a16 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a16 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a16 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a16 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a16 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a17 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a17 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a17 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a17 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a17 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a17 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a17 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a17 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a17 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a18 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a18 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a18 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a18 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a18 == 5 ) { b5 = true ; } if ( a18 == 6 ) { b6 = true ; } if ( a18 == 7 ) { b7 = true ; } if ( a18 == 8 ) { b8 = true ; } if ( a18 == 9 ) { b9 = true ; } if ( a19 == 1 ) { b1 = true ; } if ( a19 == 2 ) { b2 = true ; } if ( a19 == 3 ) { b3 = true ; } if ( a19 == 4 ) { b4 = true ; } if ( a19 == |
worksite.
L&I cited the company for three additional general safety violations that did not include a financial penalty but must be corrected.
As a result of the willful violations that contributed to the death of a worker, Sayde Construction has been placed on the severe violator list and is subject to follow-up inspections to determine if the conditions still exist in the future.
The company has 15 business days to appeal the citation.
Penalty money paid as a result of a citation goes into the workers' compensation supplemental pension fund, helping injured workers and families of those who have died on the job.
For a copy of the citation, contact Public Affairs at 360-902-5413.
###
For media information: Elaine Fischer, L&I Public Affairs, 360-902-5413 or Elaine.Fischer@Lni.wa.gov.
Connect with L&I: Facebook (facebook.com/laborandindustries) and Twitter (twitter.com/lniwa)Looking for news you can trust?
Subscribe to our free newsletters.
A few days ago, when I read that bank lending had dropped 2.2% in February, I didn’t think too much of it. In fact, it didn’t really sound all that bad. Given that we’re in the middle of a serious recession, a decrease of 2.2% seemed like it might be reasonable even if there were no bank crisis at all.
But I wasn’t reading closely enough. First: this is not a year-on-year decline. It’s a one-month decline, which annualizes to about 30%. Second: that number is a median. Total lending decreased 4.7%. Third, it’s an average, and some banks cut back a lot more than others. The Wall Street Journal reports:
According to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Treasury Department data, the biggest recipients of taxpayer aid made or refinanced 23% less in new loans in February, the latest available data, than in October, the month the Treasury kicked off the Troubled Asset Relief Program. ….In February, nearly half of lending by the 21 banks was to consumers, up from about one-quarter in October. But excluding mortgage refinancings, consumer lending dropped by about one-third between October and February. Commercial lending slumped by about 40% over that period, the data indicates.
That’s a big drop, even for the middle of a recession. What’s more, as the Journal’s chart shows, some of the biggest drops came from Citigroup and JPMorgan, both recipients of big TARP bailouts. Even with all that TARP money, they’re apparently not capitalized well enough to keep lending at a healthy level — which means that far from being able to pay back their TARP dough, they might very well need even more. Pat Garofalo at the Wonk Room:Despite a somewhat sulky tweet on Friday this seemed just as inevitable as Russell Wilson’s new contract. Luke Kuechly is a genuine NFL star. A generational talent who happens to play a position of moderate importance. The fact Bobby Wagner frequently gets compared to Kuechly (many consider them equals) is exactly why the Seahawks had to do this deal.
When Jamaal Charles ran all over the Seahawks in week 11 last season it was assumed the absence of Brandon Mebane was the key issue. Seattle’s defense had it’s poorest performance of the season immediately after he was put on injured reserve.
Wagner also didn’t play in the Chiefs game due to injury. He returned the following week against Arizona. Seattle won out to finish the regular season conceding just 39 points in 6 games (6.5 per game average). Mebane’s absence was unhelpful. Wagner’s absence and subsequent return was pivotal.
He’s not the most charismatic member of the team (as evidenced by a defensive press conference on Friday). I’m not sure he’s one of the big defensive voices in the locker room like a Sherman, Thomas, Bennett or Chancellor — but he is ideal for this team.
Pete Carroll said before the 2012 draft he wanted to add speed in the front seven as a priority. The first two picks that year were Bruce Irvin and Wagner. As Seattle moved away from the Leroy Hill/David Hawthorne profile, they needed a quicker inside presence who could still do all the basic duties of a MIKE. It’s testament to Wagner’s athletic profile that he could probably play the SAM or WILL equally well. He’s just an all-round terrific athlete and football player.
We talked about him as a late first-round talent that year and it came out after the draft that Dallas were going to draft him had they not moved up for Morris Claiborne. The Seahawks got a steal in round two. In fairness the draft not only offered Kuechly in the top-ten but also Wagner, Mychal Kendricks and Lavonte David in the second frame — ideal for any team looking to add speed at linebacker.
You don’t get many drafts like that — or many ultra-athletic middle linebackers. The Seahawks feel it when Wagner’s not there and he’d be difficult to replace. They couldn’t let him walk — especially given the relative value in terms of salary. Around $10m per year is high for a linebacker — but it’s not high compared to many other positions. Wagner is certainly one of Seattle’s better players and to keep him at that cost for the foreseeable future is, if anything, pretty good value.
Seattle now has most of its core signed up for at least the next three seasons: Wilson, Lynch, Graham, Bennett, Avril, Wright, Chancellor, Thomas, Sherman and Wagner. The structure they’ve used (plus the ever growing salary cap) will enable them to keep even more of their stars moving forward.
Davis Hsu told me today he expects the cap to increase by 7-8% next year at about $154m. It’s currently at $143.28m. That should leave enough room for a shot at keeping at least two of Russell Okung, J.R. Sweezy and Bruce Irvin.
The salary cap makes it hard to create a dynasty. The Seahawks are proving it isn’t impossible. The average age of the group listed above is 27. You’re looking at a Championship window of at least 3-4 more years with this crew, with two Super Bowl appearances already in the bag. However badly that last game stung, the Seahawks still have a chance to be known as the team of this decade.
Fallout: #Seahawks released starting DT Tony McDaniel today, source said. Salary cap reasons after their extensions. — Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) August 2, 2015
I watched back a few 2014 games this week and one thing I noticed in some of the tougher wins late in the season was the performance of Tony McDaniel. Big, stout and difficult to move. He wasn’t a flashy player who made numerous splash players — but he was still a force.
The Seahawks had to create some room after signing Wilson and Wagner and McDaniel is the unfortunate sacrifice. He was taking up $3m in cap space with no dead money attached. Seattle has Mebane back and healthy, Jordan Hill who really stepped up in 2014 and now Ahtyba Rubin comes into the mix. There are several other rotational pieces working out in camp, including the returning Demarcus Dobbs.
This is the way it’s going to be for the Seahawks moving forward. Look back at 2012 and you’ll see how much this team has changed in just three years. Red Bryant, Chris Clemons, Leon Washington, Golden Tate, Max Unger, Zach Miller, Michael Robinson, Brandon Browner, Sidney Rice. All crucial back in the day — now gone. The Seahawks have kept the core and been forced to move on elsewhere. They will continue to lose players they’d rather keep down the road. The key is to know when to move on. New England and Bill Belichick have mastered this over the years and it’s kept them competitive.
Who can you live without? That is the question.
Can they afford to lose a pretty good if not elite left tackle in Russell Okung? Can they replace him with a late first round pick? That’s not usually where you find starting left tackles. That reason, plus his obvious locker room respect and leadership qualities, might make him a priority. Playing all 16-games and a full post-season would aid his cause.
He seems to like it in Seattle. He joined the league before the new CBA so agreed a $48.5m contract as a rookie in 2010. He’s already earned the money several of his team mates are now chasing. Firing his agent to go alone this off-season is an interesting dynamic and suggests he might be prepared to do what feels right.
It also looks like a very promising offensive tackle class for 2016 — something to consider.
J.R. Sweezy continues to improve every year. He too would preferably be a sure-fire keep — and yet he’s a former defensive tackle and seventh round pick converted to guard. The Seahawks might feel they can replace him with a Mark Glowinski on the cheap to save cap space.
Then there’s Bruce Irvin — who developed into one of the more underrated defensive playmakers in the NFL last season. Pick-six’s, sacks, sideline-to-sideline coverage and better than expected work against the run — Irvin was generally fantastic in 2014. It’ll be hard to find a player with his unique athleticism in the draft or free agency. They chose not to take up his fifth year option though, leading to at least some angst and more than one reported quote about a desire to play in Atlanta. He’d have a market in free agency and might be too expensive to keep.
We should also talk about the future of Mebane. He’s the longest serving Seahawk on the roster for a reason. If he stays healthy and continues to perform — is he worth another deal? He turns 31 in January.
There are many things to consider and while this remains a loaded roster, the question marks over several players will give us plenty of scope to monitor different positions in preparation for the 2016 draft.
Source: the pick the Seahawks traded to the Lions for CB Mohammed Seisay is a 2016 6th rounder. — Field Yates (@FieldYates) August 2, 2015
The Seahawks made a similar move for Marcus Burley last year. The depth at corner isn’t strong at the moment — with a lot of pressure on guys like Tye Smith to make the jump from Towson University to the NFL. With Jeremy Lane potentially missing the whole season at the very least Seattle needs more camp competition and Seisay provides that.
He managed a 39 inch vertical at his pro-day and an 11′ broad jump. He runs in the 4.50’s at 6-1 and +200lbs. He’s very Seahawky.More than four years after the worst financial collapse in a lifetime, the lingering effects that have been holding back the U.S. economy are finally fading away.
That, at least, is what investors in the stock market seem to be thinking these days as they push the Dow Jones Industrial Average to ever-new heights.
The latest evidence to support that renewed confidence came from a report Wednesday showing solid job gains in February, based on monthly data collected by payroll processor ADP.
Employers added nearly 200,000 jobs last month after hiring 215,000 new workers in January, a revision that boosted that month's pace of hiring by 23,000 more than ADP initially reported. The report suggests that the government's February jobs report, due Friday, may beat economists' forecasts of about 150,000 jobs added last month.
Those forecasters are also expecting the government to report that the unemployment rate dipped to 7.8 percent from 7.9 percent in January.
"It feels like underlying job growth continues to improve and the current pace should be enough to bring down the unemployment rate," said Mark Zandi, Moody's Analytics chief economist. "The economy is not in full swing but we're moving in the right direction steadily by surely."
After more than three years of a wobbly recovery, the emerging confidence that the U.S. economy is healing has put stock market investors in a buying mood. So far this year, the Standard and Poor's 500 index is up by 10 percent, extending a rally that has sent stocks 20 percent higher since last June.
Though job growth is still weak by historical standards this far into a recovery, the gains are broad-based, according to the ADP figures. Small businesses—which had been all but sitting out the recovery in hiring—have also begun adding to payrolls.
(Read More: 6% Unemployment Rate Still 3 Years Away—Bernanke)
The pickup in hiring in February has also returned to the housing industry, which had been all but left for dead after the worst collapse since the Great Depression. Though the pace of homebuilding is still far below peak levels during the 2000s boom, the industry has begun getting back on its feet. That recovery is expected to continue this year—some analysts expect it to accelerate.
And after nearly two years of uncertainty about the potential damage to the economy from large federal budget deficits and the ongoing budget battle in Washington, a clearer picture is beginning to emerge.
"We have to deal with Medicare and Medicaid, these are ticking time bombs," said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Global Insight. "The guys in Washington punted on all of that, but we're not done with this. The good news is in terms of getting the deficit and debt levels down, we are making progress."Interviewed by Ronald A. Sharp Issue 137, Winter 1995
This interview was conducted in the autumn of 1994, a few days before Steiner's induction as the first occupant of the Lord Weidenfeld Professorship of Comparative Literature at Oxford. Since this is the first chair in comparative literature at either Oxford or Cambridge, and since Steiner has always had a mixed — and often controversial — reception in England, his appointment was greeted with an explosion of interest from the British press, the main theme of which was the return of the prodigal.
Born in Paris to Viennese parents in 1929, Steiner came to the United States in 1940. He took his B.A. at the University of Chicago, his M.A. at Harvard, and his D. Phil. at Oxford, where, as he would wryly remind his audience at his inaugural address, the first version of his dissertation was rejected because it was too close to a field that Oxford did not teach in those days: comparative literature.
Steiner has taught at such American universities as Stanford, NYU and Princeton, but the main settings of his academic career have been England and Switzerland. At the University of Geneva he held the chair in comparative literature until his recent retirement. At Cambridge University he maintains his lifelong appointment as Extraordinary Fellow of Churchill College. He now does brief teaching stints at various Italian universities and at Geneva.
The list of Steiner's books is characteristically long. It includes, among his literary, philosophical and cultural criticism, Tolstoy or Dostoevsky (1959), The Death of Tragedy (1961), Language and Silence (1967), Extraterritorial (1971), In Bluebeard's Castle (1971), Fields of Force: Fischer and Spassky in Reykjavik (1973), After Babel (1975; rev. ed. 1992), On Difficulty and Other Essays (1978), Martin Heidegger (1978), Antigones (1984), George Steiner: A Reader (1984), and Real Presences (1989). In addition, Steiner has published three volumes of fiction: Anno Domini: Three Stories (1964), the novel The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H. (1981), and Proofs and Three Parables (1993). He has also edited (with Robert Fagles) Homer: A Collection of Critical Essays (1962) and The Penguin Book of Modern Verse Translation (1966). This summer Faber & Faber will publish a collection of fiction, The Deeps of the Sea, and a collection of essays, No Passion Spent.
Precisely because his background is so various and the range of his interests so broad, Steiner has never fit neatly into any of the current literary, intellectual or cultural categories. Translation, which has occupied him throughout his career, provides the best metaphor for his work: translation in the sense of moving across boundaries and borders, of moving from one field to another.
What is so strikingly characteristic of both Steiner and his work is that the intelligence is always embedded in his staggering range of learning and in his magnificent narrative instinct. Rarely, even when he is at his most speculative or theoretical, can Steiner resist an illustrative anecdote, and the delight he takes in telling stories is virtually physical.
Though Steiner has an extraordinary generosity of spirit, the legendary feistiness remains. He can be fiercely polemical; he loves a good argument, particulary with a worthy opponent and when the intellectual stakes are high.
The conversations took place both in Steiner's spacious modern office at Churchill College and in the living room of his home in Cambridge. On the bookshelves stand dozens of chess sets, reflecting one of his deepest passions, along with first editions of Heidegger and Kant, Coleridge and Byron. Dressed comfortably in a sweater and slacks, Steiner fawns over his Old English Sheepdog, Jemi, feeding her chocolate biscuits after dinner. All day the phone rings with well-wishers on the occasion of his Oxford appointment, Steiner moving effortlessly from English to German to French to Italian. In a few days more than a thousand people will crowd into the Renaissance hall at Oxford where Steiner will deliver his inaugural.
INTERVIEWER
You once referred to the “patience of apprehension” and “open-endedness of asking” which fiction can enact, and yet you have described your fictions as “allegories of argument, stagings of ideas.” Do you still consider them to be “stagings of ideas”?
GEORGE STEINER
Very much so. My writing of fiction comes under a very general heading of those teachers, critics, scholars who like to try their own hand once or twice in their lives. My early stories represent already an attempt to think about my central question. I think The Portage of San Cristobel of AH is more than that. That book may have a certain life. Proofs is another parable, an intellectual parable; but the speeches in AH, the parts of the novel that have really perhaps moved people, are also essays. I know that. They are statements of doctrine, of belief, of conviction, of questioning. The mystery whereby a creative artist somehow—we don't have an answer—generates a voice, a three-dimensional, ten-dimensional character who takes on independent life, has very little to do with pure intelligence or systematic, analytic powers. There are immensely intelligent novelists, God knows, and maybe Proust's was the most powerful mind of the century in some ways, cerebrally; but many are not that way at all. They can give no account of the spontaneous coming together within themselves and language of that genesis of the living, of that thing which walks in front of you so you forget the name of the author. That is genius, that is creativity, and I certainly don't have it. Two pages of Chekhov create for you a whole world and you never forget the voices. There they are. That is something very different, I think, from what somebody like myself can do.
INTERVIEWER
Is the role of ideas in fiction subordinate then?
STEINER
What a very difficult question you ask. There are novels that one would call great but that will live because of their ideological, intellectual content. A lot of Thomas Mann might strike one that way. Musil's Man without Qualities is written about by as many philosophers as literary critics. But this is rare. Don't ask anything like that of the most extraordinary fictive shaper — don't laugh at me — in our time, who is Georges Simenon. I can take from my shelf ten or twelve Maigrets and it doesn't take five or ten pages, as in Balzac, or twenty, as in Dickens (who is really slow in getting going; so is Balzac): Simenon does it in two or three paragraphs. There's a Maigret novel which opens with a loud noise. At three in the morning in Pigalle, the old Paris red-light district, a nightclub owner is pulling down the metal shade, to close up. Out of that single noise, focused against the first milk cart, focused against the steps of those who go home to sleep at that time and those who start coming into Les Halles to get the food ready for the day, Simenon gives you not only the city, not only something about France which no historian can surpass, but the two or three people who will matter in the story are already before you. Simenon somehow notes that the steps of the man who pulls down the shade, as they go away from the nightclub, have a curious hesitant drag. And there you are, that's the first important clue in the story. Now that is the mysterium tremendum of the creation of the autonomous persona. But yes, there can be ideology. I had the privilege of acquaintance with Arthur Koestler, and what wouldn't one have given to have written Darkness at Noon, one of the supreme acts of ideas. That seems to me a border case. It will probably continue to be read not for Gletkin and Rubashov as fictive characters but because of the extraordinary argument on Stalinism, on Marxism, on torture and horror: what is the nature of an ideological commitment unto death? What is the nature of lying in order to defend a good cause? But it is such a rich book. Koestler introduces just enough density of life and of being so that it is not a script of ideology.
INTERVIEWER
Would you like to write more fiction?
STEINER
Yes, but I'm not up to the themes that move me most profoundly. I've been over and over tearing up the beginning of a story or a little novel on the following subject: we are either on a Greek island during the time of the colonels or in Turkey or South America: anywhere on earth, but in a police state. The man comes home to his wife and children, and this time as they go to bed, or at dinner, she smells the torturing on him (he's been torturing all afternoon). He never talks about it, there's never any open reference to what the job is, but the women know: they know they are sharing their beds with men who have done to the bodies of other men and women what these people do. The ultimate source is Aristophanes' Lysistrata, about women refusing to sleep with their men until they stop fighting. But here it isn't that they won't sleep with them but that a terrible sickness begins to invade the act of love itself, and finally they begin murdering their husbands. Then there are the children: how do the children live with this knowledge of what their father does?
But this should be done by a master, which I'm not. I've kept trying to get it going and it gets shrill, stiff, abstract. A master would know just what to say about the dinner, about some small noise in the bedroom, and he'd have it going. He'd get you.
The other story I've been struggling with is on a much gentler subject. I watch the present crisis in marriage, especially as we live longer now. I've made detailed notes for a story in which a marriage turns into a deep friendship, but of course desire is gone and in a sense love is gone too because friendship is not the same thing as love. This turns around a sentence in a letter of Rilke to the wife he left very early and never really saw again: “Remember that in a good marriage one becomes the loving guardian of the other's solitude.” What a fantastic sentence. I would love to develop that paradox: that the desire and vitality of marriage have a much better chance of surviving where there is deep hostility.
So these are the two subjects that I've been trotting and trotting around, but they need a real novelist, which I'm not.
INTERVIEWER
Now what about poetry? You used to write poetry.
STEINER
Yes, I published at Oxford, in Poetry during its great days, even in The Paris Review itself. My French lycée education, which in some respects still resembled that of the nineteenth century, involved the constant learning by heart, the constant grammatical construal of Latin, then of Greek. This was all based on the assumption that a literate man — perhaps I should add woman but that would be cant: it was essentially masculine — can write verse. We were asked to imitate a famous Latin passage, finding our own Latin; then French: variations on a known theme in literature. You were expected to write verse that followed the strong structural forms and rules: the sonnet, the ode, the heroic couplet. Nobody expected you to have any spontaneous genius, but a craft, a techne, the Greek word which gives us our “technology” and “technique.” It was an “accomplishment” — the word is nearly gone from our vocabulary now in this sense — like needlework or playing piano for young ladies, or like watercolors.
So I was trained that way and when I fully entered the English-language world I wrote poems, some of which were perhaps a tiny shade better than that. A few may have had a spark of private intensity and need, but on the whole they were verse, and the distance between verse and poetry is light-years. A first-rate poet ingests, internalizes all this knowledge, every bit of it, without even having to name it to himself. The relationship in a true poem between the set form and what we call the content is so organic that if you were to ask a real poet why the poem was an ode, why it was in free verse, why it was a dramatic monologue, he would say, “Don't be stupid. Read it! It cannot be otherwise.”
Yet one mustn't be too romantic about this. Ben Jonson writes prose summaries and then produces some of the most magical lyrics in any language. Dryden and Pope work from prose into verse: some of their best verse is a heightened kind of prose. But certainly since the Romantics this isn't how we conceive of the “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings,” in the Wordsworthian formula. The lycée education was the contrary: if you flowed over you wiped it up.
INTERVIEWER
What happened to the tradition of the man of letters, which you alluded to earlier?
STEINER
It is under deep suspicion. Let's do a little history. The man of letters represented a kind of consensus of taste and of interest in his society. People wanted to hear about literature, the arts, from a cultivated nonspecialist. Macaulay, Hazlitt—the ranking men of letters—almost made a book of a review; they were that long. There was time for that kind of publication. The man of letters might also write poetry and fiction, or biography, and in England the tradition has not died. We still have Michael Holroyd, my own student Richard Holmes who is now so acclaimed, we have Cyril Connolly, Pritchard, who is an exquisite short-story writer, a constant critic, a constant reviewer. And I'm not one who sneers about J.B. Priestley. The people who sneer about Priestley would give their eyeteeth to have had a jot of his talent. Critic, biographer, memorialist, in many ways Robert Graves, who was such a fine poet, was a supreme man of letters.
Every one of my opponents, every one of my critics will tell you that I am a generalist spread far too thin in an age when this is not done anymore, when responsible knowledge is specialized knowledge. A review appeared of the first edition of After Babel by a very distinguished linguist, an old man now, still alive, and someone I respect very much: the high priest of the mandarins. “After Babel is a very bad book,” it began, “but alas it is a classic.” So I wrote this professor and said no review has ever honored me more, particularly the alas, which was wrung from him. I can live with that. Then he wrote me something very interesting. He said we have reached a point where no man can cover the whole field of the linguistics and poetics of translation. This book, he said, should have been written under your guidance by six or seven specialists. So I wrote back, “No it should not. It would then be wasted, and end up gathering dust on the technical shelves.” I prefer the enormous risks. There were indeed errors, there were inaccuracies, because a book that's worth living with is the act of one voice, the act of a passion, the act of a persona. We disagreed gently but deeply. He said no, that cannot be done. It could be done till the First World War, but from then on the self-splitting and fission of knowledge has become such, even in the humanities, that powerful minds spend a lifetime on getting their own specialty more or less right, let alone the landscape. So that's a very central disagreement. The man of letters — and what was George Orwell, if he was not a man of letters, what was Edmund Wilson, whom I succeeded on The New Yorker twenty-seven years ago? — the man of letters has become very suspect.
INTERVIEWER
Has the relationship, more generally, between literature and criticism altered?
STEINER
I think so. We could talk ten hours. I'm committed to the bitter passionate view that we live in a Byzantine period, an Alexandrian period, in which the commentator and the comment tower above the original. Saint-Beuve dies bitterly remarking, “No one will ever create a statue for a critic.” Oh God, how wrong he was. Today we're told there is critical theory, that criticism dominates—deconstruction, semiotics, post-structuralism, postmodernism. It is a very peculiar climate, summed up by that man of undoubted genius, Monsieur Derrida, when he says that every text is a “pretext.” This is one of the most formidably erroneous, destructive, brilliantly trivial wordplays ever launched. Meaning what? That whatever the stature of the poem, it waits for the deconstructive commentator; it is the mere occasion of the exercise. That is to me ridiculous beyond words. Walter Benjamin said a book can wait a thousand years unread until the right reader happens to come along. Books are in no hurry. An act of creation is in no hurry; it reads us, it privileges us infinitely. The notion that it is the occasion for our cleverness fills me with baffled bitterness and anger. The notion that students today read second- and thirdhand criticism of criticism, and read less and less real literature, is absolutely the death of the normal naive and logical order of precedence.
INTERVIEWER
Have the humanities failed to humanize? Do you still believe that literary education may ironically foster political cruelty and barbarism?
STEINER
Nazism, communism, Stalinism have convinced me of this central paradox: bookishness — bookishness, that old English word, it's a good one — bookishness, highest literacy, every technique of cultural propaganda and training not only can accompany bestiality and oppression and despotism but at certain points foster it. We are trained our whole life long in abstraction, in the fictive, and we develop a certain power— allegedly a power—to identify with the fictive, to teach it, to deepen it (how many children has Lady Macbeth?). Then we go into the street and there's a scream and it has a strange unreality. The image I want to use is this: I've been to a very good movie early in the afternoon. It's a bright sunny day. When I walk out of the movie into the sunshine of the city afternoon, I have very often a feeling of nausea, of a disequilibrium which is nauseating. It takes seconds, minutes, sometimes longer for me to focus again on reality.(Reuters) - Facebook Inc’s big ambitions in the nascent virtual reality industry could be threatened by a court order that would prevent it from using critical software code another company claims to own, according to legal and industry experts.
The Facebook logo is displayed on their website in an illustration photo taken in Bordeaux, France, February 1, 2017. REUTERS/Regis Duvignau
Last Thursday, video game publisher ZeniMax Media Inc asked a Dallas federal judge to issue an order barring Facebook unit Oculus from using or distributing the disputed code, part of the software development kit that Oculus provides to outside companies creating games for its Rift VR headset.
A decision is likely a few months away, but intellectual property lawyers said ZeniMax has a decent chance of getting the order, which would mean Facebook faces a tough choice between paying a possibly hefty settlement or fighting on at risk of jeopardizing its position in the sector.
For now, Facebook is fighting on. Oculus spokeswoman Tera Randall said last Thursday the company would challenge a $500 million jury verdict on Feb. 1 against Oculus and its co-founders Palmer Luckey and Brendan Iribe for infringing ZeniMax’s copyrighted code and violating a non-disclosure agreement.
Randall said Oculus would possibly file an appeal that would “allow us to put this litigation behind us.”
She did not respond to a request for comment for this article.
An injunction would require Oculus, which Facebook acquired for $3 billion in 2014, to stop distributing the code to developers or selling those games that use it.
Such a court order “would put a huge stumbling block in front” of Oculus, said Stephanie Llamas, an analyst with gaming market research firm SuperData. It would offer the company’s rivals in the new market, which include HTC, Sony Corp, Alphabet Inc and others an “important opportunity for them to become first movers.”
Sales of the Rift itself would not be barred, but Llamas, said a lack of available titles could hinder Facebook’s offering relative to HTC’s Vive headset and Sony’s Playstation VR.
That market is relatively small at the moment - sales of VR hardware and software totaled $2.7 billion in 2016 - and mainly limited to gaming. But Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has predicted the technology “will become a part of daily life for billions of people,” revolutionizing social media, entertainment and medicine.
SuperData says the VR market will be worth $37 billion by 2020. Likewise, investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald last year issued a report predicting VR would account for 10 percent of Facebook revenue in four years’ time.
ZeniMax’s lawsuit arose from 2012 correspondence between Luckey and famed video game developer John Carmack, creator of the Doom and Quake series and then a ZeniMax employee. Luckey signed a non-disclosure agreement with ZeniMax covering his communications with Carmack.
Carmack joined Oculus in 2013 as chief technology officer. ZeniMax sued in 2014, claiming Carmack’s work while its employee was crucial to the Rift. At trial, Facebook said ZeniMax concocted its claims because of “sour grapes” over missing the VR trend.
Zuckerberg testified that “the idea that Oculus products are based on someone else’s technology is just wrong.”
The jury decided Oculus had not stolen trade secrets but had infringed ZeniMax’s intellectual property. It also said Oculus breached the non-disclosure agreement.
IP lawyers said the judge would consider factors such as whether ZeniMax continues to be harmed and whether money is sufficient compensation.
Edward Naughton, a Boston-based copyright lawyer with Brown Rudnick, said ZeniMax has a strong argument because its technology continues to be used without its permission and the jury’s verdict does not compensate for that.
“I think they have a pretty good shot here,” Naughton said.
Mitchell Shelowitz, a copyright lawyer in New York, noted that the non-disclosure agreement explicitly stated ZeniMax would be entitled to an injunction in the event its terms were violated.
Not all lawyers agree ZeniMax has the stronger position. Chicago-based IP lawyer Joshua Rich said he thinks Facebook has a good chance to repel the injunction by arguing that ZeniMax is not being harmed by the sale of the Oculus products because it is not direct competitor.
If Facebook can get past the injunction fight, the calculus could change, said Naughton. Facebook may believe it has strong arguments on appeal or, because it has so much cash on hand, it may hope to wear ZeniMax down to the point where it settles on favorable terms.
“Facebook has deep pockets,” said Naughton. “That allows them to put their opponent into litigation fatigue.”Wolf writes: "There are powerful state and corporate interests ranged against an open internet. We need a global movement to check them."
Portrait, author and activist Naomi Wolf, 10/19/11. (photo: Guardian UK)
Organizing Against Enemies of Internet Freedom
By Naomi Wolf, Guardian UK
n 24 April, a group of internet entrepreneurs sought to get the future into a single conference room in Chelsea, and have it talk. "Hacking Society" was hosted by Union Square Ventures - the venture capital firm that was an early investor in Zynga, Twitter, Tumblr, Foursquare, Etsy, and Kickstarter. The mission:
"[To] discuss how the economics of networks might help solve challenging social and economic problems; examine how incumbents use their influence over the current policy process to stave off competition from networks; define a proactive, network-friendly 'freedom to innovate' policy agenda; and examine how 'net native' policy advocacy works and how it can be harnessed to promote a positive agenda as well as overthrow bad policy and bad regimes."
A tall order but desperately needed: in an era when revolutions start on Facebook but are ended by internet surveillance; when activists in China connect by tweets but are stalked and arrested by tweets; and when we are seeing copycat legislation in democracies around the world, from Australia to Britain, to Canada and the US, to grab the internet in the hands of the state... many people around the world would want this group to hammer out a successful self-defense agenda.
Present were all sectors needed for lift-off: internet freedom champions John Perry Barlow and Cindy Cohn of the Electronic Frontier Foundation; network theory gurus Clay Shirky of NYU and Yochai Benkler of Harvard ; commercial success stories such as Craig Newmark of Craigslist and originators of Mozilla, Reddit and Kickstarter; campaign finance reform champion Larry Lessig; even the Hill was represented by Representative Jim Cooper of Tennessee, and a trade aide for Representative Ron Wyden of Oregon.
The conveners framed the clash at hand rightly: the fight over the internet was "incumbents versus insurgents" - insurgents challenging existing gate |
gel everybody together. We have been playing together for a few years now.
Laurent Koscielny debut
With a bit of hindsight, how would you summarise those five years?
I’m pretty satisfied with my time here so far. I’ve played more than 200 games for Arsenal in five seasons. I was lucky not to get too many injuries through the years.
I’m more mature too and I’m hoping that I’m now considered as a good centre half in the Premier League too.
In those five years, you experienced the League Cup final defeat against Birmingham and the two FA Cup victories in the last two seasons...
I don’t think too much about the Birmingham game anymore but it will always be a very bad memory. It’s never nice to lose your first final with your new club but you learn from it. It has helped me for the rest of my career.
Losing a final like that, after making a mistake with my keeper made me work harder to make amends for it. The FA Cups, on the other hand, were pure joy!
Could this be Arsenal’s year in the Premier League?
It could be. If we can reproduce regularly the first 20 minutes from the Manchester United game, yes we can have the ambition of being champions. But if we play like against Olympiacos, we won’t even finish in the top four.
We have a good squad, a lot of quality. We need to be consistent, though, to win the league. It’s a marathon. Every weekend, we have tough games.
We need to have the same desire and ambition in each of them, even if we know we can’t be at our best all the time. But we need to be solid defensively and efficient offensively to win 1-0 when we’re not at our best.
Have you become a leader in the dressing room?
I think I lead by example on the pitch. The boys also know that if I’m not happy, I will go out at training and put big tackles in!
They know that I am reserved but that I have a temper! Now and again, I speak out. I recall one big talk since 2010. It was two years ago before the FA Cup semi-final against Wigan. I was out injured so I couldn’t play.
I told the squad what I was thinking.I wanted to mobilise everybody. I had a message to get through. It came from my heart and it went down well... I think! Even now, we joke about it sometimes. It was in English as well.
There is no point to talk too much, anyway. It has to be at the right time, for the right thing and the right way too. Sometimes, also, you don’t need to talk. Just a look or a gesture is enough. I’m more like that.
You arrived here at 24. Do you feel a bit English now?
I do a bit, especially with two little English people at home as my two children were born here. One of the physios keeps teasing me saying, “You’re not French, you’re English – you tackle and kick people.” It makes me laugh. I am still very French but on the pitch I do feel a bit English.
Login or register to play video 05:19 Close Up: Koscielny
Do you feel respected by your opponents on the pitch?
I don’t pay too much attention to it. I would think so. I’m so focused on my game and the battle with the striker in front of me. I only think about winning, beating him in the challenges, getting the ball.
But for example, when I used to play against Luis Suarez, he would kick me, I would kick him but it always ended with respect and a handshake.
Is Suarez the toughest opponent you have faced?
Yes, he was one of the best, like Sergio Aguero or Didier Drogba. The good thing about the Premier League is that you have so many different strikers.
Every weekend, you have to excel in a different department to play against them. After every match, I have a look at my performance, the stats and see what I have done well.
What’s your relationship with the Arsenal fans. Do you feel they actually don’t know you that well?
I love them! And I want to thank them again for my new song, which is amazing. I think there’s a lot of respect between the fans and me.
Maybe they don’t feel like they know me because I’m not big on social networks. I have finally created a Twitter account but I don’t tweet much.
I can’t be on my phone all day! I’m not super keen on these things but it’s nice. Before I wanted to protect my family, my children. I’m a bit more open now.
Last season, the video of Per Mertesacker and you doing the “unclassic commentary” went viral. Maybe people had never seen that side of you?
That’s true. I’m not the same on the pitch and off it. I’m the first to laugh, to have a joke with people, to be a bit mischievous. But I don’t trust people easily and, like I said before, I am a reserved guy.
Login or register to play video 05:32 UnClassic Commentary!
What is your view on the football world?
I know people talk a lot of transfer fees, wages and all of that. I understand. But in the football world, you get paid very well because sponsors invest a lot because they make money through football.
We wouldn’t be paid so much if football was not a lucrative industry. Football is a show. It makes millions of children dream every weekend. It makes millions of people happy every weekend. It’s the best show on earth.
It’s a different world. I’m not naive either. Not everything is perfect and rosy. And everybody talks about it. There are 65 million football managers in the country! I don’t pay too much attention to that.
If your children Noah and Maina wanted to become professional footballers, would you encourage them?
They will do what they want. I will push them to study and get a degree. That’s the most important even if they still want to become a footballer.
If they want to do another sport or become a lawyer or a gardener, as long as they are happy, I’m happy.
Do your children like playing football?
Yes, my son likes playing and kicking the ball. They both go to every game at the Emirates, with his sister. They sing, they cheer. They are happy. They’re two little Gunners.
Do you already think about what you will do after your career?
I think about it more and more but I’m not sure yet. I don’t know if I will stay and live here or go back to France. I will see what I can do. In the media, as a coach, setting up a business... I still have time.
"It’s a big psychological challenge. I try to know where the pass will land, how the pass will be played" Laurent Koscielny
How many more years do you think you can play?
I don’t know. I will play for as long as my body can take it. I still have four years left on my contract here. I will be 34 then.
Then we will see how I feel physically. But even if you are still fit, at some point, you have to stop! You can’t do a Robert Pires and stop playing at 42 in India! [laughs].
Do you see yourself finishing your career here?
I have everything to be happy here. I have no reason to leave. At the end of my current contract, I will be one year away from my testimonial! Imagine a testimonial at the Emirates. It would be amazing!
There is a warrior side of you. You play through pain. Tell us about your first cap with France...
It was against the United States at the Stade de France, back in November 2011. I had a head clash with Brek Shea after just 10 minutes. It was my first cap and I didn’t want to come off.
At half time, Laurent Blanc was happy for me to continue. I knew it wasn’t serious. I wasn’t concussed or anything. So it was OK in the end. But that’s me – I am tough. It’s my nature.
You are high in a lot of stats rankings so far this season but there is one in particularly where you are top of the list.
Do you know which one?
Interceptions! It’s my game. It’s one of my qualities. I try to make it not dangerous for the team. I’m good at reading the game and a pass. I think it could help my team too.
It’s a big psychological challenge. I try to know where the pass will land, how the pass will be played. I’ve always had that in me. It’s partly instinct but also a lot of experience and knowledge of the game.
Earlier this season, a video of you doing a rabona at training went viral. How are you so good at it?
I can only do it with my left foot though! It is crazy as I am right-footed. I can’t do it with my right foot. I practise a bit before training!
But I have never done it in a game though. If we win the league before the last home game of the season, I will do it against Aston Villa at the Emirates, I promise!
[POLL: 897]Product Description minor cosmetic paint defects may be found; each products has been thoroughly inspected and is sold "As Is" at a specially discounted price of $39.95. LIMITED INVENTORY - GET YOURS WHILE SUPPLIES LAST! The MCR-H220 radiators are reconditioned units from the Award Winning H220 CPU cooling kits. Somecosmetic paint defects may be found; each products has been thoroughly inspected and is sold "As Is" at a specially discounted price of $39.95. LIMITED INVENTORY - GET YOURS WHILE SUPPLIES LAST!
There is no return on this product. A (1) One Year fan warranty applies.
Included: Dual 120 mm radiator, with built-in reservoir, and 3/8" SWIVEL built-in (non removable) barb fittings.
(2) pre-installed Helix PWM 120 mm fans
Clamps for 5/8" OD tubing
Installation hardware
(1) Year Fan warranty
Qty Specifications 1 Radiator Material Brass tubes, louvered copper fins Body dimensions 269mm x 128mm x 29mm Fill-port thread class G 1/4 Reservoir capacity 90 cc Barb fittings Integrated swivel 90° elbows, 3/8" (10mm) OD Installation hardware Standard: (8) coarse thread fans screws
Alternate: (8) 6-32 x 1 3/16 (30mm) Philips screws ROHS Compliant 2 Pre-installed Helix Fan Dimensions 120mm x 120mm x 25mm Speed control PWM Speed range 800+/- 25% ~ 1800+/- 10% RPM Airflow range 24 ~ 55 CFM Static pressure range 0.53 ~ 2.29 mmH20 Noise level range <16 ~ <33 dB/A Nominal Voltage 12 v Nominal current 0.2 A Bearing Type Z-axis Connector Mini 4-pin MTBF 60,000 hours ROHS Compliant 2 Clamps Material Black anodized aluminum, for 5/8" OD tubing only (non adjustable to smaller or larger tubing diameters)
Radiator Dimensionsposter="http://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201603/433/1155968404_4810518374001_4810483602001-vs.jpg?pubId=1155968404" true Clinton escalates her attacks on Trump In her speech before AIPAC, the former secretary of state calls a Trump presidency 'unthinkable.'
Hillary Clinton on Monday launched her most pointed attack yet on the Republican front-runner, calling the prospect of a Donald Trump presidency “unthinkable” as it relates to America's position in the world and pivoting hard to the upcoming general election.
Addressing the hard-line lobbying group the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Clinton underscored the importance of taking the special American-Israeli alliance to the “next level” and touted a far more pro-Israel vision for the future than that of the likely Republican nominee, who is scheduled to address the conference Monday evening.
Story Continued Below
“Tonight... you’ll get a glimpse of a potential U.S. foreign policy that would insult our allies, not engage them, and embolden our adversaries, not defeat them,” Clinton said. “For the security of Israel and the world, we need America to remain a respected global leader, committed to defending and advancing the international order, an America able to block efforts to isolate and attack Israel.”
“The alternative,” she said, “is unthinkable.”
In contrast, Clinton highlighted her own “unwavering, unshakable commitment to our alliance” with Israel and recalled her decades-long personal relationship with Israel and its leaders, including her first visit to the Jewish state 30 years ago and an intimate moment during Bill Clinton’s administration when she forced former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin outside to the balcony when he wanted to smoke in the White House.
The annual AIPAC conference marks the first time Clinton and Trump will appear before the same group on the same day — and the target and tone of Clinton’s foreign policy remarks showed her newly sharpened focus on her likely Republican adversary. Last week, Clinton won a string of five important primaries across the country that increased her delegate lead over Bernie Sanders to 300, all but ensuring her position as the Democratic nominee.
Foreign policy addresses throughout the campaign have provided the former secretary of state with some of her strongest moments. Her speech on the Iran nuclear deal at the Brookings Institution last September won praise even from her critics. On Monday, Clinton used that firm grounding to take on Trump.
“Yes, we need steady hands,” she said. “Not a president who says he’s neutral on Monday, pro-Israel on Tuesday and who knows what on Wednesday because everything’s negotiable. Well, my friends, Israel’s security is nonnegotiable.”
Clinton was making a direct reference to Trump's political blunder when he promised that America would play the role of a "neutral" broker between Israelis and Palestinians. During a Republican debate last month, Trump noted that he was "a negotiator" when asked whether the United States should continue to support the Palestinian Authority. "As a negotiator, I cannot do that as well if I'm taking sides," he said. "That being said, I am totally pro-Israel."
Trump’s appearance at AIPAC Monday night presents a high-stakes test to woo wary Jewish voters; a group of rabbis has already threatened to walk out in silent protest. Clinton's appearance in front of AIPAC was less novel; she spoke at the same event when she was a candidate for president eight years ago, and again as secretary of state in 2010.
Clinton also excoriated the rhetoric and violence that have defined Trump’s campaign rallies. “What Americans are hearing on the campaign trail this year is something else entirely,” Clinton said. “Encouraging violence; playing coy with white supremacists; calling for 12 million immigrants to be rounded up and deported; demanding we turn away refugees because of their religion; and proposing a ban on all Muslims entering the United States. We’ve had dark chapters in our history before... but America should be better than this.”
“If you see bigotry, oppose it,” she said. “If you see violence, condemn it; if you see a bully, stand up to him.”
Clinton, who has been embracing President Barack Obama on the campaign trail in the South and on the debate stage as she fends off attacks from Sanders, on Monday appeared to create some distance from his administration when it comes to Israel. Relations between the United States and Israel have reached a low point as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fiercely opposed the Iran deal, and Obama has been vocal about his frustrations with Israel’s leadership.
“The United States and Israel must be closer than ever, stronger than ever,” Clinton said, and she said that “One of the first things I’ll do in office is invite the Israeli prime minister to visit the White House.”
She added that “we will never allow Israel’s adversaries to think a wedge can be driven between us. When we have differences, as any friends do, we will work to resolve them quickly and respectfully.”
Sanders skipped the annual Jewish confab, citing his busy campaign schedule. But he announced Sunday night that he would deliver a foreign policy address of his own from the campaign trail in Salt Lake City on Monday.
But Clinton appeared to have moved on to the next fight, even making a rare pointed reference to the importance of electing a woman as president: “Some of us remember a woman, Golda Meir, leading Israel’s government decades ago and wonder, what’s taking us so long here in America?”ONE of the puzzles of the 2016 campaign, unexpectedly defined by the ascent of a billionaire reality TV star and a septuagenarian Vermont socialist, is why now? Yes, voters are angry, yes, they’re exhausted and disgusted and cynical about everything. But why is everything boiling over in this particular cycle, in this presidential campaign?
Consider: The economic picture is better than it was in 2012, when Republican primary voters settled for Mitt Romney and an incumbent president was re-elected pretty easily. (In both Iowa and New Hampshire, the unemployment rate is currently under 4 percent.) The foreign policy picture is grim in certain ways, but America isn’t trapped in a casualty-heavy quagmire the way we were in 2004, when Democratic voters played it safe with John Kerry and George W. Bush won re-election.
As Michael Grunwald argued recently in Politico, the worst-case scenarios of the post-Great Recession era haven’t materialized. Obamacare is limping along without an imminent death spiral, and health care costs aren’t rising as fast as feared. The deficit has fallen a bit, and inflation is extraordinarily low. The stock market is wobbly, but we haven’t had a double-dip recession.
On the cultural front, out-of-wedlock births are no longer rising. Abortion rates have fallen. Illegal immigration rates are down.Bellow is the reproduction of a text first published on my blog Crappy Town. It tries to establish the number of Soviet citizens that died as a result of repression by the Soviet state between July 1941 and May 1945 when the USSR was at war with Germany during the Second World War. It is part of my emerging working paper that tries to break down the 25 million losses of the Soviet Union in the Soviet-German War between its different causes.
Wartime Deaths Due to Soviet Repression
The Soviet Union under Stalin was a highly repressive state that engaged in repression of its citizens on a vast scale. Its repression was deadly and resulted in numerous deaths, even when the state had not explicitly set out to make repression lethal and to cause the death of those repressed. What is more, the four years of the Great Patriotic War were characterized by a sharp increase in the scale repression and the occurrence of deaths due to repression relative to most peacetime years under Stalin, including the immediate pre-war time.
The Gulag
Archival data shows the gulag administration in the years 1941 through 1945 presided over the deaths of 1.02 million inmates of whom 622 thousand prisoners in labor camps of the gulag, 312 thousand in labor colonies of the gulag and 85 thousand in prisons. The total number of deaths the gulag was responsible for in this time frame may be even higher on the account of deaths among former inmates who died after their release but as a consequence of the conditions they had been subjected to during their imprisonment.[19]
During the war mortality among the inmates of the gulag increased sharply so that one half of those who perished in the gulag did so in the war years, particularly between 1941 and 1943 and mainly of malnutrition related causes. German invasion of the USSR caused food shortages everywhere in the Soviet Union, however, malnutrition and the consequent mortality in the gulag was much more severe than among free Soviet citizens in the unoccupied USSR.
The most proximate cause of the crisis for the inmates of the gulag was that they were being kept imprisoned, mostly unjustly, with little aces to food, not that the Germans had invaded the Soviet Union and caused a general shortage of food. Had the regime released the inmates it was unable to feed they would have stood a far better chance of surviving than they did in the camps. This would have only benefited the war effort as a gulag inmate was only half as productive as a free laborer.
Internal Exile and the Labor Army
Another major category of Soviet citizens who suffered lethal repression at the hands of the Soviet regime during the war were deportees in internal exile. Deportees were usually stripped of their civic freedoms, lost most of their property and were often dumped in some of the most inhospitable parts of the Soviet Union, condemned to live in “special settlements” they would often first yet have to build. Besides working in the exile colonies themselves they were lent out to industries as unfree labor, or, during the war, could find themselves conscripted into the Labor Army. The exile groups experienced a far higher rate of mortality compared to the rest of the Soviet population, particularly in the first several years of their exile, after which their circumstances usually gradually improved.
Under Stalin the Soviet Union internally exiled just over 6 million people of whom 2 million during the war itself, 383 thousand immediately preceding the war in 1940-41, as well as 700 thousand in the second half of the 1930s. Russian demographer D.M. Ediev estimates that until 1952 between 700 thousand and 1 million people had died as a consequence of deportations, however, the question here is how many of these perished during the four years of the war itself.[20]
Ediev calculates the total excess mortality among the 1383 thousand exiled Soviet Germans and Finns who were mainly deported 1941 was 248 thousand. Similarly the excess mortality among the 1025 thousand deported Karachais, Kalmyks, Chechens, Ingushetians, Balkars, Crimean Tatars and Meshketian Turks who were deported in 1943 and 1944 was 226 thousand. Nearly three quarters of the 380 thousand who were exiled in 1940 and first half of 1941 were former Polish citizens, who were therefore subject to an amnesty of August 17th 1941 and June 30th 1943.[21] Since their banishment was much shorter their losses would have been considerably smaller than those of the the Soviet Germans and Finns who were deported in the second half of 1941. Combined, until 1952 the exile groups deported from 1940 to 1944 may have experienced about 500 thousand excess deaths.
Given that deportees were most likely to die in the first few years of their exile it is probable just under half of these 500,000 deaths occurred during the war itself. Along with the excess losses of the more “settled” exiles deported in the 1930s the total figure of wartime deaths among exile groups in special settlements and the Labor Army may be around 300 thousand.
Executions
It is well documented that 1941 through 1945 civilian courts in the USSR sentenced to death 22,572 people for criminal offenses and 42,149 people for political offenses.[22] Additionally, as has been discussed in section 2, during the war some 135 thousand Red Army soldiers may have been executed after a court martial.
Furthermore during the initial stage of the war the NKVD carried out prison massacres against inmates of Soviet prisons in the western USSR. Due to the speed of the initial German advance across USSR territory and the existing demands on the Soviet transportation system the Soviet authorities found it impossible to evacuate the prisons lying in the path of the Germans in time. Rather than leave them to the enemy the center ordered local NKVD guards to evacuate only some categories of prisoners, release others and execute still others.
Consequentially the NKVD massacred about 8,789 inmates in prisons in Ukraine and 530 in Belarus, an additional 940 prisoners during the evacuations from these prisons, and an unknown number in the prisons in Baltic republics.[23] The number executed in such circumstances is therefore not fully certain, however, the losses among the prisoner population that were sustained in this way are counted in the 85 thousand wartime losses among the prison population anyway.
Altogether, in the course of the war about 210 thousand Soviet citizens were outright executed or massacred by the Soviet security apparatus.
Summary
Altogether during the Soviet-German war of 1941-45 there were around 1.5 million deaths of Soviet citizens due to repression of the Soviet authorities. 1 million deaths among the captive population in the gulag and the prisons, 200 thousand condemned to death and executed of whom 65 thousand civilians and 135 thousand military, as well as roughly 300 thousand internal exiles who perished during the war as a consequence of deportations and conscription into the labor army.
Table of Contents
19. Michael Haynes and Rumy Hasan, A Century of State Murder? Death and Policy in Twentieth-Century Russia (London: Pluto Press, 2003) 214-215.
20. For the size, time and composition of individual deportation operations see Pavel Polian, Against Their Will: The History and Geography of Forced Migrations in the USSR (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2004) 327-333. For the figures on mortality see Dalkhat Ediev, Demograficheskie Poteri Deportirovannyh Narodov SSSR (Stavropol’: StGAU “AGRUS”, 2003) 302-303.
21. Polian, 2004, 119.
22. Stephen Wheatcroft “Victims of Stalinism and the Soviet Secret Police: The Comparability and Reliability of the Archival Data — Not the Last Word”. Europe-Asia Studies Vol. 51, No. 2 (1999): 337-338.
23. Aleksandr Gur’yanov and Aleksandr Kokurin “Èvakuacija tjurem. 1941”. Rossijskij istoricheskij zhurnal “Karta” No.6 (1994): 16-27.
~ MarkoIran’s Revolutionary Guard has blamed Saudi Arabia for two deadly attacks in Tehran carried out by Islamic State (Isil) fighters, a move that threatened to escalate the terrorists’ actions into a regional confrontation between Sunni and Shia powers.
Gunmen and suicide bombers from Isil killed 12 people when they assaulted the Iranian parliament and a symbolic shrine to Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of the Iranian revolution, on Wednesday morning in their first major attack against Iran.
In a statement released hours after the attacks, the Revolutionary Guard said it held Saudi Arabia responsible for the Sunni jihadist group’s actions and promised revenge. Iranian commanders pointed the recent summit between Donald Trump and Gulf Arab leaders, where Saudi Arabia called for a harder line against Iran.
“This terrorist attack happened only a week after the meeting between the US president and the backward [Saudi] leaders who support terrorists. The fact that Islamic State has claimed responsibility proves that they were involved in the brutal attack,” the Revolutionary Guard said.I don't want it to be bad, and i've never wanted it to be bad, but I would prefer Sony learn a valuable lesson if it's as bad as certain critics I trust have said it was. I am reserving judgement right now and waiting for a few of my personal favorites to weigh in on it before I waste any money on what appears to be a disaster, but here are my reasons.
A disregard of the original film mythology, and refusing to do a sequel instead of a hard-reboot. I personally wanted a passing of the torch film, and Sony ignored that prospect in favor of a hard reboot with characters that I did not grow up attached to. It's insulting to me that they would have the hubris to throw away the canon established by one of my favorite films, and what is widely regarded as one of the best comedies of all time, in exchange what appears to be, in a best-case-scenarios an "Average" film. The pushing out and mistreatment of Ivan Reitman, I have a great deal of respect for Reitman and Akyroyd and it's clear from the email leaks that they were not treated with the respect they deserved, and were actually low-key bullied behind the scenes. I find that kind of mean and gross and I don't like it. The pushing of a "message" film, first and foremost rather than pushing for a "good" film first and foremost. From it's early development it had it's roots in a desire to make a girl power film, more than it was about making a good film. The original Ghostbusters wasn't a male-bonding/learning to be men movie, it wasn't really a "message" film, it had being a good movie and a good film first in it's mind. I feel like it's a disservice to try to push a synthetic message first, and i'm not really interested in something (which according to several reviews) which has a ham-fisted message. If a movie has a "message", it should be something that emerged organically out of it's working parts, instead this was a film that Amy Pascal started with pushing a message to begin with. To be clear, I do not DISAGREE with this message, but I much prefer it to emerge organically from the narrative, as opposed to be engineered. It's the same reason why even though so many Christians don't disagree with the message behind many Christian Films, they don't really engage with them specifically being the messages of the films are synthetically engineered from the get go, instead of emerging naturally out of a well-constructed story. It isn't that I disagree that Women need better representation in Hollywood, and that I want to see more egalitarianism in who headlines large films, I firmly agree with BOTH of those sentiments, RATHER I would prefer that we focus first and foremost on constructing good stories for those to happen within, as opposed to trying to engineer them. One thing that truly attracted me Ghostbusters, and has made it have lasting power to me, was the amount of "nerdy detail" in the film that made it feel a bit more "real" and fleshed out than a normal sci-fi/comedy. Akyroyd is a hardcore true-believer in the stuff, and I feel like it really shows in a lot of his techno babble, and the depth of the lore. In several of the scenes that have been released promotionally, I feel a lot of the techno babble falls short, which aligns perfectly with their previous collaboration "The Heat", which I felt was a pretty lazy film that felt like a "Silly Comedy" first and a "Cop Film" a distant second. In contrast Ghostbusters was very much about striking a balance between the world-building and grounded aspects and the comedic aspects, and it was much more subtle. I didn't like, "The Heat", I found it very lazy and tired and it bored me in a way that "Bridesmaids" did not. If I had to point to a film that did everything right that "The Heat" did wrong, it'd be "Hot Fuzz", which I feel is a vastly superior film all around, and whose Police characters I find more realistic even though in many ways they are sillier. Primarily because of how straight Simon Pegg plays his character for the majority of the film. "The Heat" was full of a lot of "mugging" and people acting silly instead of simply acting, and I feel that it doesn't conform with my personal sensibilities at all when it comes to films or comedies in general. The Antagonism of a lot of the fanbase has been pretty gross and mean. Legitimate criticisms have been swept aside and ignored, you've repeated brought up "Bad Marketing Campaigns", and at no point has anyone involved with the film acknowledged that they have shit the bed entirely with the trailers.
When the first trailer for "Star Trek Beyond" came on-line (not to far away from when "Ghostbusters 2016" trailer dropped), Simon Pegg immediately took to Twitter to explain that the marketing people were trying to sell it as a very different film, and that it is a great film and he entirely believes in what he wrote regardless of the shitty marketing. He embraced the fans and told them in other words that, "I am sorry the trailer sucked, but it's a great film and I believe in it regardless of the trailer misrepresenting it".
When the fans rejected the trailer, and the MANY perfectly grounded criticisms of the trailer occurred (Being tonally similar to the "Pixels" trailer, having a lot of very loud comedy that clashed with the established styles of the previous films, ignoring the previous continuity, a stereotypical representation of a Black Woman as a "book-dumb but street-smart character", a lot of "telling not showing" exposition, and a reliance on grosser jokes, etc.), instead of taking to Twitter and saying, "I understand people, but I don't control the marketing, I believe in the film, and I promise it's very different from what we see in the trailer."
We got basically, "No the trailer doesn't suck, YOU SUCK."
This antagonism has kind of been weaved throughout all of Sony's interactions with fans, and it's been really disappointing to feel like alienating people who don't like the trailer is really the angle they have felt was the "winning"-side.
There hasn't really been an attempt to win over people that have been really disappointed by the marketing material, no attempt to say, "It's different from this, we promise, it's going to be great."
In fact negative, positive, one thing that has stayed constant in all of the reviews is that everyone has expressed the belief that the trailers properly represent the tone of the films.
And if that's the case, then i'm not particularly interested, because obviously their sensibilities are not mine, and that's fine.
But I would prefer that crass, lowest-common denominator films don't continue being made, and I would very much like if we can't stop those films from being made for them to to not be reboots of films that I love.
So the best option here is for Sony to learn a hard lesson, that they can't spend almost 200 million dollars on a big-budget film, and bet their money on trying to piss people off if they don't like the trailer.
If it's good, great, awesome, I hope they enjoy their money, but the sting of attacking people because they didn't enjoy the marketing will still remain, and I would prefer a huge multi-billion dollar company didn't feel like they could really get away with an antagonistic engagement like that again.Phoenix is a web framework built for Elixir, an awesome language that’s built on the Erlang Virtual Machine. Coming from a Rails background, Phoenix seems immediately familiar. Although it is missing a few of the niceties that Rails gives us, Phoenix has excellent support for technologies such as WebSockets, which makes it a great candidate for modern web development. Secondly, since it is built on the Erlang Virtual Machine, many benchmarks show that it can scale better than Rails. In any case, it’s a great tool to add to any Rubyist’s belt.
We covered some of the basics of Phoenix in my last article. This time around, we’ll build out the Remynders app with form helpers and models. Let’s jump right in. You can find the Github repository for the code covered in this article and the last one here.
Form HTML
--ADVERTISEMENT--
If you dial back to where we left off last time around (check the “article1” branch of the repository), we set up the index view, but wanted to set up a form to create a new reminder. This requires the creation an empty view in web/views/reminder_view.ex:
defmodule Remynders.ReminderView do use Remynders.Web, :view end
We still need a template to actually show the user the form. Let’s do that by creating the template in templates/reminder/new.html.eex:
<form> <div class="input_wrapper center_block"> <label>Reminder text</label> <input type="number" value="10"></input> </div> <div class="input_wrapper center_block"> <label>Minutes from now</label> <input type="number" value="10"></input> </div> <div class="input_wrapper center_block"> <label>Your email</label> <input type="email"></input> </div> <div class="input_wrapper center_block"> <input type="submit" value="Remynd me" class="button"></div> </div> </form>
BOO to ugly, unstyled input fields, so add some CSS in web/static/app.scss:
textarea:focus, input:focus{ outline: 0; } label { font-weight: bold; font-size: 20px; display: block; margin: 20px; }.input_wrapper { margin-top: 20px; } input[type="number"], input[type="email"], input[type="number"]:active { font-size: 25px; text-align: center; font-weight: bold; border: 5px solid #000; padding: 15px; width: 225px; } input[type="email"] { font-size: 18px; } input[type="submit"] { width: 265px; padding: 15px; border-color:; #cc0000; background-color: #fff; }
Now, taking a look at http://127.0.0.1:4000/reminders/new, there’s the form. But, wait a second, we’re not actually populating a model with this form. To do that, use the form_for form helper. Before we do that, it’s time set up our models.
Models
We want a model to represent the concept of a reminder. In Phoenix, Ecto is used to do database-related stuff. Basically, it’s a way to write queries in Elixir through a domain specific language. This is a bit different from the OOP-based Rails approach, but most of the setup is very similar.
In Rails, we’d shoot off a rails generate model command followed by a rake db:migrate. Phoenix is pretty similar:
mix phoenix.gen.model Reminder reminders minutes:integer email:string title:string
We should get output like the following:
creating priv/repo/migrations/20150805211918_create_reminder.exs
creating web/models/reminder.ex
creating test/models/reminder_test.exs
There, the model is created. But, we need to make space for it inside our database. Ecto comes with adapters for MySQL |
that can take on gas powered bikes and actually have a shot at beating them. Hallelujah. The first showdown will be held on January 9th 2011 at the California Speedway, Chip will be competing in the WERA Pirelli Sportsman Heavyweight Twins Superbike class along side superbikes like the KTM RC8 and Ducati 1198r.
“Our electric motorcycle will compete head on with real racing superbikes such as the Ducati 1198 and KTM RC8 as well as other established manufacturers, and we expect to work hard to show the world that electric technology can achieve laptime parity with gasoline superbikes,we’re not going on track to make up the numbers; we’re going out to compete in order to raise our game and catch up to these gasoline guys.” Chip Yates
We’ll keep you updated on Chips progress as more news comes in, hit the links below if you’d like to read more.
-To stay in the loop join our Facebook page grab the RSS feed or join us on Twitter @ElectroVelocity –
Enter your email address for free daily updates – Never miss a story! Powered by FeedBurner
More information – Asphalt and Rubber + Swigz.comA sperm whale shitting in the ocean. Photo by Strange Ones; all other photos by Christopher Kemp
Between 7 billion human asses and countless bird, fish, and animal butts, our planet pumps out an ungodly amount of poop every day. Few of those turds—if any—are as valuable as the mysterious and rare fudge dragons dooked out by sperm whales.
In late January, a British man named Ken Wilman found a six-pound lump of sperm whale shit (also known as ambergris) while walking his dog on the beach. Afterward, a French dealer offered him $70,000 for what was, in all seriousness, a piece of crap. Wilman's story has a precedent. In 2012, an eight-year-old boy walking with his father along a beach in England found some sperm whale poo worth $63,000. Before that, in 2006, a couple in Australia came across a 32-pound log that reportedly netted them almost $300,000.
What the fuck is going on? What makes sperm whale ass ham so damn expensive?
The reason for the price tag is that for generations, ambergris has been highly sought-after by the high-end perfume industry. Houses like Chanel and Lanvin covet this extraordinary poo for its unique bouquet and ability to bind scents to human skin.
Of course in the modern era, the use of whale byproducts for industrial purposes is widely pooh-poohed. In 1973, the United States banned the possession and trade of ambergris under the Endangered Species Act; Australia passed a similar measure in 1999. All of which has driven the ambergris market deep underground.
In order to find out more about the furtive and wildly lucrative whale-shit market, I reached out to two international dealers—one in France, the other in New Zealand. Both refused to be interviewed, with the French dealer responding, “We do not want to give any information which could reach some competitors or create new ones.”
So I did the next best thing and called the man who literally wrote the book on ambergris. Christopher Kemp is a molecular biologist who was living and working in New Zealand in 2008 when a mysterious object washed ashore near the country’s capital, Wellington. “No one knew what it was,” Kemp told me over the phone. “Some thought it was a big block of cheese. Others said it may have been a meteorite.” But after someone suggested that it might be whale shit, crowds flocked to the beach, carving out chunks of the log with garden tools and taking them home until nothing remained.
“I was so interested, confused, and compelled to try to find out what ambergris was,” Kemp said, but the more answers he found, the more questions he had. The biologist chronicled his quest and in 2012 published Floating Gold: A Natural (And Unnatural) History of Ambergris.
I recently called Kemp to get the scoop on the number one number two in the world, and to find out how you too can become a whale-shit treasure-hunter.
VICE: What’s the best way to describe ambergris?
Christopher Kemp: Ambergris is a type of whale poop. It’s not quite poop, but it has a lot in common with poop—mainly in that it comes from the same place as poop. It’s produced solely by sperm whales, and only a small percentage of them. It’s estimated that maybe one percent of the total population of sperm whales produce ambergris. Basically, sperm whales live almost exclusively on a diet of squid. Some of the large sperm whales are ingesting up to a ton of squid a day. A squid is almost completely digestible. The only thing that can’t be digested by a whale is an inner quill, called the “pen,” and the beak, which really resembles a parrot beak—very hard and durable. Now, a normal whale will digest a squid and regurgitate all the non-digestible bits into the ocean and swim on. But there’s a very small percentage that produce ambergris. Some of those beaks make it through the whale stomach, into the small intestine, where they irritate the delicate lining. In these instances, the whale’s intestine produces this fatty, cholesterol-rich secretion to bind up the beaks to prevent them from chaffing the intestinal lining. That is what will eventually become ambergris.
That’s basically the production cycle. It’s passed the same way feces would be, and then it floats around in the ocean. When it comes out, it’s black, sticky, and very fecal- and unpleasant-smelling and not really worth a great deal of money. But it starts this journey where it’s broken down by seawater, and it undergoes a molecular degradation to become something that’s really valuable. It matures and transforms over time to become a white, waxy lump that is then worth $1,000 a pound or $5,000 a pound, depending on its quality [though some reports suggest pieces can be worth much more].
Has anyone ever seen a sperm whale excrete ambergris?
No. In many respects, sperm whales are still a total mystery. Because they spend so much time a mile beneath the surface, we don’t know about lots of aspects of their lives. We don’t know how they mate, where they travel, how they get there, or when they go there. We don’t know how they communicate with one another. We don’t know how they manage to capture that many squid, and whether there’s a particular hunting technique they use. And we definitely don’t know if they pass ambergris naturally, or if it always kills them. We definitely know that it kills them sometimes, because there have been instances of whales washing ashore and a necropsy finding that the cause of death was a total obtrusion in the gut by this big boulder of immature ambergris.
How long has ambergris been in demand?
It’s clear that from written records it’s been used for at least 1,000 years, but probably well before that. There are records from the eighth and ninth centuries of it being traded by Arab traders. We know from history that it’s been used almost for every purpose. As recently as the 1700s and the early 1800s, it was used as a medicine. It was used as a tonic, a treatment for pregnant women, or as a cure for impotence and headaches. It was burned as incense across the Middle East; it was used as an herbal remedy in China. And in many cases, it was used just as a display of wealth: monarchs in Europe used to celebrate the birth of a child by presenting each other with pieces of ambergris.
Can you describe what makes ambergris so appealing?
When it first comes out of a whale, I don’t think it is that appealing. It has a sheep-dung smell to it. But as it undergoes that transformative aging process—that curing—the more aggressive fecal tones of the profile tend to diminish and more complex odors begin to come to the forefront. The older a piece of ambergris, the more different molecular compounds you get. So if you have a really aged piece of ambergris, it’s a whole bouquet of different molecular compounds you’re smelling. You start to get some pleasant aspects to it. [It smells] like old wood, or ozone—like the air that you get after a lightning storm; it smells grassy; it smells marine-y. Every piece of ambergris smells quite different because it’s been on a different journey.
There’s one piece that I remember smelling—it fit very comfortably in the palm of my hand; it was sort of the size of a small apple. It smelled almost completely like an embodiment of the sea. It was like distilling the ocean into a solid thing. You got the smell of the air around the ocean; you got the smell of the brine in the sea. It was really, really peculiar—it was an unusual experience for me. If I’d been wealthier, I would’ve purchased it.
How widely is ambergris used in the perfume industry today?
It was used previously much more than it is today. Whether or not the big perfumers like Chanel, and other big, France-based companies, still use it is sort of a mystery. They will tell you that they don’t use it. But in my book I managed to contact a French trader who buys ambergris all around the world. He won’t get on a plane for less than 45 to 50 pounds. He claimed, on the record, that he then sells to middlemen who work for Chanel. So it’s very mysterious. The perfume industry itself is a very clandestine world because they’re trying to protect their formulas. And then there’s this stigma of (A) using natural products, (B) using products from whales, and (C) using products that are poop—so you just tend to meet this stone wall. Ambergris is still sold for enormous amounts of money, so someone must be using it.
Are there professional ambergris hunters, or is it something you simply have to chance upon?
There are people in New Zealand—they’re fringe people who live on the edge of society. Because ambergris is so unpredictable, I don’t know if you could ever really say that you know you’re going to make enough money to support your family and pay your mortgage with it. But there are definitely people for whom ambergris is an important revenue stream. There are quite a few of those people, but they’re very surly. Typically, if you’re going to find a piece, it’s going to be a small piece, though there are definitely instances of people finding 200-pound boulders worth half a million or a million dollars.
If someone wanted to go out ambergris-hunting, where should they look?
If someone wanted to look for ambergris, they would start by identifying beaches that tend to accumulate a lot of other flotsam because, after all, ambergris is just very valuable flotsam. The best times for finding ambergris are after periods of sustained onshore winds and high seas, or after storm systems have passed over. You should look after high tide and walk along the high-tide line where the lighter objects have ended up. Ambergris is slightly less dense than seawater, so it floats, but mostly submerged, a little like an iceberg.
Is there any country in particular where a lot of the stuff is cropping up?
New Zealand is a hotspot. And then anywhere in what Melville called the watery part of the world: the Maldives, the Bahamas, the Caribbean, the Philippines, etc.
Follow Michael Zelenko on Twitter.In an extraordinary development Thursday, the In an extraordinary development Thursday, the Obama administration announced a series of sanctions against Russia. Thirty-five Russian nationals will be expelled from the country. President Obama issued a terse statement seeming to blame Russia for the hack of the Democratic National Committee emails.
"These data theft and disclosure activities could only have been directed by the highest levels of the Russian government," he wrote.
Russia at first pledged, darkly, Russia at first pledged, darkly, to retaliate, then backed off. The Russian press today is even reporting that Vladimir Putin is inviting "the children of American diplomats" to "visit the Christmas tree in the Kremlin," as characteristically loathsome/menacing/sarcastic a Putin response as you'll find.
This dramatic story puts the news media in a jackpot. Absent independent verification, reporters will have to rely upon the secret assessments of intelligence agencies to cover the story at all.
Many reporters I know are quietly freaking out about having to go through that again. We all remember the WMD fiasco.
"It's déjà vu all over again" is how one friend put it.
You can see awkwardness reflected in the headlines that flew around the Internet Thursday. Some news agencies seemed split on whether to unequivocally declare that Russian hacking took place, or whether to hedge bets and put it all on the government to make that declaration, using " You can see awkwardness reflected in the headlines that flew around the Internet Thursday. Some news agencies seemed split on whether to unequivocally declare that Russian hacking took place, or whether to hedge bets and put it all on the government to make that declaration, using " Obama says " formulations.
The New York Times was more aggressive, was more aggressive, writing flatly, "Obama Strikes Back at Russia for Election Hacking." It backed up its story with a link to a joint FBI/Homeland Security report that details how Russian civilian and military intelligence services (termed "RIS" in the report) twice breached the defenses of "a U.S. political party," presumably the Democrats.
This report is long on jargon but short on specifics. More than half of it is just a list of suggestions for preventive measures.
At one point we learn that the code name the U.S. intelligence community has given to Russian cyber shenanigans is GRIZZLY STEPPE, a sexy enough detail.
But we don't learn much at all about what led our government to determine a) that these hacks were directed by the Russian government, or b) they were undertaken with the aim of influencing the election, and in particular to help elect Donald Trump.
The problem with this story is that, like the Iraq-WMD mess, it takes place in the middle of a highly politicized environment during which the motives of all the relevant actors are suspect. Nothing quite adds up.
If the American security agencies had smoking-gun evidence that the Russians had an organized campaign to derail the U.S. presidential election and deliver the White House to Trump, then expelling a few dozen diplomats after the election seems like an oddly weak and ill-timed response. Voices in both parties are saying this now.
"Not much happens in Russia without Vladimir Putin," President Obama said in a December 16th news conference while discussing Russian hacking allegations. The Asahi Shimbun/Getty
Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham
Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham noted the "small price" Russia paid for its "brazen attack." The Democratic National Committee, meanwhile, said Thursday that taken alone, the Obama response is " insufficient " as a response to "attacks on the United States by a foreign power."
The "small price" is an eyebrow-raiser. Also, like the WMD story, there's an element of salesmanship the government is using to push the hacking narrative that should make reporters nervous. Take this line in Obama's statement about mistreatment of American diplomats in Moscow:
"Moreover, our diplomats have experienced an unacceptable level of harassment in Moscow by Russian security services and police over the last year."
This appears to refer to This appears to refer to an incident this summer in which an American diplomat was beaten outside the diplomatic compound in Moscow. That followed a 2013 case in which a U.S. diplomat named Ryan Fogle was arrested in similar fashion.
Fogle was shpionsky rekvisit, or spy kit – including wigs and a city map that were allegedly on his person – became the source of many jokes in the Russian press and social media. Similar to this hacking story here in the states, ordinary Russians seemed split on what to believe. Fogle was unequivocally described as a CIA agent in many Russian reports. Photos of Fogle's, or spy kit – including wigs and a city map that were allegedly on his person – became the source of many jokes in the Russian press and social media. Similar to this hacking story here in the states, ordinary Russians seemed split on what to believe.
If the Russians messed with an election, that's enough on its own to warrant a massive response – miles worse than heavy-handed responses to ordinary spying episodes. Obama mentioning these humdrum tradecraft skirmishes feels like he's throwing something in to bolster an otherwise thin case.
Adding to the problem is that in the last months of the campaign, and also in the time since the election, we've seen an epidemic of factually loose, clearly politically motivated reporting about Russia. Democrat-leaning pundits have been unnervingly quick Adding to the problem is that in the last months of the campaign, and also in the time since the election, we've seen an epidemic of factually loose, clearly politically motivated reporting about Russia. Democrat-leaning pundits have been unnervingly quick to use phrases like "Russia hacked the election."
This has led to widespread confusion among news audiences over whether the Russians hacked the DNC emails (a story that has at least been backed by some evidence, even if it This has led to widespread confusion among news audiences over whether the Russians hacked the DNC emails (a story that has at least been backed by some evidence, even if it hasn't always been great evidence ), or whether Russians hacked vote tallies in critical states (a far more outlandish tale backed by no credible evidence ).
As noted in The Intercept and other outlets, an Economist /YouGov poll conducted this month As noted in The Intercept and other outlets, an/YouGov poll conducted this month shows that 50 percent of all Clinton voters believe the Russians hacked vote tallies.
This number is nearly as disturbing as the 62 percent of Trump voters who believe the This number is nearly as disturbing as the 62 percent of Trump voters who believe the preposterous, un-sourced Trump/Alex Jones contention that "millions" of undocumented immigrants voted in the election.
A December 19th anti-Trump protest in Pennsylvania. Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
Then there was the episode in which the Washington Post ran that
Then there was the episode in which theran that breathless story about Russians aiding the spread of "fake news." That irresponsible story turned out to have been largely based on one highly dubious source called "PropOrNot" that identified 200 different American alternative media organizations as "useful idiots" of the Russian state.
The Post eventually distanced itself from the story, Post. Theeventually distanced itself from the story, saying it "does not itself vouch for the validity of PropOrNot's findings." This was a very strange thing to say in a statement that isn't an outright retraction. The idea that it's OK to publish an allegation when you yourself are not confident in what your source is saying is a major departure from what was previously thought to be the norm in a paper like the
There have been other excesses. An interview with Julian Assange by an Italian newspaper The Guardian crediting Assange with "praise" of Trump and seemingly flattering comments about Russia that are not supported by the actual text. ( The Guardian has now " There have been other excesses. An interview with Julian Assange by an Italian newspaper has been bastardized in Western re-writes, with papers likecrediting Assange with "praise" of Trump and seemingly flattering comments about Russia that are not supported by the actual text. (has now " amended " a number of the passages in the report in question).
And reports by some Democrat-friendly reporters – like Kurt Eichenwald, who has birthed some real head-scratchers this year, including what he admitted was a And reports by some Democrat-friendly reporters – like Kurt Eichenwald, who has birthed some real head-scratchers this year, including what he admitted was a baseless claim that Trump spent time in an institution in 1990 – have attempted to argue that Trump surrogates may have been liaising with the Russians because they either visited Russia or appeared on the RT network. Similar reporting about Russian scheming has been based entirely on unnamed security sources.
Now we have this sanctions story, which presents a new conundrum. It appears that a large segment of the press is biting hard on the core allegations of electoral interference emanating from the Obama administration.
Did the Russians do it? Very possibly, in which case it should be reported to the max. But the press right now is flying blind. Plowing ahead with credulous accounts is problematic because so many different feasible scenarios are in play.
On one end of the spectrum, America could have just been the victim of a virtual coup d'etat engineered by a combination of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, which would be among the most serious things to ever happen to our democracy.
But this could also just be a cynical ass-covering campaign, by a Democratic Party that has seemed keen to deflect attention from its own electoral failures.
The outgoing Democrats could just be using an over-interpreted intelligence "assessment" to delegitimize the incoming Trump administration and force Trump into an embarrassing political situation: Does he ease up on Russia and look like a patsy, or escalate even further with a nuclear-armed power?
It could also be something in between. Perhaps the FSB didn't commission the hack, but merely enabled it somehow. Or maybe the Russians did hack the DNC, but the WikiLeaks material actually came from someone else? There is even a It could also be something in between. Perhaps the FSB didn't commission the hack, but merely enabled it somehow. Or maybe the Russians did hack the DNC, but the WikiLeaks material actually came from someone else? There is even a published report to that effect, with a former British ambassador as a source, not that it's any more believable than anything else here.
We just don't know, which is the problem.
We ought to have learned from the Judith Miller episode. Not only do governments lie, they won't hesitate to burn news agencies. In a desperate moment, they'll use any sucker they can find to get a point across.
I have no problem believing that Vladimir Putin tried to influence the American election. He's gangster-spook-scum of the lowest order and capable of anything. And Donald Trump, too, was I have no problem believing that Vladimir Putin tried to influence the American election. He's gangster-spook-scum of the lowest order and capable of anything. And Donald Trump, too, was swine enough during the campaign to publicly hope the Russians would disclose Hillary Clinton's emails. So a lot of this is very believable.
But we've been burned before in stories like this, to disastrous effect. Which makes it surprising we're not trying harder to avoid getting fooled again.A follower of radical preacher Anjem Choudary is likely to have used his wife’s housing benefits to fund a journey to Syria to join Islamic State terrorists.
Shahan Choudhury, a former suspect in a teenage gang murder who was ‘radicalised’ in prison, disappeared from his London flat at the end of 2015. In 2016, his wife, Mehak, and their three young children, including a baby, joined him.
Mehak had received monthly housing benefit payments of about £1,000 that she had failed to pass on in rent the month she left for the Middle East, The Sunday Times reports.
Shahan Choudhury, of Tower Hamlets, east London, is just one of at least a dozen acolytes of Anjem Choudary to have joined Islamic State, with a further three being placed under antiterrorism controls.
The hate preacher was jailed last year for recruiting for the terror group, after twenty years of freely preaching radical Islam in the UK. There are fears, however, that he is now influencing inmates.
In 2005, when he was 18-years-old, Shahan Choudhury was charged with the murder of Karl Hamilton, a 17-year-old hospital worker, allegedly over a £15 drug debt.
He was acquitted in 2007, after spending 18 months awaiting trial on remand at Belmarsh maximum-security prison in south-east London, where his family say he was “brain washed”.
“He was just like any other western kid when he went in but by the time he came out he was going on about religion and how the kuffar [non-believers] would all end up in the hellfire,” a relative said.
Soon after leaving prison Shana had fallen in with Anjem Choudary and his notorious, marauding group of radicals of the now banned terror group al-Muhajiroun.
Court documents relating to a separate case last summer cite police evidence stating that Choudhury “was believed to be a member of [al-Muhajiroun] and had joined [Islamic State] in Syria”.
His wife’s most recent tweets order Britons to travel to the Islamic State “caliphate” in Syria and Iraq “or wage jihad by himself w[ith] resources available to him”.
Posting under the name Umm Umaarah, she also quotes Isis’s former external attacks chief: “Migrate or fight where u stand.”Streaming services made a strong showing when the nominations for the 73rd Golden Globe Awards were announced this morning. Netflix dominated the TV category with a total of eight nominations, closely followed by HBO – which now competes with an over-the-top service of its own. HBO and Starz earned seven nods, while Amazon and FX received five each.
Meanwhile, traditional TV broadcasters like ABC, FOX and PBS earned four nominations each, but CBS only clocked in with one. Hulu also only received a single nomination, though it has not invested as heavily in original content as its competitors, relying more on gaining streaming rights to networks’ current shows, as well as their archives.
Still, even with just one nomination, Hulu bested NBC, which was not nominated at all this year.
Popular streaming shows that earned nods included last year’s winner, Amazon’s “Transparent” (3 nominations), as well as Amazon’s “Mozart in the Jungle” (2), Netflix’s “Orange is the New Black” (2), Netflix’s “Narcos” (2), Netflix’s “House of Cards” (1), Netflix’s “Master of None (1),” Netflix’s “Bloodline” (1), Netflix’s “Grace and Frankie” (1) and Hulu’s “Casual” (1).
HBO, which is now both a premium cable TV network and streaming service, earned nominations for “Veep” (2) and “Silicon Valley” (1), among others. However, the more remarkable news related to the network is that this is the first time in 10 years that it has not received the most nominations. And the network that upset that streak is Netflix.
Netflix before had never led a Golden Globes or Emmy nomination tally, EW noted, referencing this significant upset, adding that the service’s rise was signaled earlier this week when it also topped HBO among SAG nominations.
Overall, what the list of award nominations shows is that streaming services’ content no longer just rivals that of TV broadcasters; it’s actually besting them in terms of quality of programming.
Netflix also scored one additional nod as a film distributor – a category it only recently began investing in. The film that earned the nomination was Netflix’s “Beasts of No Nation,” its first original film that tells the story of a child soldier, based on a book by Nigerian author Uzodinma Iweala. The network this fall released the film in a small group of theaters on the same day it appeared on Netflix, which allowed it to qualify for industry awards.
NBC will air the awards show on January 10.Tencent's plan for the event was to invite hardcore players, journalists and special guests to a heavily-themed venue to celebrate the launch of the game.
The venue for the event was this church. It was quite surprising to encounter such a large church right in the middle of Shanghai.
This was the inside of the venue before the chairs were set up. There were large screens on the floor as well as the back wall. The rest of the venue had Path of Exile/New Zealand-themed trimmings, like chalices of Kiwifruit juice, the stained glass windows from Act 5, etc.
This is the venue once full of players, journalists and guests, waiting for the event to begin. The event was recorded, so we'll make a video available as soon as it has been published. It's likely to be a few hours long and mostly in Chinese, though!
After the event, we took some photos. This one is of special guests and the journalists who were present. In the front row we have Sir Richard Taylor (founder and CEO of Weta Workshop), me, David Brevik (founder of Blizzard North, creator of Diablo) and Livy Liu (Tencent's project manager for Path of Exile).
After photos, I signed hundreds of posters, shirts and even some custom-made Ventor's Gamble rings and a tiny Mjolner!
Tencent also put together a video for their launch event, which provides an overview of the story for Chinese players. We look forward to remixes :)
All of the attendees had a great time at the event, and the players and journalists left with great excitement for the launch. We haven't really spoken about it much in our Western news, but the Chinese launch is going to be a big thing for Path of Exile worldwide. In combination with the 3.0.0 launch a couple of weeks ago and the Xbox One launch on Thursday (US time), it's certainly a big month for Path of Exile launches.
(By the way, tomorrow's news post includes information about some more upcoming changes to the Harbinger league. Thanks for your ongoing feedback, I kept a close eye on it and spoke to the NZ team often about it while in China.) For two years, we have been working with Tencent to bring Path of Exile to China. After many months of Beta testing, we are proud to announce that it has entered Open Beta today. Their release includes all of the 3.0.0 content and some specific changes for the Chinese region. I attended a launch event in Shanghai over the weekend and have brought back some photos and video for you!Tencent's plan for the event was to invite hardcore players, journalists and special guests to a heavily-themed venue to celebrate the launch of the game.The venue for the event was this church. It was quite surprising to encounter such a large church right in the middle of Shanghai.This was the inside of the venue before the chairs were set up. There were large screens on the floor as well as the back wall. The rest of the venue had Path of Exile/New Zealand-themed trimmings, like chalices of Kiwifruit juice, the stained glass windows from Act 5, etc.This is the venue once full of players, journalists and guests, waiting for the event to begin. The event was recorded, so we'll make a video available as soon as it has been published. It's likely to be a few hours long and mostly in Chinese, though!After the event, we took some photos. This one is of special guests and the journalists who were present. In the front row we have Sir Richard Taylor (founder and CEO of Weta Workshop), me, David Brevik (founder of Blizzard North, creator of Diablo) and Livy Liu (Tencent's project manager for Path of Exile).After photos, I signed hundreds of posters, shirts and even some custom-made Ventor's Gamble rings and a tiny Mjolner!Tencent also put together a video for their launch event, which provides an overview of the story for Chinese players. We look forward to remixes :)All of the attendees had a great time at the event, and the players and journalists left with great excitement for the launch. We haven't really spoken about it much in our Western news, but the Chinese launch is going to be a big thing for Path of Exile worldwide. In combination with the 3.0.0 launch a couple of weeks ago and the Xbox One launch on Thursday (US time), it's certainly a big month for Path of Exile launches.(By the way, tomorrow's news post includes information about some more upcoming changes to the Harbinger league. Thanks for your ongoing feedback, I kept a close eye on it and spoke to the NZ team often about it while in China.)Cato Nnamdi June (born November 18, 1979) is a former American football linebacker and high-school football coach. He was selected by the Indianapolis Colts of the National Football League (NFL) in the sixth round of the 2003 NFL Draft. A 2006 Pro Bowl choice, June was a member of the Super Bowl XLI champion Colts that defeated the Chicago Bears. During the Super Bowl championship season, June was the Colts' leading tackler. In addition to his tenure with the Colts, he played in the NFL for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Before becoming a professional, he played college football at Michigan and was an outstanding athlete in high school football, basketball, track and field and baseball at Anacostia High School in Washington, D.C. As a senior, he was widely regarded to be the best high school football player in the District of Columbia.
He led Anacostia to the District of Columbia Interscholastic Athletic Association (DCIAA) football championship title as a sophomore and in two subsequent championship games. He was city champion in the triple jump as a junior. As a senior, he earned all-league recognition in basketball and earned numerous honors in football, including District of Columbia Player of the year awards from Gatorade, USA Today and The Washington Post as well as a Parade All-American. He was also co-class president, salutatorian and a member of the National Honor Society.
He was widely recruited for his all-around abilities as an athlete, scholar and leader. He attracted dozens of scholarship offers but chose the University of Michigan. He was a member of the defending national champions' recruiting class, which was considered to be the best in the country. He became a starter towards the end of his redshirt freshman year, but missed the entire next season due to injury. He returned as a fourth-year junior starter. He continued starting as a safety until an injury slowed him down late in his fifth-year senior season. Despite senior season injuries, he was named as an honorable mention All-Big Ten Conference player and was chosen to play in the Senior Bowl.
June spent a year on special teams before becoming a starter during the 2004 NFL season. During the 2005 NFL season, he began the year with a record-setting rate of interceptions for a linebacker to help his team start out 13–0 and head to the 2005–06 NFL playoffs. He was a Pro Bowler that year and finished seventh in the NFL in tackles the next as the Colts won Super Bowl XLI. After four seasons with the Colts, he signed with the Buccaneers where he became the first person to displace 11-time Pro Bowler Derrick Brooks from the lineup. After two seasons with the Buccaneers, he signed with the Houston Texans but broke his forearm during 2009 training camp and was released before the regular season. He signed with the Bears in the middle of the season only to be released after 2 weeks. Since retiring from the NFL, he has become a football coach at his high school alma mater.
Early years [ edit ]
June was raised in the Great Plains of Oklahoma.[1] As a high school freshman, June attended Muskogee High School in Muskogee, Oklahoma, where he was a veritable "Okie from Muskogee". According to a Washington Post article, he envisioned himself eventually playing football for either Oklahoma or Oklahoma State.[2] His high school football team had a large following with regular attendance of 8,000.[2] When June was a sophomore, he and Marjani Dele, his mother, moved to the northwest section of Washington, D.C. in 1995.[2] Following the move, she enrolled him in a summer college prep program, where he met Troy Stewart, son of Anacostia head coach Willie Stewart. Troy, an assistant coach at Anacostia, and his father recruited June to Anacostia High School.[1][3] That season, he played cornerback, wide receiver, and kickoff returner.[3] On Thanksgiving Day, Anacostia won the DCIAA championship game, known as the Turkey Bowl, by a 40–31 score over Dunbar High School. In the game, June intercepted a pass late in the first half and returned it 92 yards for a touchdown to enable his team to take an 8–7 lead.[4] That season, he earned a selection to The Washington Post's 1995 All-Met Football team as a defensive back.[5] The following spring, he played shortstop and pitcher for the school baseball team.[6]
Prior to winning the city championship, Anacostia had played football on a barren field that was described by The Washington Post as "rugged prairie known by players across the city as the 'dust bowl'". In 1996, Mayor of Washington, D.C., Marion Barry, helped the team acquire new topsoil and 500 rolls of Brute Bermuda sod worth about $60,000 ($95,850 today).[1] As a junior, June, who wore #1,[1] rushed for 90 yards and scored two touchdowns in the DCIAA semi-final game.[7] In the championship game, June fumbled on the 1-yard line in the fourth quarter, leaving the door open for Cardozo Senior High School to score a touchdown in the waning seconds to secure a victory.[2] During his junior year, he was part of the basketball team that successfully defended the Washington D.C. city high school basketball championship.[8]
As a senior, he was a preseason USA Today honorable mention All-American and preseason SuperPrep All-American as a 6-foot-1-inch (1.85 m), 190-pound (86 kg) defensive back.[9][10] During the season, the football team would deal with the adversity of a D.C. school crisis, the slaying of a player and the death of an assistant coach.[11] That season, he switched from defensive back to linebacker at times.[12] By mid-season, he was being mentioned across the country as the nation's best player.[13] As a senior, he rushed for 121 yards and scored two touchdowns in the DCIAA semi-final game.[14] Prior to the championship game, no one had caught a touchdown against him and he had not fumbled the football.[2] During the championship game, June scored the touchdown that gave Anacost |
even when review copies will go out to game reviewers.
Still, some must be out in the wild. Edge Magazine, which is still printed on dead trees, has a full review already penned, and a snapshot of that review has leaked online revealing the score, a perfect 10.
On the one hand, this is good news for gamers and for Nintendo. We all want this Mario game to be great, especially since it's the most important Nintendo Switch release of the holiday season and the first 3D Mario game in years.
On the other hand, it's always a little bit odd when one publication has its review out so far in advance of every other. It cheapens the perfect score because we can't help but wonder if it's all above board, or if secret deals were struck behind the scenes.
The value of reviews, at least to some degree, lies in their consensus. Outliers are fine, and independent voices can and should rise above mere aggregation. But if there's only one review to choose from, it's almost as useless as having no reviews at all.
So my suggestion would be to take this with a massive, heaping hat full of salt. I have confidence that Super Mario Odyssey will be a good game (I've enjoyed what little I've played) but I wouldn't place much value on this sort of lone review. There's a reason universal embargoes exist, and a reason we feel a little suspicious whenever one publication gets such a hefty jump on all the rest. Thankfully, many other reviews will almost certainly be out before the game launches and savvy consumers can read up ahead of making a purchase.
Super Mario Odyssey launches on October 27th on the Nintendo Switch.
Update.
It seems I've made many people angry enough to go on Twitter and say mean things about me. While I find the piling on as ridiculous as ever, I figure I should clarify this short and not nearly as controversial as the internet wants it to be post.
People have pointed out that Edge got the review copy early because they're a print magazine and it wouldn't come out until after release, but as far as I can tell the issue came out yesterday. Indeed, if you look up the current cover of the issue, you'll see that it shows a picture of Mario in a white suit with the words Super Mario Odyssey Review at the top. It released on October 12th, 2017, fully fifteen days before the game's launch and certainly sooner than any other review (12/10/2017 in UK format means Oct 12th). So much for that reasoning, then.
And I do realize that print-only magazines may require different time frames in order to get a review out before the launch of a game.
My point is not that Edge is doing anything unethical here. I have no idea. My point is that when one review score is the only one to go off of, or when one publication gets an earlier go at a game than others, you should take it with a grain of salt. You should also take reviews that emerge from a "review event" hosted by the game publisher with a grain of salt.
I realize this is just an opportunity for people to get really Outraged at me and read into what I've written in the most nefarious way possible and I get that. If I've learned one thing while writing about video games it's that everyone involved, from the journalists to the YouTubers to the gamers themselves really love getting massively outraged over small things. If that makes you sleep better at night, I can't fault you.
For my part, I think it's in the consumer's best interest to always be skeptical. I'm sure Super Mario Odyssey will be wonderful...but we can't really say for sure until more reviews have landed. If saying that makes me History's Greatest Monster, so be it.Since forming in '06, they have gone past playing street lives
And have rapidly grown into a band that can now fill up Nippon Budokan or Osaka-Jo Hall.
SCANDAL will be celebrating their tenth anniversary this year.
Following their world tour last year and their arena tour,
They will immediately be releasing their new album 『YELLOW』 this year
As well as holding a nationwide & Asia live house tour!
We asked about their new state of mind as they welcome the milestone of their tenth anniversary.
Since forming in '06, they have gone past playing street livesAnd have rapidly grown into a band that can now fill up Nippon Budokan or Osaka-Jo Hall.SCANDAL will be celebrating their tenth anniversary this year.Following their world tour last year and their arena tour,They will immediately be releasing their new album 『YELLOW』 this yearAs well as holding a nationwide & Asia live house tour!We asked about their new state of mind as they welcome the milestone of their tenth anniversary.
HARUNA: We didn't think we would, but we also didn't think that we wouldn't. We didn't pick up instruments out of our own will, but from the recommendation of our dance school teacher; at first we left everything up to others.
RINA: We started our activities while still having those kinds of light feelings. But, deciding on our CD debut, moving to Tokyo, and me transfering high schools at the time--our self-awareness would sprout every time we would get going. An audience of zero at our street lives on Shiroten Street turned into an audience of ten, and being able to have a visible goal of 「Let's do it for those who listen to us too!」 was a huge thing.
RINA: Maybe so. Thanks to dancing, a habit of feeling the backing of a rhythm has been ingrained in my body.
TOMOMI: I casually selected the bass because it has two less strings than the guitar and thought it'd be easier (laughs), but I learned afterwards that it's actually an instrument with great responsibility. It'd make me happy if you'd listen to the sounds of our rhythm section in that way.
MAMI: I think HARUNA and I can play freely because of our rhythm section pair. I grin when I feel their groove during lives.
HARUNA: That's right. They're reliable.
TOMOMI: But, the drum count isn't 1! 2! 3! 4!; it's 5! 6! 7! 8! (laughs).
RINA: That's right (laughs). We do it because our teacher's rhythm counting (while clapping to the time) when we'd have dance lessons was "5! 6! 7! 8!". Since the other members have gotten used to it, no one has questioned it. I first became aware of it when we were playing together with another band, and they said, 「Huh, you start from 5?」
TOMOMI: Because it was the first dream the four of us had together. The fans, staff, and dance school friends who supported us until then were all delighted.
HARUNA: As we had almost no audience on Shiroten Street right in front of Osaka-Jo Hall, we played while thinking that we'd stand on that stage one day.
MAMI: When we accomplished our dream of playing at Osaka-Jo Hall, which we had always talked about, I thought about how glad I was that we got here without giving up. We got fired up again; it felt like we were relacing up our shoelaces.
RINA: We played at Nippon Budokan before that. Since all of us are from the west, we'd immediately think of Osaka-Jo Hall if someone asked us about a large venue, and we'd forget that there's also Nippon Budokan (laughs). But, when we stood on stage, I first realized the greatness of Budokan, and thought of how it's a place that everyone wants to play in at least once if you're in a band.
RINA: There isn't anything for venues with significance. We'd like to play in domes, but that's not our next dream. We want to be a band that wants to play anywhere, and a band that can play anywhere.
HARUNA: That's right. It's because, even in arenas, we think about wanting to be like we're playing in a live house.
TOMOMI: We made our outfits simple.
MAMI: Personally, live houses are my favorite place. Extravagant bands can play in arenas, halls, and live houses. We tailor our set lists to match each venue, and it'd be great if we can make the content match live houses for this tour.
RINA: We hope to play simple lives where we can deliver our album songs directly to the audience.
TOMOMI: On this album, we put together songs that you can take anywhere. We think that playing at live houses makes the songs sound different than at arenas, so look forward to them.
HARUNA: We're very happy that we were able to make this album with the four of us, since it's an album that took a year to make. This year, our tenth year, completing what we felt on our world tour last year is a very big thing. Having a world tour mentally supported us, and we were able to take on music with a very bright attitude. It's an album where those kinds of poppy, bright parts come out.
HARUNA: We feel like, "Let's do it!" Right now we're constantly making songs daily; our music will continue with these same members.
TOMOMI: We're getting older and our music, sound, and looks have changed. By our 20th anniversary, we'll complete songs packed with how we are then.
RINA: It's said that girl bands have short lives; according to Guiness World Records, the longest one has gone without the members leaving or going on hiatus is 17 years. Since their lives are short compared to guy bands, we want to show that a girl band can get to that point too. We'll definitely hit our 20th anniversary. Before that, we first have to make it 7 more years (laughs).
MAMI: We hope to certainly climb up the stairs one by one as we've always done. We're a type that skips grades.
――It's the tenth anniversary of forming the band in '06. Back then, did you think you would make it this far?――For years I've thought that the drums & bass rhythm section's groove is great. Is it because of the sense of rhythm was drilled into you with dancing?――You've been doing activities for ten years; the biggest thing that has happened has to be your first Osaka-Jo Hall live held in 2013, isn't it?――Can you tell us the next dream you thought of after fulfilling your goal of playing at Osaka-Jo Hall?――This ties in to the present. Following last year's arena tour, you'll be holding a live house tour this year in support of your new album 『YELLOW』. I saw your Budokan lives in January; rather than using the width of the stage, the four of you gathered right near the center. You performed while standing close to one another.――You didn't know whether or not you'd have a tenth anniversary when you formed, but now it seems like you're confident you'll definitely have a twentieth anniversary."Some of you tell me, Modiji you don''t meet us now. Earlier we used to meet you, used to just knock at the door and enter. That was a different atmosphere of happiness. We used to talk a lot but today it has become difficult.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said there were "practical problems" due to which he was not able to meet the media often.
"There are hopes from the both sides. There are complaints from the both sides. But I think it is our professional hazard. We have to find a middle path to move forward, smilingly," he told mediapersons at the BJP's Diwali Milan event here
"I recall how I used to spend much of my time with you... Most of you are from the same generation. Getting nostalgic is natural. There were no barriers, no difficulties then. Those were the days when we used to search for you and my speech would some time find some space (in the media)."
He said the media unlike previously has expanded so much now that it was difficult to meet all journalists.
"Some of you tell me, Modiji you don't meet us now. Earlier we used to meet you, used to just knock at the door and enter. That was a different atmosphere of happiness. We used to talk a lot but today it has become difficult.
"There were only a few in your fraternity. And the circle has become so big and media itself has so evolved in so many ways... It has posed us a challenge in maintaining contact and maintain openness. There is no problem with intentions, the problem is practical," Modi said,
He said understanding each other further strengthens the relationship and mutual belief.
"My experience says that everyone performs duties formally. But informally every one has something to contribute to the nation. They (journalists) tell us about bottlenecks... tell us where we need to improve. You guys travel a lot," he said.
Modi said he could also identify some media who criticise for the sake of criticism.\The European Union is considering steep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. The EU only accounts for a fraction of total global emissions, but its actions could nevertheless have a big impact on future warming.
Last week, the European Council met to discuss a proposal to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 40 per cent, relative to 1990 levels, by 2030. A new study suggests such a strong signal from Europe could help avoid dangerous climate change – if other countries follow suit.
The European Union is on track to meet its existing target, a 20 per cent emissions cut by 2020. The final decision on the 40 per cent target will not be made until October. But for now the person in charge – the EU’s commissioner for climate action, Connie Hedegaard – is maintaining a determinedly positive face.
“Today EU leaders showed that the way to greater energy independence goes through ambitious climate policies,” Hedegaard said on Friday. “Europe is now moving forward towards agreeing on the whole package by October.”
Advertisement
In addition to the 40 per cent emissions goal, the EU’s climate change plan also states that 27 per cent of the electricity powering Europe will come from renewables by 2030. This package of targets, proposed in January, is one of the most ambitious put forward by any government.
Strong signal
Environmental NGOs like Greenpeace point out that the EU targets are still shy of what is needed around the world to limit global warming to 2 °C – the politically determined “danger threshold”. However, a study published last week suggests that a strong signal from the EU could go a long way on the world stage if it convinces others to follow suit.
Elmar Kriegler of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany and his colleagues used computer models to look at how world temperatures could change if the EU adopts the 2030 targets.
Their model suggests that EU action on its own will not make much of a dent in global warming. But if other nations followed the EU’s example a little later – between 2030 and 2050 – global temperatures could stabilise at 2 °C of warming after 2100, having first overshot by between 0.2 °C and 0.4 °C (Technological Forecasting and Social Change, doi.org/r3g).
“It’s all about signalling,” says Kriegler. Action by the EU could convince others that stringent emissions cuts are financially viable, making them more likely to cut their own emissions. A lot rests on investors having confidence that the political system is moving towards a low-carbon world, he adds.
Big year
Certainly, the United Nations is lining everything up to send the right signals in 2014. Christiana Figueres, who heads up the UN climate talks, has been holding meetings with business leaders. At the same time, climate negotiators are meeting periodically throughout the year to discuss what needs to go into a global agreement on climate change.
Meanwhile, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will release its latest mega-report in stages between now and October. The next chapter is due out on 31 March.
Things will reach fever pitch in the in the second half of this year. In September, the UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon will host a one-day climate summit in New York City, gathering heads of state and business. “He is calling a high-level meeting in which all heads of state of the world will be coming under one roof during one day to talk about one thing and that’s climate,” Figueres told a press briefing this month.
In October climate negotiators will meet again, the EU will make its decision on the 2030 targets, and the final chapter of the IPCC report will be released.
Then in December this year, the annual UN Climate Change Conference will take place in Lima, Peru. That is where Figueres is hoping governments will deliver a draft global agreement, which can be thrashed out over 12 months before being signed at 2015’s climate conference in Paris. Cross your fingers now.A Corner Brook, N.L., woman whose sealskin purse was confiscated by U.S. Customs and Border Protection says she'll think twice before accessorizing again on her way south.
Nora Fitzgerald recently visited a friend in New Brunswick, and they decided to drive across the border from Florenceville at Bridgewater, Maine, to do some shopping.
Fitzgerald brought her sealskin purse on the trip — a gift from her mother. It had been purchased at a craft market on West Street in Corner Brook last year.
"I was really excited to take the purse with me," Fitzgerald told CBC News.
"On my way up, at the airport, I got compliments on it and thought, 'Great, it'll be something different. It's handmade,'" she said.
Compliments
While crossing the border into the U.S., Fitzgerald said the purse caught the eye of a border agent. The woman asked Fitzgerald if the bag was made of real fur.
"And I said, 'Yes, it's sealskin … I get compliments on it wherever I go.'
"[The agent] said, 'Can you guys park your car over to the side …. And take your purse with you." And I thought, 'That was kind of odd,'" she said.
I didn't know that [seal] was on the endangered species list. - Nora Fitzgerald
Fitzgerald was then asked to show her passport and fill out some forms.
Forty-five minutes later — after another agent placed a call to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service — Fitzgerald was asked to hand over her bag.
"He told me that the seal was on the endangered species list and it was going to be seized."
Request denied
Fitzgerald asked if she could speak to a wildlife official, but her request was denied.
"I said, 'Well, take my cell phone number. Can we get in contact with them?' They wouldn't give us any contact information."
Fitzgerald said the border agents seemed to sympathize with her situation, but stood firm. Her purse was confiscated.
"He gave me the analogy of, say you were caught with Cuban cigars — and I understood all that," said Fitzgerald.
"And they were really, really nice and almost apologetic … but I didn't know that it was on the endangered species list in the United States. I did not know that."
And according to Fitzgerald, she's not alone.
Nora Fitzgerald took to Facebook to warn other sealskin consumers. (Submitted by Nora Fitzgerald)
After posting about her ordeal on Facebook, Fitzgerald said she was blown away by the number of sealskin-wearing friends who similarly had no idea the product was banned in the United States.
"It's funny, because I came off work the other morning and three of my co-workers had sealskin boots on," said Fitzgerald.
And if she had been wearing boots at the border?
"They would have taken my boots and I would have been wearing plastic bags on my feet, because they gave me a nice plastic bag in place of my purse," said Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald said she thinks manufacturers need to do more to warn consumers that, in some countries, seal products are prohibited.
While the experience will influence the way Fitzgerald packs for future trips, she said it hasn't changed her view of the seal hunt.
'Not anti-fur'
"I'm a fur lover. I have other furs. I see nothing wrong with buying furs. I'm not anti-fur."
Still, Fitzgerald doesn't see herself making any sealskin purchases in the future.
"What's the point if you can't travel somewhere else?
"I know there's people that live in Ontario — I used to live there, I crossed the border all the time," she said.
"What would be the point if you can't go back and forth with an article of clothing or an accessory? I just don't see the point of it."
The U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) prohibits the taking of marine mammals, and puts a moratorium on the import, export and sale of any marine mammal — along with any marine mammal part or product within the United States.
Other examples of products that are not allowed to be taken into the country are wild cat fur, polar bear fur, certain types of wool and most wild bird feathers.How to insert, remove and care for a patient with a Foley catheter
Policies/Procedures:
1. Identify the patient using the required two patient identifiers.
2. Verify that the patient is not allergic to latex, iodine or betadine. If the patient is sensitive or allergic to latex, replace the catheter in the kit with a silicone catheter. If the patient is allergic to iodine or betadine, use an alternate cleanser such as Hibiclens.
3. Gather equipment: Foley catheter kit (use non-latex for patients with latex allergies). Use the smallest size catheter that is appropriate.
4. Explain the procedure to the patient and wash your hands or perform hand hygiene. Maintain the patient’s privacy and dignity.
5. Consider washing the patient’s genital area before the procedure if visibly soiled. Don non-sterile gloves, wash patient’s genital area thoroughly with foam body cleanser (4:1 body cleanser) or Ready cleanse™ wipes Remove gloves and wash hands/hand hygiene.
6. General Insertion Procedures
a. Visually inspect the product for any imperfections or surface deterioration prior to use. If any damage is noted or the package has been opened, do not use.
b. Don protective eye wear
c. Using aseptic technique, open the outer plastic wrap to form a sterile field and place the underpad beneath the patient, plastic side down.
d. Position the sterile fenestrated drape around the patient’s genitalia.
e. Apply sterile gloves and use strict sterile technique for the foley insertion procedure.
f. Before insertion, dispense the lubricating gel into the kit tray, pour cleansing solution over three cotton balls, remove the plastic sleeve from the catheter and lock the sterile water syringe into the port. DO NOT PRE-INFLATE THE BALLOON PRIOR TO INSERTION.
g. Using the dominant, sterile hand to handle the catheter, cover the tip of the catheter with lubricant. Insert the foley through the urethra into the bladder.
h. Instruct the patient to inform the nurse if any discomfort is felt with inflation of the balloon. If discomfort is felt, the catheter is most probably in the urethra and will need to be deflated and advanced. Inflate the balloon slowly, using the entire 10 cc of sterile water. Withdraw the catheter slowly to the point of resistance at the bladder neck.
7. Female Insertion Procedure
a. Position female patient into a frog-leg pose.
b. Separate the labia using the non-dominant hand and visualize the meatus. Grasp one cotton ball with the forceps, wipe one side of the labia from top to bottom and discard the cotton ball away from the sterile field. Repeat on the opposite side and then wipe down the middle using the third cotton ball. Then wipe the area with the dry cotton balls.
c. Insert the catheter approximately three inches, wait to see if urine flows, then advance another inch before inflating balloon.
d. For unconscious female patient’s or those with decreased sensation (i.e. paralyzed), insert the catheter slightly further than three inches, to make certain the catheter is in the bladder.
8. Male Insertion Procedures
a. Position male patients into a supine pose.
b. Retract the foreskin, if present, and hold the shaft of the penis with the non-dominant hand. Grasp one solution-soaked cotton ball with the forceps. Using a circular motion, wipe the glans from the meatus outward. Discard the cotton ball away from the sterile field. Repeat with two more cotton balls. Then wipe the area dry with the dry cotton balls.
c. Grasp the penis in an upright position and insert the lubricated catheter firmly into the meatus, advancing the catheter to the bifurcation at the ‘Y’ of the catheter. A slight lean toward the umbilicus may be necessary if resistance in advancing the catheter is met at the prostate.
d. The return of urine does not assure that the catheter is placed correctly in males, since there is residual urine in the penis. Inserting the catheter to the bifurcation of the Y is the standard for assurance of proper placement.
e. If the foreskin was retracted, reposition it after placement.
f. If catheter placement is in question (i.e. no urine return or unable to fully insert the catheter) do not inflate the balloon and contact the physician.
g. If resistance is met do not attempt forceful catheter insertion; apply continuous gentle pressure and ask the patient to take slow deep breaths to help relax or instruct the patient to try to void to open the sphincter and allow the catheter to pass
9. Complete the procedure
a. Secure the catheter to the patient’s thigh with hospital approved catheter securement device (ie: Stat Lock) to prevent movement, irritation, and decrease risk of infection. To improve urine flow, some men may need to have the catheter secured slightly upward. For males with long-term catheters, the catheter should be taped to the abdomen to prevent damage to the inferior urethra.
b. Position the bag to avoid urine reflux into the bladder, kinking, or gross contamination of the bag. For inpatient setting, position the bag hanger on the bed rail near the foot of the bed using the clip to secure the drainage tube to the sheet. Keep the bag below the level of the bladder at all times to prevent the backflow of urine and decrease the risk for infection. Never leave the catheter hanging to be pulled by the weight of the bag Do not leave the bag laying on the floor unless necessary due to patient positioning (i.e. trendelenburg position in the Operating Room).
c. Periodic observations of the system should be made to ensure that urine is flowing freely. If a standing column of urine is observed, check for correct positioning of the bag and then for a physical obstruction, such as a kink in the tubing.
d. If correct positioning of the bag or removal of physical obstruction does not allow free flow, the bag may have to be changed.
10. Directions for removal
a. Deflate the catheter balloon by negative pressure. Exercise the plunger of a leurtipped 10 ml syringe by moving up and down within the syringe barrel. Pull back 0.5 ml air in the syringe to prevent adherence of the plunger to the end of the syringe barrel, then insert the syringe into the balloon port. (This allows for automatic flow of instilled liquid and balloon deflation via negative pressure in the syringe.) Never use more force than is required to make the syringe “stick” in the valve. Use gentle aspiration, only if needed, to encourage deflation.
b. Allow the pressure within the balloon to push the plunger back and fill the syringe with water.
c. NEVER FORCE THE WATER INTO THE SYRINGE. Vigorous aspiration may collapse the inflation lumen, preventing balloon deflation. Allow 30 seconds for the balloon to deflate.
d. If there is slow or no deflation, re-seat the syringe gently.
e. If the retention balloon still does not deflate, reposition the patient to ensure catheter is not in traction or compressed within the bladder.
f. If this fails, contact the charge RN and the physician.
g. Consider a bedside commode if the patient is not fully ambulatory.
11. Directions for bladder scanning:
a. If the patient does not void within 4-6 hours of removing the foley catheter, a bedside bladder scan ultrasound should be obtained.
b. If the bladder volume is less than 500mL, encourage the patient to void by using techniques to stimulate bladder reflex (cold water to abdomen, stroke inner thigh, run water, flush toilet). Continue to assess the patient and repeat the bladder scan in 2 hours if the patient has not voided.
c. If the bladder volume is greater than 500mL, catheterize for residual urine volume rather than place an indwelling foley catheter.
12. Patient care and considerations
a. Always use sterile technique when inserting a foley catheter.
b. Document the following:
1. procedure, including the size of the catheter placed, the color, amount, and clarity of urine returned after the initial placement, and patient response.
2. Catheter removal
3. Use of the bladder scanner, amount of residual volume, need for intermittent catheterization.
c. Record urine output as ordered.
d. Assess the patient for pain during and after procedure. Provide pain relief measures as indicated and document response.
13. Infection control considerations
a. Wash hands or perform hand hygiene immediately before and after any manipulation of the catheter site or drainage bag.
b. Clean the perineal area and catheter tubing proximal to distal, with foam body cleanser (4:1 body cleanser) or Ready cleanse™ wipes daily and after every bowel movement. The meatal area should not be aggressively cleansed or cleansed with antiseptic solutions as this can lead to meatal aggravation and increase the likelihood of infection.
c. If a foley catheter has been in place for 3 days or longer, the nurse should provide daily reminders to the physician recommending the removal of the foley catheter (unless the foley catheter is still indicated). Indications for continued foley usage include: unresolved urinary retention, urinary tract obstruction, critically ill patients, acute renal insufficiency fluid challenge, comfort care of the terminally ill, to promote healing on an area of skin breakdown, to provide medications directly to the bladder, and for the management of neurogenic bladder.
d. Provide patient and family education regarding the benefits of removing the foley. Encourage use of the bedside commode or bathroom within 4-6 hours after the foley is removed.
e. To obtain a urine specimen, clean the sample port with alcohol and aspirate urine using a blunt needle (or leur lock syringe) and a 10 cc syringe.
f. A sterile, continuously closed drainage system should be maintained. If the catheter must be disconnected from the tubing, disinfect the catheter-tubing junction before separating.
g. Empty the foley bag every 8 hours, or when the drainage bag is 2/3 full, to avoid traction on the catheter from the weight of the drainage bag and prevent infection. Take care not to contaminate the drainage port by touching the collection container or floor when emptying.
h. When transporting patient, maintain position of drainage bag below the level of the patient’s bladder, to prevent reflux of contaminated urine from the bag to the bladder. Transport personal should be instructed to wash their hands prior to transporting a patient with a foley catheter. The catheter bag should be empty prior to transport to prevent reflux.
i. If possible do not place more than one patient with a urinary catheter in the same room to prevent cross contamination.
j. If foley catheter is to remain indwelling for 30 days, obtain an order for foley catheter and bag change at 30 day intervals.
k. Do not irrigate a foley catheter unless indicated for post urology /genitourinary trauma, surgery, or in the ICU to relieve obstruction.
Instructions for Specialty Temperature Sensing Foley: If temperature sensing foleys are clinically indicated, they are to be utilized in the Operating Room, Emergency Department and Critical Care Units only. Temperature sensing foleys are NOT MRI compatible. If a patient is to receive an MRI scan, the temperature sensing foley catheters MUST be removed and a non temperature sensing foley is to replace it prior to leaving the clinical area for the MRI scan.
References:
http://www.ucdenver.edu/academics/colleges/medicalschool/departments/medicine/hcpr/cauti/documents/Sample%20Policy%20and%20Procedures.pdf
Disclaimer:
Please follow your facilities infection control guidelines. The medical information on this site is provided as an information resource only, and is not to be used or relied on for any diagnostic or treatment purposes. This information is not intended to be nursing education and should not be used as a substitute for professional diagnosis and treatment.
RelatedAs in Libya, Syrian “opposition” is led by long-time servants of Western corporate-financiers.
His long history of serving and working in coordination with Western governments and corporations made him and his collaborators the ideal candidates to prepare Libya for its place within the Wall Street-London international order.
Now it is revealed that the US-handpicked opposition, announced in Doha, Qatar earlier this month, is led by a similarly compromised figure, Moaz al-Khatib. The corporate-financier-funded Carnegie Endowment for International Peace reported of al-Khatib that:
Moaz al-Khatib, an oil sector engineer and former imam of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, has garnered substantial praise since his designation, while Riad Seif and Suhair al-Atassi bring their own credibility to the coalition. They have now set up shop in Cairo and have received the full endorsement of France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Turkey, and the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council as the “sole representative” of the Syrian opposition. The European Union and the United States have endorsed the group in a more general fashion. Even more importantly, from Syrian citizens of various affiliations with whom I have met recently, it is clear that al-Khatib and his associates seem to draw praise for their opposition to the regime—as an imam, al-Khatib refused to follow the speeches imposed by the regime and was imprisoned—their resistance, and their tolerance. These endorsements are a first achievement, but a number of steps are necessary before Moaz al-Khatib becomes the real head of the Syrian opposition and enters into a substantive relationship with EU leaders.
However, this resounding praise should be kept in the context that among the Carnegie Endowment’s sponsors are in fact many “oil sector” giants including British Petroleum (BP), Chevron, Exxon, and Shell.
VoltarieNet’s Thierry Meyssan reported in an article titled, “The many faces of Sheikh Ahmad Moaz Al-Khatib” that:
Completely unknown to the international public only a week ago, Sheikh Moaz al-Khatib has been catapulted to the presidency of the Syrian National Coalition, which represents pro-Western opposition in the Damascus government. Portrayed by an intense public relations campaign as a highly moral personality with no partisan or economic attachments, he is in truth a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and an executive of the Shell oil company.
Indeed, al-Khatib had worked at the al-Furat Petroleum Company for six years, according to the BBC, which is partnered with Shell Oil. Al-Khatib is also said to have lobbied for Shell in Syria between 2003-2004, and has likewise taught classes in both Europe and the United States, this according to his biography featured on his own website.
Video: The smirking crypto-sectarian extremist, and new Western proxy of the recently re-contrived “Syrian National Council,” Moaz al-Khatib admits that he’s been promised legitimacy and weapons despite openly declaring his intention of overthrowing the secular nation-state of Syria, and installing an “Islamic state.” Qatari state propaganda walks al-Khatib through the all-too-familiar talking points repeated by the US, UK, EU, Turkey and their Persian Gulf collaborators. Qatar’s minister of state for foreign affairs sells the “legal” argument for circumventing the United Nations Security Council.
….
While the global public is repeatedly told that the violence in Syria is the result of “pro-democratic” forces fighting against the “brutal regime” of President Bashar al-Assad, it is Moaz al-Khatib himself who inexplicably states that two certified autocracies, those of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, are propping him up and that it is an “Islamic state” he hopes to create upon the rubble of a destroyed Syria.
Qatari state media front, Al Jazeera, credits the Qatari minister of state for foreign affairs for the very creation of al-Khatib’s new “opposition coalition. Al-Khatib, in an Al Jazeera interview, counts the two absolute monarchies of Qatar and Saudi Arabia as his “friends,” and admits – that while he cannot say who – “friends” have promised him weapons as he embarks on the creation of this “Islamic state.” Despite his assurances that his planned “Islamic state” will exhibit tolerance, festering extremist regimes such as Libya and Egypt, created with the same Western-backed formula now at work in Syria, have already proven such assurances are merely rhetoric aimed at placating public opinion long enough for Syria’s secular institutions to be irrevocably disfigured.
Already in Syria, al-Khatib’s “freedom fighters” are exposed as both foreign extremists – affiliates of Al Qaeda, as well as sectarian-driven Muslim Brotherhood militants that have plagued Syria’s sociopolitical landscape for decades. Clearly, al-Khatib has played a role in perpetuating this plague, clearly he plans to continue well into the foreseeable future – this time with Western, Turkish, Qatari and Saudi support.It is often puzzling to know what our self-styled “environmentalists” mean when they talk about the “environment”. When Lancashire’s planners recently came out against proposals for fracking near Blackpool, the anti-fracking BBC and others were only too eager to report how “green” campaigners had savaged these plans on the grounds that they were in every way bad for the “environment”.
But on the same day I had a letter from a widow living on the Lancashire Pennines telling me about proposals to add a further 24 giant turbines up to 410ft |
50 for Wales.
The goalscoring record is held by Ivor Allchurch, with 166 goals, scored between 1947 and 1958 and between 1965 and 1968.[65] Cyril Pearce holds the records for the most goals scored in a season, in 1931–32, with 35 league goals in the Second Division and 40 goals in total.[50]
The club's widest victory margin was 12–0, a scoreline which they achieved once in the European Cup Winners Cup, against Sliema in 1982.[50][66] They have lost by an eight-goal margin on two occasions, once in the FA Cup, beaten 0–8 by Liverpool in 1990 and once in the European Cup Winners Cup, beaten 0–8 by AS Monaco in 1991.[67] Swansea's 8–1 win against Notts County in the FA Cup in 2018 is their largest winning margin of the competition, and the largest winning margin at their home ground, the Liberty Stadium.[68]
Swansea's home attendance record was set at the fourth-round FA Cup tie against Arsenal on 17 February 1968, with 32,796 fans attending the Vetch Field.[50][69] The club broke their transfer record to re-sign André Ayew from West Ham United in January 2018 for a fee of £18 million.[70] The most expensive sale is Gylfi Sigurðsson who joined Everton in August 2017 for a fee believed to be £45 million.[71][72]
European record [ edit ]
Swansea City's scores are given first in all scorelines.
Players [ edit ]
Current squad [ edit ]
As of 11 January 2019[86]
Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
No. Position Player No. Position Player
Out on loan [ edit ]
Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
No. Position Player No. Position Player
Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
No. Position Player No. Position Player
Retired numbers [ edit ]
Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
No. Position Player
Club officials [ edit ]
Board of directors [ edit ]
As of 2 February 2019[49]
On 22 July 2016, Jason Levien and Steve Kaplan led a consortium of American businessmen who bought a 68% stake in the club.[25]
First-team staff [ edit ]
As of 29 June 2018
Notable managers [ edit ]
There have had thirty-seven permanent managers (of whom six have been player-managers), and four caretaker managers of Swansea City since the appointment of the club's first professional manager, Walter Whittaker in 1912.[94][95] In the club's first season, Whittaker led Swansea to their first Welsh Cup win.[50] The club's longest-serving manager, in terms of tenure, was Haydn Green, who held the position for eight years, four months and 14 days, spanning the entirety of World War II.[96] Trevor Morris, who oversaw the most number of games at Swansea, was also the first manager to lead a Welsh club in Europe, qualifying for the 1961–62 Cup Winners' Cup.[50][97]
John Toshack, Swansea City's most successful manager with three league promotions and three Welsh Cup wins, led the club to their highest league finish, sixth place in the 1981–82 First Division.[50] Appointed in February 1996, the Dane Jan Mølby became Swansea City's first foreign manager and took Swansea to the 1996–97 Division Three play-off final, only to lose to a last-minute goal.[50][98] In 2011, Swansea City achieved promotion to the Premier League under Brendan Rodgers, becoming the first Welsh team to play in the division since its formation in 1992.[99] During Swansea City's centenary year (2012–13), the club won the League Cup for the first time under Michael Laudrup, the first major trophy in Swansea's 100-year history.[100]
References [ edit ]
Official website
Swans Academy – Official Swansea City academy site
Swans Commercial – Official Swansea City commercial siteSince Valve announced their official support for Steam into Linux platform, everyone is acting crazy. Quite recently, Valve’s boss – Mr.Gabe, said that “Windows 8 will be a catastrophe for PC game makers”. The next day, Blizzard’s vice president – Mr.Newell shared his thoughts via twitter saying that “I think Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space* – not awesome for Blizzard either”. The questions is …
why top game makers are not happy with Windows 8?
DirectX and Windows domination
Since the beginning of Direct3D, Windows operating system has been dominating the gaming industry for years. For a long time now, hardware manufacturers like AMD and nVIDIA were supporting Microsoft by implementing DirectX into their products. Thus, if you wanted to play Assassin’s Creed I in best quality, you had to buy a new GPU supporting DirectX10, but in six months later, if you wanted to play Assassin’s Creed II also in best quality, you had to buy (again) a new GPU supporting DirectX11, and so on…
Regardless of GPU, when the first AMD 64bit processors came into play you had to keep up with the Joneses. New games using top graphics are now equal to heavy multi threaded applications. Thus, if you wanted to play Dragon’s Age I, you had to buy a dual core processor, but in six months later when Dragon’s Age II was released, a new quad core CPU was required to avoid the bottleneck. So, hardcore gamers have no other choice but overclocking or buying new hardware once in a while.
Alternatives: PlayStation3, Nintendo Wii and XBox360
Playing PC games became an expensive hobby for the majority of people and especially for enthusiasts. As a result, more and more gamers turned into consoles as a fair alternative and affordable choice; one machine dedicated for gamers and games only – pay once and play forever. Nintendo Wii, Microsoft XBox 360, Sony PlayStation3; are all of them great alternatives for descent gaming experience.
This turn out of events had an impact to the gaming industry and soon enough they start paying more attention to console development rather than the Desktop PC. As a result, the majority of game titles are now released in consoles first and then after some months of delay they are ported into Windows and Mac. Things became ever worse, since all the kick-ass titles are not available for PC. Metal Gear Solid 4, Gears of War 3, God of War, Tekken, Dante’s Inferno, and others… are only consoles’ exclusive titles meaning you have to own a console to play them.
Frankly speaking, current PC games are bad-ports of their console version. So, even if you are willing to pay a fortune buying the latest hardware, still you will be unable to live the best gaming experience. Thus, more and more game makers are no longer interested in PC game development, while Blizzard and Valve are already looking for alternatives to Windows 8 and DirectX. But why now?
Tablets, smartphones and embedded graphics
When things come into performance, recent trends like Android tablets prove that OpenGL technology can easily replace desktop PC for daily tasks, such as browsing, music, movies and games.
We have seen many tablets and smartphones using dual core processors while the latest Samsung Galaxy 3 comes with a Quad core CPU. Using webgl and open technologies all these portable devices are able to play games, like Angry Birds. The majority of Android and iPhone games is based in gameplay success; meaning you can use your hands and your body instead of holding a joystick. After all that’s why they are so popular with hand-held devices.
If you wondering how such a little device can play games like Call of Duty Modern Warface 2, ask yourselves how an old and outdated gaming console like PlayStation3 using Linux can still outperform today’s PC. Did you find the answer? Valve did!
Linux and OpenGL strike back
Today, Valve Linux Team posted a great article called “Faster Zombies“. They are trying to develop a Linux version of LFD2 using OpenGL and Linux kernel instead of Direct3D and Windows. So, they modified the game for OpenGL and Linux kernel and optimized the drivers; the result was shocking. The most part of the code was taken from Mac OS and after some modification the result was quite impressive: 315 FPS
The cause...
“This experience lead to the question: why does an OpenGL version of our game run faster than Direct3D on Windows 7? It appears that it’s not related to multitasking overhead. We have been doing some fairly close analysis and it comes down to a few additional microseconds overhead per batch in Direct3D which does not affect OpenGL on Windows. Now that we know the hardware is capable of more performance, we will go back and figure out how to mitigate this effect under Direct3D.“
... and effect:
“After this work, Left 4 Dead 2 is running at 315 FPS on Linux. That the Linux version runs faster than the Windows version (270.6) seems a little counter-intuitive, given the greater amount of time we have spent on the Windows version. However, it does speak to the underlying efficiency of the kernel and OpenGL. “
Laptops/Netbooks and embedded graphics
Right now, any laptop using embedded graphics is unable of playing games in normal/high quality settings. Valve understand that today’s hardware is more than capable of playing their games using OpenGL and Linux instead of running Windows 7 and DirectX. So, using Linux and an Intel Core i3/5/7 processor you will be able to play descent games, only with the help of your integrated GPU. Likewise, all Intel powered netbooks and laptops running Linux will be pretty much able to play Valve games with high framerate.
Answering the very first question
It’s pretty obvious that Windows 8 target into the tablets and smartphones domain, where battery life and quick response are key factors to success. So, it’s not surprising that Windows 8 is more lightweight than Windows 7. Although, games are power-hungry applications that use many resources. In such manner, we expect more powerful tablets to be shipped with Windows 8 launch. However changing the hardware and implementing a more powerful integrated GPU, there will be consequences into wattage power, thus limiting battery’s life. Even though, using OpenGL instead of DirectX, Windows platform will never outperform Android and iPad gaming experience. See what happened with PC Games and consoles.
It’s new and untested market, where top companies like Valve and Blizzard are not sure whether it’s worth to spent time and money implementing games for Windows 8. Instead, open technologies are much more attractive. Linux is open source, runs everywhere and its lightweight.
So, trying to answer the very first question of the article, let me tell you this: Windows 8 will not be a catastrophe for Desktop PC, but they will have dramatic influence for all the other portable devices.
As a Linux user I couldn’t be happier! Valve is going into Linux for good. Linux users are very excited for that turn of events and now Linux will have everything it needed, games and drivers, to be accepted by more users.Developing as of 6:30 p.m. Thursday: Teachers at John Muir Elementary will not move forward with the planned demonstration. Seattle Police Schools released the following statement: "Due to actions outside of the SPS community, including a potential security threat to our students, we are canceling the Black Men Uniting to Change the Narrative celebration scheduled at John Muir Elementary School for Friday, September 16. This decision was made after consultation with the Seattle Police Department and the SPS safety and security staff. The safety and security of our students is a top priority."
Related: Seattle teachers cancel black empowerment celebration
SEATTLE -- At John Muir Elementary, teachers plan to wear Black Lives Matter t-shirts in class next Friday.
Marjorie Lamarre teaches third grade and says she has a responsibility to show that she cares.
“To be silent would be almost unforgiveable, and I think we have been silent for almost too long,” said Lamarre.
Teacher Jennifer Whitney came up with the idea to make t-shirts that read: "Black Lives Matter, We Stand Together" with the schools name included.
Sign up for the daily 5 Things to Know Newsletter Thank You Something went wrong. This email will be delivered to your inbox once a day in the morning. Thank you for signing up for the 5 Things to Know newsletter Please try again later.
Submit
Whitney wants to start conversations about race, and why they see people of color dealing with incarceration rates that are too high and college graduation rates that are too low.
“It is part of the oppression, the systemic oppression that continues on,” said Whitney.
Donations paid for the t-shirts which will be worn September 16. That same day, community leaders and role models will greet students as they arrive at school.
“I think we are going to get some pushback from the t-shirts, but I think that is an invitation for families in the community that might not agree with us to come in and have a discussion with us,” said teacher JR Lorca.
John Muir Elementary is a K – 5th grade school within the Seattle Public School district.
A district spokesperson said, “We are united in our collective commitment to eliminating opportunity gaps.”
-- This article was updated to include a comment from Seattle Public Schools and to correct a previous paraphrase of the district's comment on the teachers' effort. This story first aired on KING 5 on Sept. 9, 2016.
Copyright 2016 KINGMany of the concerns voiced in the open letter were not addressed in the inquiry’s statement.
Bennett was responding to concerns outlined in a letter sent to Chief Commission of the Murdered and Missing Women’s Inquiry, Marion Buller, earlier this week..
“We wanted the families to be front and centre in this.”
“It’s clear that the importance of listening to families is to hear their insights, to be able to get an excellent report and recommendations, to stop this tragedy, but it’s also the healing process for the families,” Bennett told journalists on Tuesday.
Indigenous and Northern Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett says she shares the concerns of families that her government’s inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women has gotten off to a rocky start. “I have concerns if they have concerns,” she said.
Read more
Indigenous and Northern Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett says she shares the concerns of families that her government’s inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women has gotten off to a rocky start. “I have concerns if they have concerns,” she said.
“It’s clear that the importance of listening to families is to hear their insights, to be able to get an excellent report and recommendations, to stop this tragedy, but it’s also the healing process for the families,” Bennett told journalists on Tuesday.
“We wanted the families to be front and centre in this.”
Bennett was responding to concerns outlined in a letter sent to Chief Commission of the Murdered and Missing Women’s Inquiry, Marion Buller, earlier this week..
Many of the concerns voiced in the open letter were not addressed in the inquiry’s statement.
“Across the country, families, advocates, Indigenous leaders, experts and grassroots people are loudly raising alarms that the inquiry is in serious trouble,” reads the letter.
Signed by over 50 individuals and organizations, the letter calls on the commissioners of the inquiry to shift their approach in order to mitigate the continued delays, miscommunications, repeated cancellations and confusion regarding inquiry processes, which the signatories say, has already occurred.
In a statement released Tuesday afternoon, the inquiry defended their work and reiterated their plan to shift towards an approach more focused on community-based involvement, a decision made after concerns were made that the inquiry’s consultations were duplicating the pre-inquiries of last year. Before the truth gathering process begins, a team from the inquiry will act as facilitators to communities.
“The community visit approach will focus on helping prepare families and survivors of violence to participate in the national inquiry,” reads the statement.
Many of the concerns voiced in the open letter were not addressed in the inquiry’s statement.
“We ask that you now take immediate steps to address the serious concerns about the viability for the inquiry to continue without a fundamental shift to correct the structural failures that are now being flagged across the country,” the letter reads.
“Everybody feels left out or that their loved one’s story is not going to be heard,”
Vanessa Brooks has been waiting to share her sister’s story with the national inquiry, and wishes those behind the inquiry would be more like her victim services worker, who calls her to check in, even when she doesn’t have an update.
“The way that they’re doing it is definitely not working, and you can hear that, you can hear the rumblings from all the families that it’s not working, and everybody feels left out or that their loved one’s story is not going to be heard,” Brooks told VICE News.
Brooks wants the national inquiry to appoint dedicated liaisons to call the families so they feel heard. She only learned Tuesday from her victim services worker — not the inquiry itself — that the inquiry’s family meetings would be suspended until the fall.
The $54 million dollar inquiry is slated to begin official hearings with the families and communities of the murdered and missing in Whitehorse.
The remaining family meetings have been suspended until the fall, on the basis that the summer months are spent for hunting and family members might not all be available to attend meetings. Instead, the commission says it will be taking the time to speak with experts on violence against women.
This has raised concerns that the inquiry will not be able to submit the first report on its findings in time for the November 1 release date.
An extension has been suggested by the signatories and deemed necessary for the inquiry to advance in light of the delaying of talks with families, the commission should also consider reformatting the inquiry to address the mounting concerns as presented in the letter.
The letter to Buller points to a lack of transparency around the procedures and plans as the inquiry progresses causing confusion and frustration among the families who want to the inquiry to succeed.
“The inquiry thus far appears shrouded in secrecy.”
The inquiry has already begun shown signs of internal strife with the Director of communications, Michael Hutchinson, being let go after only a couple of months and the recent resignation of the senior communications adviser, Sue Montgomery.
An open and consistent communication strategy is needed in order to forge ahead with the inquiry as a trusting partnership between commissioners and those affected by the cases, the signatories argue.
“The inquiry thus far appears shrouded in secrecy giving the impression that participation in family advisory circles or other meetings is by invitation only, causing confusion,” reads the letter.
Brooks agrees:
“Change needs to happen, but I think the only way that change is going to happen is if everybody has an honest and open dialogue and that means sitting there and listening to how angry and hurt we are at the process.”Korean Sweets Part II: Hoddeok (Sugar Pancake)
In celebration of Korean New Year soon approaching, Lisa from Korean American Mommy asked if we'd like to be part of her Around the World Feature on Korea, and anytime I get to eat make Korean food, I'm more than happy to participate. Check out her adventures cooking through mommy-hood (with her adorable lil' one) and get a look at what other featured bloggers, Eating and Living and Beyond Kimchi, are making for this Korean virtual meal!
One of my favorite Korean treats, hoddeok, is a lesser known street snack here that is very popular in Korea especially in the cold winters. Hoddeok is a sort of yeasty pancake that is filled with a variety of fillings such as sugar, cinnamon and nuts and pressed on a hot oily griddle until flat and crunchy on the outside and perfectly gooey hot on the inside. Sometimes and if you're lucky, a bit of the sugar oozes out, creating a crisp and sticky doily of caramelized heaven. To. Die. For.
I was introduced to hoddeok by a friend who took me to a truck in Koreatown in Los Angeles that sold these exclusively. Which was the worst and best thing that had ever happened to me, as my daily commute at the time passed right by this street. This truck became a common pit stop for me and I'd jump out of my car on the way back from work and buy one (and if I was feeling particularly careless, two).
The smell of hot hoddeok is one of those things that induces temporary amnesia and sudden lapse in judgment, causing it's victim to scarf down the piping hot sugar napalm. But, hoddeok is worth every burnt palate and additional pound. It's the sacrifice we humans make for something this damn good.
Makes 8
Dough:
– 2 cups of all purpose flour
– 2 tbsps of granulated sugar
– 2 tsps of yeast
– 1 cup of room temp water
– 1 tbsp of vegetable oil
– 1/2 tsp of salt
Filling:
– 1/2 cup of brown sugar
– 2 tbsps of pine nuts, chopped
– 1 tbsp of cinnamon
To make the dough, mix the cup of water, yeast, sugar, salt and oil together until dissolved. Add in the flour and mix with a spatula just until incorporated. Cover the bowl, and let it sit at room temperature for about an hour or until the dough has doubled in size. I put mine on top of my stove, heat off of course, to help it along. While you wait for your dough to rise, make the filling by mixing the sugar, pine nuts and cinnamon together in a bowl.
Punch down the dough and let it rest again for another 20 minutes. Pour the sticky dough onto a floured surface and knead for a while with well floured hands until the dough comes together. Roll into a ball and cut in half and then cut each half into four smaller pieces. Again with floured hands take each ball of dough and pat it flat with your hand and fill the middle with a heaping spoonful of the sugar mixture. Slightly push with the back of a spoon so the sugar sits nicely in the dough. Fold each end up and pinch slightly together so it seals shut.
Here's a video tutorial to help you fill your hoddeok. This was a last minute idea, so please excuse my horrid nails!
In a well oiled cast iron skillet/griddle (or any pan if you don't have one) pour in a little vegetable oil so there is a thin coating and heat on medium flame. Put the ball of dough pinched side down and cook for about 30 seconds until browned. Flip over push the ball down into a flat pancake with the back of your spatula and cook for another minute. Flip again and cover with a lid and cook for a minute until the sugar is nice a melted.
Enjoy right away while intolerably hot! And for more Korean sweets check out our sikhye, a rice and malt drink.
Recipe adapted from Maangchi
(Second image from here, rest from Globetrotter Diaries)
zp8497586rqShow full PR text
THE GIUGIARO-DESIGNED BRIVIDO IS UNVEILED AT GENEVA
Extensive research has gone into increasing the on-board comfort of this GT, designed and produced entirely in the company's Moncalieri factories. The vehicle offers supercar performance, respect for the environment and the most advanced technology and innovative solutions for a working prototype which is ready to make its on-road debut.
For its 42nd appearance at the Geneva International Motor Show, Italdesign Giugiaro makes the world premiere of a functional, hybrid, four-seat prototype developed on a mechanics of the Volkswagen Group. Capable of reaching 100 km/h in 5.8 seconds, with a maximum speed of 275 km/h without compromising on-board comfort or space, and inspired by technological innovation, the name of the car-Brivido ("Thrill")-sums up its soul.
"For the last few big appearances at the Geneva Motor Show," explains Giorgetto Giugiaro, "I focused my research on cars that offered great roominess with compact dimensions, and proposing concrete solutions to concrete problems.
2012 will be an important year for us and for the Group, and with this car we want to continue to allow people to dream and to imagine the future. This is an exercise to show a vehicle that delivers awesome sports car performance in an eco-friendly manner, to show great technological content, and above all to have superb comfort. Today true luxury is all about travelling in comfort. Following the research into city cars, this year I wanted to test myself with a GT which is 4.98 metres long and capable of reaching speeds of up to 275 km/h. I would not say the Brivido is a dream car-after all, this is not an object which is destined to remain an unachievable dream. My intention has always been to design something which is close to industrial reality and can easily be released into the market".
Brivido was designed, engineered and manufactured in the Italdesign Giugiaro plant at Moncalieri (Turin).
Exterior: lines of light designed by air
Aluminium, carbon fibre, and glass are the materials that define the Brivido's exterior. The lines of the body, painted in Xirallic pearl lustre red, are sinuous and aerodynamic and accentuate the sporty, elegant character of this latest Gran Turismo from Giugiaro.
The windscreen, roof, rear window, and large door windows form a glass dome that lets natural light pour into the passenger compartment. There the occupants are surrounded by an exclusive level of finish and high-technology, whilst they enjoy the surrounding scenery and urban landscapes as they travel.
"This is a quest for a genuine four seater," continues Giugiaro, "to offer comfort and visibility, especially for the rear passengers, which is usually sacrificed in this type of vehicle. As always, I've tried to offer solutions which can be achieved practically. The inclusion of a pair of wide doors that rise like gull wings is the only "exotic" concession which makes the Brivido a show car. The rest of the solutions are perfectly applicable for vehicles destined for the market. The rear passengers, specifically, can access their seats without having to duck down or lower the front backrests. Instead they can enter the vehicle easily and naturally".
The side view is dominated by the specially designed single door which uses glass as a genuine structural element This allows all occupants to access the passenger compartment at the same time.
The waistline hugs the curve of the wheel arch and is interrupted by the door's side window, which in turn continues below the waistline to significantly increase the transparent surface. As on the Structura prototype, this feature offers the driver increased visibility when manoeuvring as s/he can easily see the pavement to the side of the car. At the same time this allows the rear occupants to enjoy great outside visibility. To facilitate window-down interactions such as toll payments, a small portion of the glass can be lowered electronically while the rest remains fixed.
A record-breaking light cluster
Visibility is also a watchword on the outside of the passenger compartment as the Brivido showcases real innovation in exterior lighting. Thanks to LED technology, the headlight clusters are not only functional, but also represent a never-before-seen stylistic feature. Extending 2600 mm from the front bonnet, each cluster hugs the sinuous lines of the body and finishes midway along the side panel, at the height of the side door. These clusters thus also act as both sidelights and direction indicators.
"For several years now, thanks to new technologies like LEDs," continues Giorgetto Giugiaro, "even quintessentially functional elements like light clusters have become something more: a distinctive element and a design signature. With these innovative light clusters we are confident that the Brivido will be instantly recognizable even in the total darkness of night."
The side of the Brivido hides a final technological treasure: the side mirrors have been replaced by an innovative system comprising of two cameras which literally emerge from the body. When the control is activated, the wings concealing the two micro-cameras, positioned at the height of the side air intakes, open up 90 degrees and activate the cameras. The camera images are then displayed on monitors built into the steering wheel column.
From the front we are greeted with an aggressive, ultra-technological front end. The vehicle is equipped with a single carbon fibre panel that occupies the width of the vehicle. This allows ample air flow to cool the engine and also acts as rear spoiler. On top of this there are the DRL system, the driving lights, and the fog lights.
The tail end, also in carbon fibre, flaunts two diagonal friezes that diverge from the centre and continue along the body, housing the rear light clusters, the brake lights, the indicators, and the rear fog lights. As well as the rear windscreen, which offers access to the titanium fibre covered luggage compartment, there is a small spoiler that is activated electronically at high speeds to ensure optimum road grip. Finally, the large side exhausts frame the race-inspired flow deviator.
The generous surface of the bonnet, emblazoned with the inlaid "V" in satin aluminium that contrasts with the red paint finish, conceals a 3000 cc engine which offers 360 HP. "The satin aluminium frieze," points out Giorgetto Giugiaro, "is not just a simple aesthetic quirk. We have included it in order to remedy the problem of hard spots and to achieve a lower profile. The red bonnet hides the engine and rises in the event of impact with a pedestrian to soften the impact. Beneath the "V" structure, we have housed actuators directly onto the engine basement, making it an active safety system. Here, once again, what seems like a designer's quirk, is actually a concrete solution to a problem".
The Human Machine Interface
The Volkswagen Group Electronics Research Lab (ERL) in California collaborated with IDG to develop and build the interactive electronics and displays for the Brivido. This includes a unique docking system in the dashboard allows an iPad to be completely hidden away or, with a gesture of the hand, partially exposed to work in a "Minimal" interaction mode. The ERL also helped to create the climate and comfort controls in which the driver and passengers can access "Basic" and "Extended" features on a capacitive touchscreen. Enhancing the transition between these modes, physical buttons emerge from the control surface when needed, and hide away when not needed.
Interiors: R&D of classic materials and technological innovation
Technology, roominess, ergonomic design, comfort, and luxury are the watchwords that characterise the interior trim of the Brivido. The cabin offers a genuine open space where a unique environment encases the front and rear seats and the luggage compartment in a continuous solution, thanks in part to the use of extremely durable and lightweight Titan-Tex® titanium fibre.
The dashboard is structured symmetrically for both driver and passenger. Key information is displayed on the two LCD monitors housed inside two binnacles, one located behind the steering wheel and the other above the iPad dock. This allows the passenger to access the same information as the driver (journey, speed, rpm, etc.) or manage the options for on-board entertainment.
Italdesign Giugiaro has patented its specific steering column design. At the top of the steering column are two monitors onto which images from the side and rear cameras are displayed. In this way, the driver has complete control of the vehicle without ever having to take his/her attention off the road.
The main controls are housed on two touch-sensitive panels on the spokes of the steering wheel. The left-hand panel is used to operate the infotainment system, the lights and the graphic interface on the dashboard, while the right-hand panel is used to manage the climate control system settings.
With just a simple touch, the driver can select the driving mode of the Brivido: "Comfort" or "Sport". The dashboard on the passenger side houses the iPad integration system.
On the tablet, the Brivido application allows the passenger to control media, navigation, and access online content from his or her lap. The passenger can then stow away the entire tablet in the dashboard via an automatic mechanism or partially dock it to use as an interface area. S/he can then control the media and navigation content in the passenger binnacle display.
In line with the current fashion trends, the Brivido exudes an understated elegance. For the interior furnishings, the Color&Trim department at Italdesign Giugiaro invested in research and development on methodologies and materials, opting for a sewing method never used before in the automotive sector: raw cut seams. The hides, specially produced for this prototype, are dyed in two contrasting colours - light on the "upside" and dark on the "backside." When it comes to seaming, the hides are bonded and raw cut to enhance the thickness, which is otherwise usually folded under and therefore hidden. In this way, the light-dark chromatic contrast creates a graphic line that outlines and emphasises shapes.
The front seats are asymmetrical with a cushion overhanging the door sill on the outer sides. This enables the occupants to get in and out of the car with ease. Occupants sit on this "protruding wing" and slide comfortably inside.
The sides of the rear seats house an LED system that makes entry easier in low visibility by optically following the design of the seats. Hiding inside are 3D glasses which make up part of the infotainment system. Wearing them allows passengers to watch a film, access travel information or, by connecting to the Brivido's cameras, watch the road. The controls for adjusting the climate are housed on a touchscreen monitor that descends from the ceiling on request.
The tunnel accommodates the fourteen buttons that activate all the main controls (door opening, parking brake, stability control system, lights) and the 8-speed automatic transmission, as well as contains the classic storage compartments and cup holders.
The display in the middle of the dashboard replicates key information on the climate control system, fuel consumption, and the hybrid system configuration. Depending on the graphical configuration of the display, the buttons required to activate and deactivate the corresponding functions emerge from the dashboard alongside the monitor. New touchscreen technology and the experience of high-quality rocker switches come together to create a new control system.
About the ERL
Located in the heart of Silicon Valley, the Electronics Research Laboratory represents the Volkswagen Group in applied research and development. Our mission is to develop innovations and technologies for future generations of cars, and to transfer technologies from many industries into the automotive domain. We design and build technical solutions that assist the driver in safe, intelligent, and enjoyable interaction with the vehicle environment.
Further information is available at www.vwerl.com
ITALDESIGN GIUGIARO
The roots of the Italdesign Giugiaro Group go back to February 1968 when Giorgetto Giugiaro set up a design studio that represented an innovative formula for the car industry: a firm set up to act as an independent service company, with the aim of delivering creativity, engineering, construction of preseries prototypes, production start-up assistance and all the support required to put a new product into production.
Italdesign Giugiaro has been a part of the Volkswagen Group since 2010.
Since 1968, some 200 car models have been created that have spawned 50 million standard production units produced by leading international car manufacturers.Bob Fyrer is only 40 years old, but called it a career Saturday night.
A Lehigh University graduate, Fyrer has been a linesman in the American Hockey League for 17 seasons.
But Saturday night, at the PPL Center in downtown Allentown as the Lehigh Valley Phantoms hosted the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins in a crucial Eastern Conference game for both teams, Fyrer raised his arm to signal offside and icing for the final times.
Public address announcer Joe Wowk announced Fyrer's retirement before the game, after a ceremonial puck drop featuring former Philadelphia Eagles Jeremiah Trotter, Brian Baldinger and four Eagles cheerleaders. The sellout crowd of more than 8,420 cheered the announcement and gave a brief standing ovation.
"This is my 17th year in the league, 25th year refereeing," the Bethlehem resident said before taking to the ice for the Phantoms-Pens game. "Last year, I suffered my 14th concussion. It's time to put it away before I really get hurt."
Fyrer took a stick under the chin following a faceoff last year to earn that concussion, making him re-think a profession he loved practically from the first moment his skates touched the ice with a finger whistle attached to his hand as a 15-year-old in his native Massachusetts. Fyrer followed two brothers into the world of youth refereeing back then, finding it a great way to get extra ice time as well as pocketing some decent money for a teenager.
It was pretty easy to see how easily a linesman can get injured just 4:54 into the game Saturday after he and fellow Lehigh Valley linesman Jud Ritter engaged in the mandatory jump-in following a first-period fight between Steven Delisle of the Phantoms and Adam Payerl of the Penguins.
Fyrer, a 1996 graduate of Lehigh, played on the practice squad for the Mountain Hawks baseball team under Skip Schultz, but then played three years of club hockey for Lehigh. He began refereeing in the AHL in 1998, when the Phantoms still played at the old Spectrum in Philadelphia.
"I was fortunate enough to work the very last game in the Spectrum, and I worked the first hockey game in this building, so I got the Phantoms leaving and the Phantoms coming back," Fyrer said. "It was a neat experience. I'll never forget that."
Fyrer worked mostly the Philadelphia-Hershey-Wilkes-Barre/Scranton teams when he began officiating, then picked up Binghamton when the Phantoms left to play in Glens Falls, N.Y., for the past five years. He's also worked games in Hartford, Bridgeport, Springfield, Providence and Rochester, and a few weeks ago worked the game at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse that drew more than 37,000 people to set an indoor hockey attendance record.
A regional sales manager for a Swiss company that does insulation systems, Fyrer has worked playoff and all-star games.
"Each year I've worked a playoff game or two," Fyrer said. "It's a whole new season at that point once the playoffs start. Players step it up a little bit and we do, too."
He said he's experienced many highlights in his career, including the game at the Carrier Dome |
Provincial Operations Centre
Communications
Government of Alberta
780-644-4862
#abflood
To call toll free within Alberta dial 310-0000.Singer Joy Villa donned a dress with the “Make America Great Again” slogan at the Grammys Sunday night, thanks to the help of one San Diego fashion designer.
Andre Soriano of La Mesa designed the dress to represent “love and togetherness” in addition to making a statement, KSWB reported.
“I took my Trump flag from the front of my house and made the gown for her,” Soriano said. “We have to support our president.”
Villa walked the red carpet wearing a white cloak before taking it off to reveal the red, white, and blue Donald Trump-inspired dress.
Villa posted a picture of herself wearing the dress after the show on Instagram.
“Go big, or go home. You can either stand for what you believe or fall for what you don’t,” the post read. “Above all make a choice for tolerance and love. Agree to disagree. See the person over the politics, carry yourself with dignity, always.”
Villa also held a purse shaped like a sacred heart. Soriano said they selected the heart-shaped purse to represent love, family, and togetherness.
“We have to bring this country back,” he said. “There are a lot of people who don’t agree with our president, but they should give him a chance.
Villa’s album sales spiked to the top spot on Amazon’s list of top 100 digital albums, and made it high on the iTunes top albums list after she wore the dress.Nevada Legislature mulls special session on NFL stadium
Courtesy of MANICA Architechture
It’s that time of year again: The only thing standing between Nevada and what many would see as an economic-development win is a legislative deal worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
In 2014, it was Tesla. In 2015, Faraday. This year, an NFL stadium.
Nevada’s Legislature only meets for a few months every two years, so it's expected that a special session needs to be called before the end of 2016 to approve a public-funding deal for the stadium project, put forward by Las Vegas Sands, Majestic Realty and the Oakland Raiders earlier this year. The governor can call one by proclamation, or the Legislature can call itself into session through a petition signed by two-thirds of its members.
Funding needs to be pinned down before stadium backers — including billionaire Sheldon Adelson, Sands’ chairman and CEO — approach NFL owners in January officially about moving the Raiders to Las Vegas.
Developers want the public to contribute $750 million, generated by increasing the existing tax on hotel rooms. The football team's owner, Mark Davis, plans to contribute $500 million, while Adelson has personally pledged $650 million toward the $1.9 billion endeavor.
Pressure mounted after a recent meeting of the Southern Nevada Tourism Infrastructure Committee, where Sands executives said the state must contribute $750 million to the stadium or they would back out of the project. Emphasizing that they needed time to craft their pitch to NFL owners (from whom they need three-quarters support to relocate the team), they added that a special session should be called by the end of September.
Sands executives have said they've been in touch with lawmakers daily — sometimes two or three times a day — in an effort to woo their approval of that timeline. But recent interviews with a dozen state legislators revealed some concerns over rushing into a special session this month — both in terms of vetting the stadium deal and the ripple effects of having a session right before the election.
Legislators worried about taking valuable time away from the incumbents running for re-election, and the impact the mandatory 15-day “blackout” period on fundraising following a special session would have on campaigns.
• • •
For the most part, Republican legislators said they hope a special session is called as soon as recommendations for a deal are given by the Southern Nevada Tourism Infrastructure Committee, though they noted that a September or October session could burden incumbents seeking re-election. Significant fundraising dollars will likely roll in over the next several weeks as candidates begin proving their mettle in polls against their opponents.
“If we can iron out the details and it makes sense, obviously we’d like to see it happen. But also, anytime you rush something you miss stuff,” said Republican Sen. Patricia Farley, who isn’t up for re-election. “Unfortunately, the business world, they don’t wait around for election cycles. I can certainly see why some people would want to wait.”
Republican Assembly Majority Leader Paul Anderson said that until the details of the deal are ironed out, it’s difficult to talk about dates.
“As soon as we’re at that point, we’ll commit and get it done quickly,” Anderson said. “But until that point — leaving the election cycle out of the picture — it doesn’t even make sense to talk about dates because we’re simply not there.”
Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval isn’t ready to call a session yet, either.
“The Governor has said he will not make any decisions regarding a special session until the committee has delivered its final recommendations,” spokeswoman Mari St. Martin said in a statement.
The tourism committee was originally scheduled to meet next week, but an additional meeting has been called for Thursday to continue chewing on the stadium proposal.
There’s also concern about the impact voting for the stadium could have on the outcome of the election itself. Republican Assemblyman Ira Hansen, who is running unopposed in his race in Northern Nevada, pointed to a recent KTNV/Rasmussen Poll that showed 55 percent of Clark County voters oppose pledging up to $500 million in public funds to the stadium.
“The polls I’ve seen in Southern Nevada are about 50-50,” Hansen said. “Politically, this could hurt somebody running for re-election.”
Democrats, meanwhile, largely prefer having the special session after the election as they pour their efforts into winning back control of the Legislature.
Democratic Sen. Pat Spearman, who is up for re-election in a relatively safe district, said the fundraising issue would “certainly impact me, but I’m more concerned that we not get sidetracked on the issues we’re already dealing with in this election cycle. We are working hard to regain the majority.
Then there’s the issue of vacancies — three in the Assembly and two in the Senate. The appointment process, which happens through the county commission, typically takes a couple of weeks, and newcomer legislators could tip the balance on a vote in either house.
• • •
The biggest issue is that the specifics of a deal, which will come in the form of a recommendation by the tourism committee, have yet to be ironed out. As three legislators said: “The devil is in the details.”
Republican Sen. Becky Harris said that, from people she’s spoken with, the public is generally supportive of the stadium idea. “But you have to look at what the impact is for the public, what events we’ll be able to qualify to have here, and the overall economic impact,” Harris said.
Democratic Assemblyman Nelson Araujo said he hoped discussions about the stadium would be inclusive of the community and its concerns.
Others, like Farley and Democratic Sen. Tick Segerblom, raised concerns about the state pumping so much money into the stadium project when other government services like mental health or education could use additional funding.
“My big question is, how do we take public money and make sure that we’re addressing those critical needs as well?” Farley said. “To me, those needs are more important.”
Segerblom said the state’s priorities seem backwards.
“Why is it that every time we want to give money away to Tesla or Faraday or the stadium, we call a special session and rush up there and do it?” Segerblom said. “But money for schools? We have to go through the legislative process and beg for everything.”
The response to that from stadium proponents has been that the room tax was created to support tourism in Las Vegas, and that education is an important but separate issue.
Anderson said that putting room-tax money toward the stadium would be using it for what it was intended — ”putting heads in beds” — and that it could boost tourism in Las Vegas. (Instead of directly raising the tax to fund education, the idea is that the stadium would increase economic activity, resulting in more taxes being collected, some of which would go to education.)
Some legislators said they would be in favor of voting on an already-approved recommendation from the tourism committee to also raise the room tax to fund an expansion and renovation of the Las Vegas Convention Center alongside the stadium deal. Others said they wouldn’t vote for the stadium unless the convention center was included.
• • •
Legislators mostly described it as a game of wait-and-see, not wanting to take a position until the deal is finalized. Democratic Assemblywoman Maggie Carlton, however, was outspoken about her opposition.
“From where I personally am, I’m opposed to it,” Carlton said. “Public stadiums — I’ve not found anything in doing a little research that gives me any level of comfort yet.”
She said she considers herself in the same camp as County Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani, who has been very vocal in her belief that a stadium should be built with private dollars alone.
That’s been one of the biggest arguments against the stadium — that the public shouldn't be involved and that the developers should secure funding from private sources, particularly in light of Adelson’s wealth. Some have framed the public contributing money to the stadium project as tantamount to subsidizing a billionaire.
But some legislators pushed back on that idea.
“The one piece that falls out is somehow that we’re subsidizing billionaires. That is simply not the case — It goes the other way,” Anderson said. “We are using private dollars to build a public stadium, and we’re only on the hook for a third of it.”
The details are still in flux, but the current proposal suggests that the public would own the stadium but that investors would be entitled to some profits from its operation.
“There should be a return on investment for everybody involved,” Anderson said. “Whether that would be split over a certain timeframe, I don’t have an answer.”
Once a deal is secured, the obvious goal is to get as many legislators on board as possible. A two-thirds vote in both houses would be needed to raise the room tax, so 42 legislators need to be on board.
If that doesn’t happen, Plan B is to punt the decision to the Clark County Commission. Legislators could pursue a permissive vote, which would only need a simple majority, and pass the tax-increase vote along to the seven-member county commission, which would need to pass it with a two-thirds majority.
But most lawmakers thought the Legislature would move quickly once a consensus is reached.
Hansen went so far as to call it a “done deal” because of the people involved.
“The guy who owns the biggest newspaper in the state, an extremely wealthy guy who is well-known in the political world? Of course,” Hansen said. “It’s not like you and I are out there proposing it — these are people who are major power players in the state of Nevada.”If you've been following the world of Linux desktop environments in recent months, you may remember that the Linux Mint project has adopted a strategy of easing users gradually into the controversial GNOME 3 desktop.
Whereas many Ubuntu users have resented that Linux distribution's switch to mobile-inspired Unity as its default interface, Mint created its latest Linux Mint 12 version with numerous options and stepping-stones to help users make the transition to GNOME 3.
Now, it appears the Mint project is taking that approach even further. Developers of the software have created a fork of the GNOME 3 shell called “Cinnamon” that's designed to offer yet another transitional option between the old, familiar GNOME 2 and the new GNOME 3.
'Brand New Features'
“Introducing Cinnamon,” began the announcement thread on the Linux Mint forums on Tuesday. “A Linux desktop featuring a traditional layout (GNOME 2), built from modern technology (GNOME Shell), and introducing brand new innovative features.”
Mint's goals are different from those of the GNOME team, explained Clement Lefebvre, the project leader.
“The user experience the GNOME team is trying to create isn't the one we're interested in providing to our users,” he explained. “There are core features and components we absolutely need, and because they're not there in GNOME Shell, we had to add them using extensions with MGSE.”
MGSE, or “Mint GNOME Shell Extensions,” is a desktop layer on top of GNOME 3 in Mint 12 that makes it possible to use GNOME 3 in a traditional way. Included in the extra layer are traditional desktop elements such as a bottom panel, application menu, and window list along with a task-centric desktop and visible system tray icons.
'We're Likely to Support Both'
The GNOME project isn't interested in adding Mint's new features to GNOME Shell, Lefebvre noted. So, “our work on GNOME 3 does not influence the development of GNOME Shell, GNOME Shell isn't going in a direction that is suitable for us, and we're not interested in shipping GNOME Shell 'as is,' or in continuing with multiple hacks and extensions.”
Of course, Linux Mint 12 also includes MATE--a GNOME 2.32 fork designed to preserve familiar GNOME 2 functionality--but Cinnamon will be different and will serve more as a complement to MATE, Lefebvre noted.
MATE “feels different and it provides different features,” Lefebvre wrote. “Both desktops will appeal to different categories of users and so we're likely to support both.”
Available for Testing
Targeting Linux Mint 13, the current alpha version of Cinnamon is built on a stable fork of GNOME Shell 3.2.1 along with features from MGSE. Version 1.0.0 is available for testing and is now in the Linux Mint 12 repository, according to Lefebvre. Cinnamon is also available on github.
With each move Linux Mint makes lately, I become more and more convinced that this project team has hit upon a winning approach. Choice is what it's going to be all about in 2012, I believe, and Cinnamon is yet another step in that direction.
“The one thing we want for Linux Mint 13 is a desktop people can use and say, 'this is better than GNOME 2',” Lefebvre said.
If you decide to take Cinnamon for a test drive, please leave your impressions in the comments.Taking the BU Shuttle? If you want to take the BUS, bring your BU ID
BU Shuttle (BUS) riders get ready: you will now need your BU ID to board the bus.
The new ID campaign is an effort to limit access to the shuttle to BU faculty, staff, and students, eliminating access by those outside of the BU community. Recent concerns voiced by BU-affiliated shuttle riders prompted the change, says Billy Hajjar, director of BU’s Parking and Transportation Services. “It is a matter of making sure every possible space on the buses goes to a BU community member,” says Hajjar, “especially during peak periods of service, when the buses are full, and addressing the safety concerns of those BU community members using the BUS.”
The shuttle, which runs between the Charles River Campus and the Medical Campus, is a private service that is free to those with a valid BU ID.
Starting Tuesday, April 1, periodic checkpoints will be set up at two of the most heavily trafficked stops on the shuttle route. ID checks will be in force at 33 Agganis Way in the mornings and at 710 Albany Street on the Medical Campus at night. The checkpoints will be random and could expand to other stops on the route, Hajjar says. They will take place before the BUS arrives. “There will be one or two staff members from the parking and transportation office screening for proper identification of those waiting for the BUS, similar to what the MBTA does at the high-volume aboveground stops of the Green Line B trolley,” says Hajjar.
In addition, riders getting on and off the shuttle at the Huntington Avenue stop will be required to access through the front bus door only, so that drivers can randomly check IDs. ID at other stops will be checked at the discretion on the driver.
Passengers can expect to see signs on the buses stating that the service is private, intended for Boston University affiliates only, and that proper ID is required. “The most important thing for the BU community to know is to have their IDs ready and available in case they are asked to show it, to better expedite entry to the BUS and get to their destination in a timely fashion,” says Haajjar. “We have enough challenges with traffic situations impacting the BUS schedule. We do not want these enforcement efforts to compound the problem. These random checks will not slow the service in any way, so long as people have their IDs readily available.”
He says that there will be some leniency for those who forget their BU IDs as riders adjust to the new enforcement policy. “As we begin this process, those who state that they have forgotten their ID will be able to get on the shuttles and will simply be asked to bring their ID in the future,” says Haajjar. “Unusual compliance patterns will become apparent over time.”
The BU Shuttle (BUS) provides transportation between the Medical Campus and Charles River Campus for students, faculty, and staff with a valid BU ID. It operates between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m. weekdays. Service on weekends and late nights is limited to the Charles River Campus. Check here for schedules, shuttle maps, and service updates.“This intense longing for things transcendent… make me a votary of the Blue Flower” – C.S. Lewis
“I used to think I was a romantic, always looking for the Blue Flower” – John Le Carre ‘A Small Town In Germany’
“It’s one of Cole’s Blue Rose cases” – David Lynch ‘Fire Walk With Me’
A blue rose symbolizes spirituality and the metaphysical striving for the unreachable. It represents hope.
Nowhere is this more apparent than on eBay, where there are pages of “blue rose seeds” and “rainbow rose seeds” to buy, illustrated by photographs of obviously dyed or colourized blooms. This ruse would not fool a child, and yet they wouldn’t be there if a lot of people weren’t prepared to suspend disbelief and send away for magical seeds to grow impossible flowers. And this in 2016 when we have the interwebs for fact-checking!
This only shows that the search for the blue flower is still as evocative as it ever was.
While blue flowers do occur in nature, true blue roses have never been grown. Despite extensive genetic experimentation in Australia and Japan, and occasional dramatic press releases claiming success, available “blue” roses are variants of lavender, mauve and purple.
Due to their unavailability in nature, blue roses specifically have come to symbolize imagination and longing to achieve the impossible.
The search for the blue flower has been documented in early Germanic writings as the very essence of the Romantic movement, and was referenced more recently in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice & Fire, where blue roses were used to demonstrate forbidden desire.
Substance B, the drug in Philip K. Dick’s “A Scanner Darkly” derives from a blue-flowered plant, as does the hallucinogenic nightmare powder released into Gotham City’s water supply in the film “Batman Begins”.
A 12th century Arabic text mentions the azure blue roses of the Orient, but these were achieved by the same method we can use to create blue roses now – blue dye introduced to the roots.
If you put blue food colouring into the water of a vase of white roses (allow the roses to dry out a little first so they will be “thirsty” and suck up the maximum amount of coloured water), you will usually end up with a speckled tu-tone effect which is quite pleasing.
As rococo as that is, especially if you are a fan of the 80’s art student classic ‘À rebours’ by Joris-Karl Huysmans, you may be best off using silk fake versions for a true blue rose, which are very popular at Japanese weddings.
…or let your search for the blue flower lead you to this frosty azure beverage.
Blue Rose
1 shot vodka infused with blue pea flower tea
Dash of absinthe
Dash of lavender syrup
Hard dash of Violette liqueur
Cava
You can infuse vodka very easily with Blue-tee Butterfly Pea Flower Tea, available from Amazon online. This natural blue flower tea colours anything it is steeped in a bright dark blue very quickly. Just suspend a teabag in the bottle and leave for about 20 minutes.
I used Monin Lavender syrup, but you could make a simple syrup from lavender if you prefer.
Give the glass an absinthe rinse by pouring a few drops in and swirling it around until the inside is coated.
Shake vodka, violette and syrup in a chilled shaker, and serve over crushed ice, topped up with Cava and garnished with cubes of blue rose Turkish Delight.
Turkish Delight
8 leaves of gelatin
1 lb castor sugar
Blue food colour
Rosewater
Icing sugar to coat
Add leaves of gelatin to ½ pint of water in a saucepan (you can use powdered gelatin but that can go lumpy more easily), let it sit for 5 minutes, then heat gently until it dissolves completely.
Add the sugar and stir until it dissolves also. Simmer for 15 minutes, then remove from heat and add blue colour and 2 tablespoons of rosewater.
Wet a small cake tin or a couple of ice cube trays with water before pouring the mixture in, and allowing it to set overnight in the fridge. I used textured rubber ice cube trays.
Turn this out of the tin the next day, and chop into cubes if you made it in one piece, coating them with icing sugar as you do so. Dice as many as you need to add a heaping tablespoon to the top of each Blue Rose. It will eventually melt into the drink.
I used a glass with bluebirds for this because the search for the bluebird of happiness runs parallel to the search for the blue flower, as you can see in the work of Maurice Maeterlinck. And I realize that I have here possibly reached peak cocktail symbolism. And possibly peak cocktail pretension. But I am what I am.
Some cultures believe that the holder of a blue rose will have their dearest wish granted. Let’s find out if that’s true.
“It is not treasures that I care for” Heinrich said to himself, “but I long to see the blue flower. I cannot rid my thoughts of the idea, it haunts me.” – ‘Heinrich von Ofterdingen’– Novalis
The search for the Blue Flower by David Lynch for DiorAn Israeli human rights group has accused the IDF of war crimes during last year’s Gaza invasion by launching airstrikes that intentionally targeted residential areas, killing women and children, while claiming that Hamas was hiding behind civilians.
As prosecutors at the International Criminal Court in The Hague are conducting a preliminary inquiry into possible war crimes committed by Israel in the Palestinian territories, the 49-page report by B'Tselem human rights group claims the allegations are true.
READ MORE: ICC opens inquiry into possible war crimes in Palestinian territories
‘Black Flag: The legal and moral implications of the policy of attacking residential buildings in the Gaza Strip, summer 2014’ is the first major report on the Israel-Gaza 50-day conflict written by an Israeli rights group.
The report is based on research into 70 Israeli airstrikes in Gaza that affected residential buildings, killing 606 Palestinians in their homes, most of them evidently non-combatants: children, women and elderly men. About 70 percent of the victims were either under 18 or over 60 years old.
Like during previous conflicts with the Palestinian military group Hamas, Israeli officials have insisted that the Israel Defense Force (IDF) operated strictly according to international law. Casualties among the civilian population can be explained by the fact that Hamas fighters use their compatriots as human shields, placing “command and control centers” within residential buildings and bringing families to live inside “terrorist infrastructure” facilities, the officials say.
“It is true that Hamas and other organizations operating in the Gaza Strip do not abide by international humanitarian law,” the report acknowledged, not questioning the fact that Hamas does use civilian centers to stage rocket attacks on Israeli territory.
Yet the fact that Tel Aviv tends to put blame for all Palestinian civilian deaths on Hamas, makes the IDF totally unaccountable for its activities, with “no restrictions whatsoever on Israeli action...no matter how horrifying the consequences,” the report said.
“This policy is unlawful through and through,” the report says.
Public Image Overdrive - Selling Operation Protective Edge in New York, the Orwellian language of Massacre in #Gazahttp://t.co/2XGwFCAxt5 — Mark Perlaki (@markperlaki) January 7, 2015
The concept of “collateral damage,” however legal it might seem during warfare, has been exploited by the IDF to the extreme, the report claims.
“Even if the leaders of the state and the army believed that implementing this policy would bring about the cessation of firing on Israeli communities, it should not have been implemented because of the expected and horrific consequences,” the report says.
READ MORE: Gazans freeze amid rubble as post-war reconstruction stalls, int’l aid runs out
B'Tselem, which receives donations through the New Israel Fund, is generally associated with the Israeli left and focuses on human rights in Gaza and the West Bank.
The group’s research chief, Yael Stein, insists that the deaths of Palestinian civilians were by no means accidental, as the airstrikes against residential quarters continued all the way through the operation in Gaza.
“You can't maybe [know] on the first day or the second day. But on the 10th day or the 20th day, when you see how many civilians are getting killed...these attacks shouldn't have happened,” Stein said.
In December, human rights group Amnesty International accused Israel of the unjustified destruction of civilian buildings in Gaza during the conflict, branding it a symbolic form of “collective punishment.” Israel claims the buildings served as Hamas bases.
READ MORE: ‘War crime’: Amnesty Intl says IDF destroyed Gaza blocks as ‘collective punishment’
The report by B'Tselem is the third major human rights inquiry into the conflict in Gaza, after reports by Amnesty International and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel.
The Monitor, another Israeli NGO, claims that the report by B'Tselem is based only on testimony from residents who personally witnessed the airstrikes and data from the Hamas-run Gazan Health Ministry, a source not trusted by most Israelis.
READ MORE: Israel lobbies against ICC as Gaza war crimes inquiry opens
"Once again, and regardless of the circumstances and available evidence, B'Tselem has contorted the facts in order to pronounce Israel guilty. Contrary to such claims, Hamas is morally and legally responsible for civilian deaths in Gaza,” Monitor's legal adviser Anne Herzberg commented on the report.Clinton Responds To Trump's Speech Leveling Charges Of Corruption
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
And to now talk about how Hillary Clinton and her supporters responded to Trump's speech, we are joined by NPR's Tamara Keith. She covers the Clinton campaign. Hi there, Tam.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Hi.
MCEVERS: So what was Hillary Clinton's message today?
KEITH: Her speech was largely focused on her five-point plan for improving the economy and helping families get ahead. Her campaign wanted to use this speech to draw a contrast with Trump, show her walking out on a detailed policy speech and him attacking her.
But yesterday, Clinton was attacking Donald Trump. She went after him and his business practices, among other things. And then today, once she did turn to Trump in her speech, she speculated that maybe she got under his skin and that's why he delivered these attacks today. Of course he had planned this speech for a couple of weeks, so it's highly unlikely. This is maybe a correlation not causation situation.
MCEVERS: Right. I mean, did she spend any time specifically defending claims that he had made?
KEITH: A little bit, and mostly it was at the end of this speech. She called his charges outlandish lies and conspiracy theories. And she said that he was going after her personally because he lacks substance on policy. Her campaign sent a long stream of fact checks and statements responding to him, but Clinton herself didn't respond point by point. She did, however, defend the work of the Clinton Foundation. Here's that.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
HILLARY CLINTON: The Clinton Foundation helps poor people around the world get access to lifesaving AIDS medicine.
(APPLAUSE)
CLINTON: Donald Trump uses poor people around the world to produce his line of suits and ties.
KEITH: And Trump's signature clothing lines are mostly made in China.
MCEVERS: A lot of Trump's attacks today seemed designed to reinforce this idea, these negative views about Clinton. What is her campaign doing to counteract that.
KEITH: So yesterday I was in Ohio talking to voters, and I heard them say some of the very same things that Donald Trump said today talking about Benghazi. I asked people to free associate. What comes to mind when you think of Hillary Clinton? And several people said liar, so the Clinton campaign has some work to do.
And what they are doing is running ads. They are spending millions of dollars on television ads in eight key battleground states. It's not clear whether that will counteract the high negatives, but what is clear is that they are unopposed on the air right now. Donald Trump is not spending any money on advertising right now, and the Clinton campaign and her allies are spending millions.
MCEVERS: That's NPR's Tamara Keith. Thanks a lot.
KEITH: You're welcome.
MCEVERS: And we should also say the NPR politics team was busy fact checking Trump's speech today. You can find an annotated version of that on our website, npr.org.
Copyright © 2016 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.WikiLeaks has published a pair of internal CIA documents briefing undercover agents on how to dupe security at airports. The two documents — both classified as "Secret/NOFORN" meaning not to be shared with allied security agencies — give spies advice on how to maintain their cover. They also provide a detailed overview of the covert tactics airports use to vet travelers.
TOP CIA ADVICE: If you're a spy, try not to look nervous
Although some of the information in the documents is public knowledge, advice on how to avoid being singled out for secondary screening could be useful to a variety of people. These include tourists and travelers trying to get home for the holidays, but also terrorists, drug traffickers, and common criminals. The first of the documents — titled Surviving Secondary — covers everything from common sense advice about not looking shifty to warnings about more nuanced pitfalls that might turn a random baggage check into a full-blow investigation. These include:
Physiological signs of nervousness include shaking or trembling hands, rapid breathing for no apparent reason, cold sweats, pulsating carotid arteries, a flushed face, and avoidance of eye contact.
Lack of familiarity with passport entries (biographic page, previous travel).
Inability to speak the language of the passport-issuing country.
Purchase manner unusual to the place of issue.
Purchase or itinerary change within 24 hours of the scheduled flight.
Switching lines or studying security procedures.
And for luggage best practice:
An amount of baggage inappropriate for t he length of stay.
Multiple new items, such as alarm clocks o r notebooks, in baggage.
Carelessly packed baggage when passenger is purportedly an experienced business traveler.
Unopened and unmarked maps, g uidebooks, or other literature. Maps of unrelated cities in baggage for a purported t ourist traveler.
Camera quality not matching the traveler’s profile or camera memory card insufficient for a lengthy tourist trip.
Other tips are even more esoteric and focus on the specifics of certain countries' airport security. For example, Japanese airports pay close attention to lone Western travelers as they may be drug couriers, while in Iraq, any Kurdish passenger with a Turkish accent is "automatically sent to secondary" for fear they belong to a militant group called the PKK. In Mauritius, security forces watch passengers' facial expressions as they pick up their luggage, "zooming on individuals’ faces to study their expressions"; in Hungary, one-way mirrors are used to "monitor passengers for signs of nervousness," and in Bahrain, undercover officers sweep the arrivals lounge for uneasy travelers.
One agent was singled out for questioning because he was dressed too casually
If an agent is selected for secondary screening then they are simply advised to maintain their cover "no matter what." One anecdote details a CIA agent picked up for questioning because of "overly casual dress inconsistent with being a diplomatic-passport holder." Although security staff found traces of explosives in his luggage, the officer "gave the cover story that he had been in counterterrorism training" and was eventually let go.
A press statement from WikiLeaks comments: "This example begs the question: if the training that supposedly explained the explosives was only a cover story, what was a CIA officer really doing passing through an EU airport with traces of explosives on him, and why was he allowed to continue?"
The second document titled "Infiltrating Schengen" gives a brief history and overview of security protocols within the Schengen Area — a group of 26 European countries that have abolished passport control at shared borders. The report reveals that although most security measures target illegal immigrants, the CIA is worried about new biometric security measures set to come into force next year, including a fingerprint database that would make it harder for operatives to travel using multiple or false identities.A lawmaker from Cebu wants a light rail transit (LRT) system for the country’s second largest metropolitan area included in the government’s list of projects under the public-private partnership (PPP) scheme.
In a statement, House Assistant Majority Leader Gerald Anthony Gullas Jr.—representing the first district of Cebu—said an LRT line was the only way Metro Cebu could cope with future demand for a fast, safe and reliable public transport system.
ADVERTISEMENT
“Owing to rapid population growth, we will find it increasingly difficult to move people around a highly congested Metro Cebu in the years ahead,” Gullas said. “Since most of our thoroughfares can no longer be widened, the options left are for us to either build new road tunnels underground, or to put up an overhead LRT line.”
The National Economic and Development Authority’s PPP Center is in charge of identifying potential projects, and facilitating proposals and feasibility studies.
Metro Cebu’s population is expected to double from 2.5 million to 5 million by 2050, according to a study of the Japan International Cooperation Agency.
The main urban center in the Visayas, Metro Cebu groups the seven cities of Cebu, Mandaue, Lapu-Lapu, Danao, Talisay, Naga and Carcar, plus the six municipalities of Consolacion, Liloan, Compostela, Cordova, Minglanilla and San Fernando.
Gullas earlier reintroduced the bill earlier filed by his grandfather, Eduardo, seeking the establishment of the Cebu LRT system for operation in Cebu City. As proposed by the younger Gullas in House Bill 1338, the Cebu LRT line would run between Talisay and Mandaue.
Under the scheme, new railways would also be provided from Talisay to the municipality of Dalaguete in the south, and from Mandaue to the municipality of Sogod in the north.
Gullas said at least one Cebu undertaking—the P17.5-billion Mactan-Cebu International Airport passenger terminal rehabilitation, expansion and operation deal —had been included in the lineup of eight PPP projects, worth a total of P156.1 billion, that the government intended to bid out soon.
Other PPP projects set to be awarded in the coming months are the P60.6-billion LRT Line 1 Cavite extension program; the P35-billion Cavite-Laguna Expressway deal; the P25.6-billion North Luzon Expressway-South Luzon Expressway Connector Road; and the P8.8-billion School Infrastructure Project phase 2.
The P5.7-billion Philippine Orthopedic Center modernization; the P1.7-billion Automated Fare Collection System for the Metro Rail Transit and the LRT; and the P1.2-billion Angat Hydro Electric Power Plant auxiliary turbines 4 and 5 rehabilitation deal are also due to be awarded.
ADVERTISEMENT
Read Next
LATEST STORIES
MOST READDay two of the La Ventana Classic kicked off with an early standup paddling skipper’s meeting under the Baja sunrise. SUP competitors completed laps around a triangle shaped course to complete the SUP course racing division of the Classic.
The Kitexpo continued today with lighter winds in the morning, perfect for demoing and testing out the latest foil kites and boards. The morning’s light winds were ideal for foil course racing, with bigger kites almost doubling the wind speed with their velocity made good. The first start was chaotic with stragglers starting almost thirty seconds behind, but by the second race the fleet of 11 racers was tightly grouped when the starting gun fired. Nico Landauer led the pack with Adam Withington following close behind for the majority of the races. Nico took the day’s win followed by Adam and Ejder Ginyol. Foil course races will be held everyday for the rest of the event as foilers battle it out for the overall win.
The day’s festivities kicked off with kiting of a different nature. The sky was lit up with skydivers buzzing the LVC event site as MC Neil, Baja Joe and friends Monty and Billy aimed for a target hula-hoop just south of the event site. Earlier in the week, spectators placed bets to see who would land the closest to the hoop. Neil won out, landing less that 21ft from the hoop. After landing Neil exclaimed, “I’ve skydived all over the world but in La Ventana, there’s nothing like it! If you’ve ever thought about skydiving, you have to do it here!” Signups for tandem skydives continued throughout the day with proceeds benefiting the kids of La Ventana.
Local children and dancers filled the event stage midday to put on traditional Mariachi performances.
The SUP mini down |
file with the FCC, that information is not available in a very usable way. This commonsense legislation calls on the FCC to take steps to make this information available and more accessible. If we are going to require this material to be publicly available -- as we should -- it should also be available in a way that allows the public to actually use it and evaluate who is trying to influence their vote." In 2012, the FCC required TV stations to post public file materials online, including important political ad buying information. However, the FCC did not require that the online data be machine-readable. The FCC Transparency Act instructs the FCC to undertake a rulemaking to make this information available in a format that is searchable, sortable, and downloadable. Luján's legislation is supported by a number of organizations, including Common Cause and Public Citizen. "At this critical moment when big-money special interests always seem to get their way, Common Cause commends Congressman Luján for introducing legislation to ensure that the political ad file at the FCC is sortable and machine-readable," said Viki Harrison, Executive Director of the New Mexico Chapter of Common Cause. "This bill will help strengthen our democracy so that everyday Americans will always have a strong voice in our government and know who is trying to influence our elections." "In this day and age, there is no excuse for failing to employ the full transparency powers of the Internet, making digital information and data easily searchable by the name of a sponsor or sorted by the amount of an expenditure," said Craig Holman of Public Citizen. "Federal and state Internet disclosure programs today widely employ this state-of-the-art standard of making online information machine-readable -- in other words, searchable, sortable and downloadable. Congressman Luján's proposed legislation simply requires that the FCC disclosure rule conform to today's digital standards of full transparency. This legislation should win the support of every member of Congress who believes in removing barriers to online access to public information."
Voxgov scours thousands of sources of U.S. government communications, including regulatory agency statements, federal databases and the social media accounts of elected officials. Learn more about Voxgov's services here.So, I went on a little beer trip recently.
Three nights, to be specific. Four days. All spent tooling around southwestern Michigan, sampling as many beers as it was biologically possible to sample and still continue driving to the next brewery. All in all, it wasn’t quite as intense as the similar four-night trip I took to Wisconsin back in August, but it was pretty close.
I’m going to break up this detailed synopsis of the trip, replete with photos from along the way, into three posts, one for each day/night cycle. Along the way I’ll be sure to punish you with reminiscences and impressions of all the brews I was lucky enough to come across. It will be extremely long, and I fully expect you to suffer greatly before all is said and done.
So come with me, won’t you, as I plunge into the brews of the Mitten State.*
*I should mention that the trip for me technically started on the way from my current home in central Illinois back to my hometown in the Chicago suburbs as I stopped at a favorite watering hole, the Blind Pig Brewery in Champaign. Check out the great things they’re doing with glasswork and slogans these days.
However, let us begin the actual trip in earnest.
I left my hometown in the southwest suburbs of Chicago early on a Monday morning, heading Northeast, hugging the Lake Michigan coastline, and eager for some Michigan suds. My first stop, though, would be before I ever left the adjoining state of Indiana.
Shoreline Brewing, Michigan City, Indiana
Shoreline Brewing is a small brewpub located in Michigan City, which is, as you might guess, fairly close to Michigan, all things being considered. It’s located kind of lost in the back of a semi-commercial, semi-residential area near the lake, and from the outside looks rather like an abandoned warehouse where Scooby and the gang might run in and out of doors down a long hallway, pursued by a masked man going “rargle argle bargle”. Which is to say, it really doesn’t look like much.
Inside, though, I’m happy to report that it’s a different story, and is quite cozy, in a wooden planked, ski-lodge sort of way. I bellied up to the bar as the clock struck 11 a.m. and they opened for the day, and promptly ordered a flight, along with a crab cake sandwich. This was the beer list I was presented with:
Of these, my flight consisted of:
– Ly-Co-Ki-We: A pleasant, easy drinking kolsch, as I wasn’t about to make the first sip of beer on the trip an imperial IPA.
– Spontaneous Ale: A unique beer that was kind of like a mix between an English mild and an English IPA. I think the name describes the brewer’s state of mind in making it.
– Beltaine Scottish Ale: At only 5.4% abv, this was actually one of the best and most flavorful regular Scottish ales I’ve had. I suppose you could call it a 70 schilling or something like that. Very complex, velvety maltiness. The brewery’s #1 seller.
– Exponential Ale: A single-hopped citra pale ale. Pretty good from what I remember.
– Singing Sands: Your basic oatmeal stout.
– Sum Nug IPA: As you might guess, hopped with Summit and Nugget. Pretty decent, went good with a crab cake sandwich.
It was then time to move on. Crossing over the state border and into official Michigan brews, I detoured into the town of Benton Harbor, famous for being so fiscally screwed up that it was recently taken over by the state government, in an actual form of emergency dictatorship. I, however, wasn’t there to take in a crumbling local government but to make a stop at The Livery, Benton Harbor’s notable local brewpub and performance venue.
The Livery, Benton Harbor, Michigan
Welcome to The Livery. The fact that this was already the second time today that I had been confronted with my most deadly foe, the dreaded Papyrus Font, was something that seemed decidedly ominous to me at the time.
Inside, The Livery is a pretty darn interesting place, with three floors. The main bar, with taps for all of the place’s brews, is located in the basement, in a tiny bar area that has a small-town dive/vegan soup kitchen kind of vibe. The ground floor, on the other hand, is more of a countercultural coffeeshop, with obligatory weird crap (old bicycle in the rafters) and a stage for live music. Reading through the list of performers before departing on the trip, I was very surprised by how many folk musicians I really enjoyed (such as Canadian fiddler April Verch, who they even named a beer after) had played regularly on that stage. I also heard in talking to the bartenders that the bar regularly draws some interesting beer figures as well. Case in point: A few days before I was in town, Fritz Maytag apparently was in town and stopped by for a brew.
Remembering what kind of trip I was on, however, I quickly beat a path down to the bar, where I saw this:
Once again I ordered a flight, determined to make at least a token dent in the total number of beers, most of which I knew that I would never get to try. This time I even managed to snap a shot of the flight when it arrived, sidestepping the problem I seem to have of forgetting my camera until exactly one of the glasses remains.
This time, my choices from the beer list were, from left to right:
– Special C, dark Czech lager: Probably the worst beer of the trip, to be honest. It had a very weird cidery taste, bordering on mild sourness. I had never tasted any of these flavors in a lager before, but was repulsed by them here. Didn’t finish the taster. Figure I just got a bad beer.
– Steep Canyon Bohemian Pils: Where the first was weird, this one was just plain, and seemingly not hopped heavily enough to make a real impression. Didn’t finish the taster.
– Thom’s Special Amber IPA: Much better. A malty and herbal, seemingly English-inspired brew that restored my faith in what was going on in the Livery fermenters.
– String of Ponies, dry-hopped pale: A hoppy, ideal session brew that just about any brewpub would be happy to have as a flagship.
– Dixie O’Flynn, dry stout: A fine dry stout that really didn’t stand out too much.
– The Taxman, Russian imperial stout: Okay, now HERE’s the one that stood out at The Livery. An absolutely huge, 12.75% abv RIS, at cellar temperature by the time I drank it, went off like a bomb in my mouth. Easily one of the top one or two most purely flavorful brews from the trip, full of raw, in-your-face aggression. Although somewhat unrefined or one-dimensional in its approach, it was undoubtedly a good dimension, and it left me somehow chastened. I scurried out of The Livery shortly thereafter, having met my match, but not before knocking back a bowl of the world’s spiciest and most sobriety granting carnitas stew.
Saugatuck Brewing Company, Saugatuck, Michigan
After that I was back on the road again, continuing to hug the Lake Michigan coast and making a quick jaunt further north, to the small city of Saugatuck. There, Saugatuck Brewing Company awaited, or at least it would have, had it not been closed for new employee training.
This is just one of those things that is bound to happen on any trip like this. When you visit 15 or so breweries/beer bars in the span of a few days, one of them will be closed unexpectedly. You just suck it up and move on. I managed to later pick up a few Saugatuck brews in liquor package stores in Grand Rapids, although I haven’t gotten to any of them yet.
Anyway, I jumped back in my car and continued heading north to my last stop of the day…New Holland Brewing.
New Holland Brewing, Holland, Michigan
You learn things on a trip like this. One of the things I learned was how beautiful Holland, Michigan for some reason is. It’s really quite nice. New Holland Brewing is located right on the campus of Hope College. I was pretty damn envious of those college kids, having such a great brewer right in their backyard.
New Holland is very nice on the inside as well, with a great gift shop, tours, and a main bar area that is a good fusion between comfy and modernesque. I sat at the bar, had a brew, and ate some pita bread and hummus.
The dynamic of visiting a larger brewery that distributes its beer nationally on a trip like this is different from visiting smaller brewpubs, as I had earlier in the day. Instead of feeling the need “I have to make sure I’m able to taste everything,” most of the beers are ones you’ve probably had before, which is liberating. At these breweries, you “have to” taste fewer beers, and can typically just focus on one or two brewpub exclusives that are served at the brewery and are not distributed. New Holland had three of these, a robust porter, california common beer, and an insane imperialized saison.
That saison–“Saison Cacoa”–is a freaking 11.5% abv monster, brewed with “spices” and aged on cacao nibs. It was the last beer of the day for me, a nightcap in the truest sense. Its beguiling combination of booze, spice and richness made it probably the most intense beer-drinking experience of this trip, right on the edge of what a person could legitimately be expected to consume 12 ounces of.
I then headed to my cheap motel to mercifully sleep.
That’s it for Day I of this Michigan Beer Sojourn! Tune in again on Wednesday for Day II, and on Friday for Day III!Rumors about a smaller, four-inch "iPhone 5SE" have been swirling around for months. We might have just gotten the first hard evidence that Apple is really planning a new, mini iPhone.
Apple (AAPL) blog 9to5Mac published images of what appears to be the new iPhone 5SE to the right of an iPhone 5S. Both phones have the same profile, with a four-inch screen. But the iPhone 5SE has rounded edges, a Touch ID home button and the on/off button placed on the right-hand side of the phone, similar to the newer iPhone 6 and iPhone 6S models.
Releasing a smaller iPhone 5SE makes a good deal of sense for Apple. In the fall, when Apple is expected to release the iPhone 7, Apple would typically be expected to retire the iPhone 5S, which will be three years old in September.
But the iPhone 5S is the last four-inch iPhone on the market. Though Apple doesn't break out sales numbers for different versions of the iPhone, Wall Street analysts believe that there has been a large amount of staying power for the iPhone 5S because of its smaller size.
There have been fake "leaked" iPhone images in the past, including one that was floating around last week. But the fact the latest iPhone 5SE image is next to the iPhone 5S for scale gives it some more weight than other images.
According to 9to5Mac, the new iPhone 5SE will be a significant upgrade from the iPhone 5S. It will have an 8-megapixel camera in the back and a 1.2 MP camera in the front, similar to the iPhone 6. It will be able to make Apple Pay transactions, and it will have the same A8 processor that's inside the iPhone 6.
The iPhone 5SE is expected to be available in the same gold, silver, gray and rose gold colors that are available for the iPhone 6S, and Apple is expected to unveil the new four-inch phone in March.Comet Ping Pong customers came out to support the restaurant after a gunman entered it with an assault rifle, firing it at least once. Several other businesses on the block have received other threats as well. (Whitney Shefte/The Washington Post)
Comet Ping Pong customers came out to support the restaurant after a gunman entered it with an assault rifle, firing it at least once. Several other businesses on the block have received other threats as well. (Whitney Shefte/The Washington Post)
What was finally real was Edgar Welch, driving from North Carolina to Washington to rescue sexually abused children he believed were hidden in mysterious tunnels beneath a neighborhood pizza joint.
What was real was Welch — a father, former firefighter and sometime movie actor who was drawn to dark mysteries he found on the Internet — terrifying customers and workers with his assault-style rifle as he searched Comet Ping Pong, police said. He found no hidden children, no secret chambers, no evidence of a child sex ring run by the failed Democratic candidate for president of the United States, or by her campaign chief, or by the owner of the pizza place.
What was false were the rumors he had read, stories that crisscrossed the globe about a charming little pizza place that features ping-pong tables in its back room.
The story of Pizzagate is about what is fake and what is real. It’s a tale of a scandal that never was, and of a fear that has spread through channels that did not even exist until recently.
Pizzagate — the belief that code words and satanic symbols point to a sordid underground along an ordinary retail strip in the nation’s capital — is possible only because science has produced the most powerful tools ever invented to find and disseminate information.
Comet Ping Pong owner, James Alefantis, addresses reporters during the reopening of his restaurant days after a gunman entered with an assault rifle, firing it at least once. (The Washington Post)
What brought Welch to the District on a crisp Sunday afternoon in early December was a choking mix of rumor, political nastiness, technological change and the intoxicating thrill that can come from running down a mystery.
His actions Sunday in one of Washington’s wealthiest neighborhoods reminded Americans that last month’s election did not quite conclude the strangest political season in the nation’s history. Welch did not shoot anyone in the disturbance on Connecticut Avenue NW, but he delivered a troubling message about the shattering of trust in a troubled time.
On Oct. 28, FBI Director James B. Comey told Congress that he was reopening the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server when she was secretary of state. New emails had been found on a computer belonging to disgraced former New York congressman Anthony Weiner, the estranged husband of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin. Two days later, someone tweeting under the handle @DavidGoldbergNY cited rumors that the new emails “point to a pedophilia ring and @HillaryClinton is at the center.” The rumor was retweeted more than 6,000 times.
The notion quickly moved to other social-media platforms, including 4chan and Reddit, mostly through anonymous or pseudonymous posts. On the far-right site Infowars, talk-show host Alex Jones repeatedly suggested that Clinton was involved in a child sex ring and that her campaign chairman, John Podesta, indulged in satanic rituals.
“When I think about all the children Hillary Clinton has personally murdered and chopped up and raped, I have zero fear standing up against her,” Jones said in a YouTube video posted on Nov. 4. “Yeah, you heard me right. Hillary Clinton has personally murdered children. I just can’t hold back the truth anymore.” Jones eventually tied his comments about Clinton to U.S. policy in Syria.
1 of 15 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × See the reaction after gunman enters D.C. pizzeria to investigate conspiracy theory View Photos A man from North Carolina fired shots in D.C. restaurant Comet Ping Pong on Sunday. He told authorities he came to check out a fake news story involving Hillary Clinton. Caption A man from North Carolina fired shots in D.C. restaurant Comet Ping Pong on Sunday. He told authorities he came to check out a fake news story involving Hillary Clinton. Dec. 6, 2016 Signs of support hang on the building of Comet Ping Pong in Washington, D.C. The business reopened after Edgar Maddison Welch from North Carolina discharged his assault rifle at the popular Chevy Chase restaurant claiming he was there to investigate a fake news story on the Internet about a child sex ring. Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue.
According to YouTube, that video has been viewed more than 427,000 times.
Over the next couple of days, the wild accusations against Clinton gradually merged with a new raft of allegations stemming from WikiLeaks’ release of Podesta’s emails. Those emails showed that Podesta occasionally dined at Comet Ping Pong.
On Nov. 7, the hashtag #pizzagate first appeared on Twitter. Over the next several weeks, it would be tweeted and retweeted hundreds or thousands of times each day.
An oddly disproportionate share of the tweets about Pizzagate appear to have come from, of all places, the Czech Republic, Cyprus and Vietnam, said Jonathan Albright, an assistant professor of media analytics at Elon University in North Carolina. In some cases, the most avid retweeters appeared to be bots, programs designed to amplify certain news and information.
“What bots are doing is really getting this thing trending on Twitter,” Albright said. “These bots are providing the online crowds that are providing legitimacy.”
Online, the more something is retweeted or otherwise shared, the more prominently it appears in social media and on sites that track “trending” news. As the bots joined ordinary Twitter users in pushing out Pizzagate-related rumors, the notion spread like wildfire. Who programmed the bots to focus on that topic remains unknown.
On the Friday before the election, James Alefantis, who owns two restaurants on the same block in upper Northwest Washington, noticed something odd in his Instagram feed: a stream of comments calling him a pedophile.
Upset, Alefantis told some of his young employees at Comet Ping Pong about the hateful comments, and they poked around online. They found rapidly burgeoning discussions on Reddit, 4chan and Instagram about a purported child sex ring operating out of their restaurant.
Alefantis, who grew up in an affluent section of the District, was no stranger to politics. He had held a fundraiser for the Clinton campaign at Comet. He’d had a relationship with David Brock, the erstwhile Clinton nemesis who had a midcareer political conversion and became a pro-Clinton advocate. And Alefantis had lots of customers and friends in liberal Democratic circles.
When Alefantis opened Comet a decade ago, he’d had a run-in with an advisory neighborhood commissioner, a local official who did not like it when Comet put ping-pong tables on the sidewalk. That commissioner had warned that having game tables on the sidewalk might bring “rapes and murders” to the virtually crime-free neighborhood.
Now, a decade later, a Washington Post column about that dispute was trending on Twitter. Somewhere out there, thousands of people were hungrily searching the Internet for anything remotely troubling about Comet Ping Pong.
In the final days before the election, other shopkeepers on the block began to receive threatening phone calls and disturbing emails. Strangers from faraway places demanded to know about symbols on their shop windows or photos on their walls.
Across from Comet, at the French bistro Terasol, co-owner Sabrina Ousmaal noticed a disturbing Google review of her restaurant that alleged that Terasol, too, was involved in a plot to abuse children.
Then, more online comments appeared, focusing on a photo on Terasol’s website that showed Ousmaal and her daughter posing with Clinton, who had eaten there several years earlier. The Internet sleuths also fixated on a heart logo that appeared on the restaurant’s site as part of a fundraiser for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, which Ousmaal, a cancer survivor, has supported for years.
“These maniacs thought that was a symbol of child pornography,” said her husband and business partner, Alan Moin. “It’s crazy.”
The family removed the symbol from their site, but the online comments adapted to the new reality: Terasol must be hiding something. The anonymous calls increased.
“What can we do?” Ousmaal said. “There is no basement. There is no tunnel. There is nothing.”
Alefantis and other merchants were mystified: Where was this all coming from? Can’t anyone make it stop?
The merchants approached Facebook and Twitter and asked that disparaging, fictitious comments about them be removed. The shopkeepers said the replies they got advised them to block individual users who were harassing them.
The owner of 4chan, Hiroyuki Nishimura, said in an email to The Post that “Pizzagate reminds me that a country indicated [there were] stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and many people and countries were deceived. It is same old story.”
Nishimura, a Japanese Internet entrepreneur, said the rumors about Comet could be false: “Some people, who believe they do something good, may be deceived by false information.” But, he said, their motive was good; they “did it for saving children.”
On Connecticut Avenue, the hate calls and death threats kept mounting. Surely, the shopkeepers thought, this will all go away after the election.
On Election Day, Brittany Pettibone, a right-wing online activist in California who writes science-fiction novels with her twin sister, tweeted drawings of children under the label “Sexualized children, child abuse, pools, and bondage.” She wrote that the images were “a look inside Hillary Clinton’s friend Tony Podesta’s house.” Tony Podesta, a Washington lobbyist, is John’s brother.
Pettibone attached the hashtag #PizzaGate. “We need to expose this,” she wrote in another tweet.
Dozens of commenters responded almost immediately. “How do we make this VIRAL?” one wrote.
Several of the most frequent and prominent purveyors of the Pizzagate rumors said they first learned about the supposed conspiracy from Pettibone’s postings.
“I was one of the first,” Pettibone said in a brief conversation Tuesday. She said she would not take part in an interview: “I’m uninclined to speak to mainstream media because during the election cycle, they made the right look like nut jobs because we suspected Hillary had a health issue, and it turned out she did.”
For a few days after Donald Trump’s victory, a relative calm returned to Comet. But along the block, merchants were hearing from all manner of strange callers. At Besta Pizza, owner Abdel Hammad got an urgent message from the company that maintains his website. A reviewer alleged that his shop’s simple, pizza-shaped logo was a symbol of child pornography. Hammad, an Egyptian immigrant who voted for Trump, was stunned.
“It’s a slice of pizza,” he said.
Hammad removed the image from his site but could not afford more than $2,000 to pay for new signs out front.
“Why did you change the website?!” anonymous callers screamed at him on the phone.
“We’re going to put a bullet in your head,” one threatened.
Down the block, at Politics and Prose Bookstore, employees noticed tweets and other online posts that included them on a list of stores linked by underground tunnels that do not exist.
The fact that one of the shop’s co-owners, Lissa Muscatine, had worked as Clinton’s speechwriter and adviser for two decades quickly became one more data point in the Pizzagate activists’ conspiracy theory.
The shop’s phone rang off the hook with profane, abusive calls from across the country. Employees simply hung up, over and over.
Frustrated and frightened, merchants along the block talked to the police. They called the FBI, which said the threats were a local matter.
On Nov. 16, Jack Posobiec, a former Navy Reserve intelligence officer who had spent much of the previous year as a leader of a pro-Trump grass-roots organization, decided he’d had enough of just reading tweets and blog posts about the pizza place in his city.
Posobiec, 31, had never eaten at Comet; he had never even heard of the place until he started reading about it on conservative, antigovernment media sites. “I didn’t pay much attention to it before Election Day because I was focused on the campaign,” he said. “With that going on, who wants to talk about pizza?”
Now, with Trump elected, he read the posts more closely. Any story that accused Clinton, John Podesta and Brock of nefarious deeds deserved some investigation, he thought. He believed the Clinton campaign was “full of secrecy and deception.”
It seemed reasonable to Posobiec that Podesta might have organized a sex ring in cahoots with Brock. But the only part of the scenario that was real was that Podesta had been known to eat pizza at Comet. This part is false: pictures purporting to show that symbols, such as butterflies and spirals, in signs at Comet and other shops were statements about pedophilia.
Posobiec said he was curious and confused. He and a friend decided to go have some pizza. They walked into Comet eight days after the election, sat down and ordered. Posobiec got the garlic knots. His friend got a beer. But they were not just hanging out. Posobiec was using his phone to broadcast his evening at Comet on Periscope, an app that allows users to stream video live.
“Part of the experience of living in 2016 is live, on-the-scene broadcasts,” he said. “People have lost faith with government and the mainstream media being any real authority. After the Iraq War, after Benghazi, people are searching for other sources of information. If I can do something with Periscope and show what I’m seeing with my own two eyes, that’s helpful.”
Posobiec said he never made any disturbance inside Comet, but the restaurant’s managers saw him take his camera into a back room where a child’s birthday party was underway. It did not seem appropriate for a child’s party to be broadcast on a stranger’s Periscope feed. The manager asked two D.C. police officers who happened to be across the street to assist.
Posobiec and his friend “were gently refused service and asked to leave,” said a person familiar with the restaurant’s decision.
Posobiec offered to pay for what he had ordered. The manager said it was on the house.
Posobiec said he was not there to make a scene. “I didn’t have any preconceived notions,” he said. “I wasn’t sure. I thought I could just show it was a regular pizza place.”
That evening, after Posobiec was ushered out of Comet, Pettibone tweeted: “You’re my hero for doing this, Jack. Never let go.”
On Twitter, the hashtag #pizzagate peaked in the hours after Posobiec’s video appeared.
On Nov. 22, Reddit closed its “r/pizzagate” subreddit, a site forum focused on a particular topic. The site said it was concerned that Pizzagate posts were revealing private information about people at Comet and nearby stores. “We don’t want witch-hunts on our site,” it said. The decision sparked allegations of censorship from some people who were spreading the Pizzagate rumors. They moved their discussion to a similar site, Voat.
On Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend, two men carrying protest signs showed up outside Comet.
Alefantis went outside and offered the men coffee. They declined the offer.
On the phone and online, threats poured in, with as many as 150 calls a day.
The shopkeepers approached D.C. police for help. An officer advised them that the online rumormongering was constitutionally protected speech. Ousmaal replied in an email that she respects freedom of speech but that “derogatory libelous and hateful blogs and emails should not and cannot qualify.”
The officer, Anthony Baker, responded, “I don’t have anymore options to give unfortunately.”
A D.C. police statement issued Tuesday said that the department “became aware of the fictional allegations contained in the false news story last month; however, despite postings of offensive language, we did not receive reports of any specific threats. Officers advised the staff to immediately report to police any threats made against the establishment or individuals.”
Earlier this fall, in Salisbury, N.C., Edgar Maddison Welch saw some friends doing drugs and he started preaching at them, aggressively.
Danielle Tillman, 23, was the best friend of Welch’s girlfriend. She said she had just taken acid when Welch got upset, chanting Jesus’ name at her.
“He grabbed my hand and got in my face and was like, ‘Let the demons out of her,’ ” Tillman recalled. “It was super weird.”
Welch, known to friends as Maddison, had struck friends as a sweet young man who’d had trouble finding his way. He had dabbled in acting — his father ran a small movie studio out of his house — and in writing and firefighting. None of it stuck. He liked to hike, long stretches out West, through mountain ranges, over rivers, into national forests.
A few years ago, he told his hometown newspaper that through hiking, he had broken his addiction to the Internet.
But Welch had another habit. He was arrested several times on drug-possession charges and his name appeared on a forged prescription, according to police records. He was convicted of marijuana possession and public drinking and was sent to a substance-abuse program.
Friends say Welch, 28, in recent months grew far more outwardly religious. “He sees himself as someone who is a protector,” said his friend Charles Dobson, 28. “He is just a thrill-seeking guy.”
On his Facebook page, Welch has posted biblical verses and psalms, some related to the end of days, along with photos of his two children. “Only by your power can we push back our enemies,” one verse reads. “Only in your name can we trample our foes.”
A few years ago, Welch told a longtime friend and former roommate, Dane Granberry, about stories he had read online describing miles of secret tunnels under the Denver airport. Welch, who had also been fascinated by conspiracy theories about the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks having been staged by the United States, had become obsessed with the tunnels idea and spent long hours reading articles, watching videos and searching for details.
“He’s into doing his own research,” Granberry said. “I don’t think he has very much faith in the media, but none of us do.” Granberry said her friend needed to see things for himself.
On Friday or Saturday, Welch drove to the District, according to court testimony. He showed up at Comet on Sunday about 3 p.m.
Gareth Wade, 47, and Doug Clarke, 50, were sitting down for pizza and beer when a server told them that someone had walked in with a gun. As Welch passed by their table, he told them to vacate the building. They rushed out.
Outside, dozens of D.C. police officers swarmed the area, evacuating businesses and blocking off streets. A police helicopter circled overhead.
Inside Comet, Welch, armed with a Colt AR-15 assault rifle, a.38-caliber Colt revolver and a folding knife, fired his gun two or three times, police said.
Welch, dressed in jeans, a T-shirt and a hooded sweatshirt, remained inside for about 45 minutes, searching for underground vaults or hidden rooms, police said. At least one gunshot broke off a lock to a door. It led not to hidden sex workers but to a computer room. The bullet damaged a computer tower.
At some point, a Comet worker who had been in the back freezer retrieving dough and had missed the earlier commotion heard the shots and emerged into the restaurant. Welch swung the rifle in his direction and the worker fled out onto the avenue, police said.
Finally, Welch responded to police calls for him to leave the building and surrender. He put his AR-15 on top of a beer keg and his revolver on a table. He came out with his hands up, following police commands to walk backward toward them.
Welch was handcuffed, and Sgt. Benjamin Firehock asked him why he had done it. Welch said, according to the arrest affidavit, “that he had read online that the Comet restaurant was harboring child sex slaves and that he wanted to see for himself if they were there. [Welch] stated that he was armed to help rescue them. [Welch] surrendered peacefully when he found no evidence that underage children were being harbored in the restaurant.”
Within hours of Welch’s arrest, online conspiracy theorists had already decided that he was not one of them. Some suggested he was a “false flag,” a government plant — an enemy of their cause — who had been used in an elaborate plot to conceal the truth.
For years, people have made similar claims about everything from the 9/11 attacks (a government conspiracy to justify war, they say) to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting (a government conspiracy to justify gun control, they say).
Now, in Welch’s case, the conspiracy theorists insisted that the real news about his dangerous assault was, in fact, fake news.
Comet Ping Pong reopened Tuesday night; the crowd was large and supportive.
For some months now, Stefanie MacWilliams, 24, a stay-at-home mother of a 1-year-old boy in Ontario, has written nearly every day, usually about politics, for Planet Free Will, a conservative website based in the United States. Her husband, a mechanic, is the family’s main breadwinner, but MacWilliams has been earning some money, too, writing a lot about how good Trump would be for America, and a fair amount about how bad President Obama was.
Starting in early November, MacWilliams noticed that stories based on the Podesta emails were making waves. A friend “who knows I’m interested in politics and shares conspiracy things with me” sent MacWilliams stories about Comet Ping Pong.
Then she happened upon Posobiec’s live stream from Comet. This, she decided, was a story. She told the Pizzagate tale in a YouTube video, on Twitter and on Planet Free Will.
In the third paragraph of her story, MacWilliams wrote that “we must stress that there is as yet no concrete evidence of any wrongdoing.” She thought she was being quite responsible. She had read Internet chatter about strange happenings and code words, and she thought this needed investigation. She was miffed that Posobiec had been escorted out of Comet when his video tour might have gotten to the bottom of the mystery.
MacWilliams’s story spread via social media. She became part of what she called a “worldwide citizen investigation” of Pizzagate.
When she saw Reddit and Twitter react to the conspiracy theory, respectively shutting down a discussion forum and suspending the accounts of some users, she worried that a coverup was underway. “As soon as you tell people they can’t talk about something, they’re going to talk about it a whole lot more,” she said.
MacWilliams calls herself a journalist, but she does not try to be “100 percent accurate,” either. She believes the beauty of the Internet is that people can crowdsource the truth. Eventually, what is real will emerge, she said.
Pizzagate, she said, is “two worlds clashing. People don’t trust the mainstream media anymore, but it’s true that people shouldn’t take the alternative media as truth, either.” The lack of stories about Pizzagate in the mainstream press meant that the back channels of the Internet would step into the breach.
But how does this end? What could constitute proof that there is no conspiracy? Some Pizzagate buffs want a video tour showing that there are no secret rooms or tunnels. Others say they would need more.
MacWilliams remains caught up in the thrill of the chase. “There is a camaraderie to it,” she said. “It is like sitting around with your friends saying, ‘What really happened to JFK?’ It is like a giant game, especially nowadays when you can crowdsource thousands of emails and figure out what’s going on. It’s like a real-life Kennedy assassination where all the stuff is at your fingertips, and it’s happening today.”
When the New York Times mentioned her site on Nov. 21 as a source of fake news, MacWilliams got a little angry, but she also had reason to smile: The traffic on Planet Free Will soared as never before.
The story is everywhere. Some Americans especially keen on Pizzagate find themselves being accused of being Russian stooges, or of working for hackers intent on disrupting the American political process.
In a small city north of Tel Aviv, in the small hours of the night, Avrahaum Segol, a New Yorker |
-League 2016 Finals Series is not to be missed.
Melbourne City FC’s Uruguayan striker Bruno Fornaroli scored 23 goals, a record haul in a Hyundai A-League season, while Brisbane Roar FC marksman Jamie Maclaren’s 18 goals is a record for an Australian player.
The Elimination Finals (Week One) of the Hyundai A-League 2016 Finals Series, presented by FOXTEL, will see Brisbane Roar FC (3rd) host Melbourne Victory (6th) on Friday (15 April) and Melbourne City FC (4th) go head to head with Perth Glory (5th) on Sunday (17 April).
Adelaide United and the Western Sydney Wanderers FC will await the winners of the Elimination Finals for a spot in the Hyundai A-League 2016 Grand Final to be played on Sunday 1 May 2016.
Hyundai A-League 2016 Elimination Finals (Week One)
Brisbane Roar FC v Melbourne Victory
Friday, 15 April 2016
Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane
Kick-Off: 7:35pm (AEST)
Get your tickets via: http://ffaus.co/16fsBRIvMVC
Melbourne City FC v Perth Glory
Sunday, 17 April 2016
AAMI Park, Melbourne
Kick-Off: 5:00pm (AEST)
Get your tickets via http://ffaus.co/16fsMCYvPER
Week Two of the Hyundai A-League 2016 Finals Series, presented by FOXTEL, will see Adelaide United and Western Sydney Wanderers FC play the winners of the Elimination Finals.
Hyundai A-League 2016 Semi Finals (Week Two)
· Adelaide United will face the lowest placed winner from the Hyundai A-League 2016 Elimination Finals
· Western Sydney Wanderers FC will face the highest placed winner from the Hyundai A-League 2016 Elimination Finals
· Adelaide United will play their match against Melbourne City FC, Perth Glory or Melbourne Victory at Coopers Stadium on Friday 22 April. Kick-off is 7:05pm local (7:35 AEST)
· Western Sydney Wanderers FC will play their match against Brisbane Roar FC, Melbourne City FC, Perth Glory at Pirtek Stadium on Sunday 24 April. Kick-off is 5.00pm (AEST)
Hyundai A-League 2016 Finals Series, presented by FOXTEL
Hyundai A-League 2016 Elimination Finals
Hyundai A-League 2016 Elimination Final 1
Brisbane Roar FC v Melbourne Victory
Friday, 15 April 2016
Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane
Kick-Off 7:35pm (AEST)
Ticketing Information
Brisbane Roar member and away team member on sale – Monday 11 April 9am to 4pm
Football Family (Roar members have the opportunity to purchase additional tickets during this time) – Monday 11 April 5pm to Tuesday 12 April 11am
General Public on sale – Tuesday 12 April 12pm
(All on sale times in AEST)
Get your tickets via: http://ffaus.co/16fsBRIvMVC
How much are tickets?
Category A - $55 Adult, $45 Concession, $30 Child, $140 Family
Category B - $45 Adult, $35 Concession, $25 Child, $115 Family
Category C General Admission - $35 Adult, $30 Concession, $20 Child $90 Family
The Den - $35 Adult, $30 Concession, $20 Child $90 Family
Hyundai A-League 2016 Elimination Final 2
Melbourne City FC v Perth Glory
Sunday, 17 April 2016
AAMI Park, Melbourne
Kick-Off 5.00pm (AEST)
Ticketing Information
City member and away team member on sale – Monday 11 April 9am to 4pm
Football Family (City members have the opportunity to purchase additional tickets during this time) – Monday 11 April 5pm to Tuesday 12 April 11am
General Public on sale – Tuesday 12 April 12pm
(All on sale times in AEST)
Get your tickets via http://ffaus.co/16fsMCYvPER
How much are tickets?
Category A - $65 Adult, $50 Concession, $30 Child, $160 Family
Category B – $50 Adult, $40 Concession, $25 Child, $125 Family
Category C General Admission - $35 Adult, $25 Concession, $15 Child, $85 Family
Active Support - $35 Adult, $25 Concession, $15 Child, $85 Family
Hyundai A-League 2016 Semi Finals
Hyundai A-League 2016 Semi Final 1
Adelaide United (1st) v Lowest placed winner from the Elimination Finals
Friday 22 April 2016
Coopers Stadium, Adelaide
Kick-Off: 7:05pm local (7.35pm AEST)
Ticketing Information
Monday 11 April 9am – 9am: Adelaide Untied Members Presale
Tuesday 12 April 12pm – Wednesday April 13 11am – Football Family
Wednesday April 13 12pm – General Public
Monday 18 April 9am – Away Team members on sale
Adelaide Untied Members Presale, Away Team Members presale – Monday 11 April 9am to 4pm
Football Family (AUFC members have the opportunity to purchase additional tickets during this time) – Monday 11 April 5pm to Tuesday 12 April 11am
General Public on sale – Tuesday 12 April 12pm
(All on sale times in ACST)
Get your tickets via http://ffaus.co/16fsADLsf
How much are tickets?
Category A - $55 Adult, $45 Concession, $30 Child, $140 Family
Category B General Admission- $35 Adult, $25 Concession, $20 Child, $90 Family
Red Army - $35 Adult, $25 Concession, $20 Child, $90 Family
Hyundai A-League 2016 Semi Final 2
Western Sydney Wanderers FC (2nd) v Highest placed winner from the Elimination Finals
Sunday 24 April 2016
Kick-Off: 5:00pm (AEST)
Pirtek Stadium, Parramatta
Ticketing Information
WSW member and away team member on sale (including same seat) – Monday 11 April 9am to 8am Tuesday 12 April
Football Family (WSW members have the opportunity to purchase additional tickets during this time) – Tuesday 12 April 9am to Tuesday 12 April 12pm
General Public on sale – Tuesday 12 April 1pm
(All on sale times in AEST)
Get your tickets via http://ffaus.co/16fsWSWsf
How much are tickets?
Category A - $60 Adult, $50 Concession, $40 Child, $160 Family
Category B - $45 Adult, $35 Concession, $30 Child, $120 Family
Category C General Admission - $40 Adult, $30 Concession, $25 Child, $99 Family
RBB - $40 Adult, $30 Concession (no child or family tickets)
NB: Ticketmaster page may not be live due to event not yet being on saleBethesda unsure if Switch powerful enough to run Prey
Chris Stead 13 December 2016 NEWS
We’re only months away from the release of the Nintendo Switch, but its roster of games still remains largely unknown.
Whether it succeeds or fails, the start of 2017 is going to be about the Nintendo Switch. Despite its official naming ceremony and reveal, the Switch remains largely a mystery, with perhaps the biggest question mark revolving around its power. While we wait to hear a final line-up of games, it will be the console’s specs that will define what that list can be. Will it be capable of running the biggest and most demanding titles from the Xbox One and PS4, or not?
We were recently having a chat to Pete Hines, vice-president of Bethesda Softworks, about the company’s plans regarding the Switch. Among other things, he stated that the company was talking to Nintendo and that its philosophy was to “put our games out on any format that supports the games as we envisage and make them”. In short, Bethesda games will appear on the Switch, as long as the game does not have to be compromised to deal with the format’s limitations.
There’s plenty of power-demanding elements to Prey, like the open-world environment, the recycle grenade and the incredible lighting. Is the Switch powerful enough to even run Prey? Bare: I have no idea. There are discussions around it, but there is no conclusion yet.
Obviously Prey is still deep in development and the Nintendo Switch isn’t released yet, but it’s not that far away. In fact, less than five months. Bethesda has been flagged officially as a partner of the Switch and has confirmed The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition will release on the platform. So it’s somewhat surprising that Arkane – a studio owned by Bethesda - don’t know if the Switch will be powerful enough to run Prey. Since the game is to be released on Switch’s competitors - Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC - we can therefore see two possibilities. Bethesda either honestly doesn’t know the Switch’s specs. Or, its power is low to the point that Arkane is unsure if the final game can be optimised enough to work.
Follow us for all the latest mobile phone news and dealsCHICAGO — Even at 8 a.m. on a holiday morning, the walk to football practice at Wendell Phillips Academy in Bronzeville, a black-inner city neighbourhood on Chicago’s South Side, can have life-or-death consequences. Bump into the wrong person, wear the wrong colour, say the wrong thing and you might find a gun in your face. Or a bullet in your head.
That’s the sort of environment Jamal Brown has to contend with every day, not just Thanksgiving. But then, his odds weren’t great to begin with. He never got to meet his dad, who was caught up in some gang stuff and died at 18, three months before Jamal was born. His mom is currently doing time for robbery.
By age 15, Jamal was a high school dropout, holding onto pistols for his gang-banger buddies, fighting and stealing and destined, by his own account, to wind up as another statistic, either dead or in prison, unless he broke the cycle.
“I didn’t want to be remembered as Jamal Brown — the gang banger,” he says. “I want to be able to show kids from the same place that I am from, that there is a way out of everything.”
It’s a show-and-tell many in America badly need after (another) pivotal week in the country’s race relations following the decision by a grand jury in Ferguson, Mo., not to indict Darren Wilson, a white cop, in the shooting death of Michael Brown, a young black man.
Rage and riots have rippled across the country, scratching at the national wound that never seems to heal. Not in Ferguson; not in Florida, after the death of Trayvon Martin in 2012; not in Los Angeles, after the savage police beating of Rodney King 20 years ago; not after the fire hoses and German shepherds and bull whips of Alabama during the civil rights era.
But against this backdrop of racial discord and ongoing black despair, in a place where hope can be hard to find for a young black man, Jamal Brown is part of a new story, a small but promising case study of possibility: It is about his black inner-city high school football team and their white Canadian football coach.
“This is the most positive story that is out there,” says Joe Winslow, a black man born and raised on the South Side, and an assistant with the Wendell Phillips Wildcats. “This is what can happen when people come together.
“This is a white head coach in a black neighbourhood — and it ain’t predominantly black — it’s black, where there are still gangs running certain neighbourhoods and running certain blocks, and where there are still kids getting jumped because they are wearing Phillips hoodies.”
Built in 1904, Wendell Phillips Academy was Chicago’s first predominantly African-American high school. Crooner Nat King Cole, soul man Sam Cooke, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks, cosmetics magnate George Johnson Sr., even the Harlem Globetrotters went there.
But what had become a symbol of black pride started to fall apart in the 1970s. Well-paid factory jobs that a black high school graduate could once expect to secure evaporated. Economic and social breakdown washed over the South Side. And Wendell Phillips suffered: Dropout rates soared, gang culture flourished, drugs took hold.
Things got so bad that by 2010 the iconic school was rated the second-worst high school, in terms of academic performance and overall experience, in the state. There was talk of tearing the place down.
Instead, it was earmarked for a “turnaround,” Chicago education-speak for a not-for-profit initiative aimed at revitalizing the city’s failing schools. Every staff member, from the principal on down to the lunch ladies, was fired, which is how Troy McAllister — a stout redhead with a red beard from farm country north of Kingston, Ont. — got a job interview.
He had played football at Queen’s University, earned a Master’s in Education from D’Youville College in Buffalo and had driven West in 2006, in a silver Chevy Impala, after seeing a flyer at school about a job fair in Chicago. He was hired on the spot to teach kindergarten at a South Side elementary school.
“I figured I would give it a year and if it didn’t work out I could always move home,” Mr. McAllister, now 36, says.
But he saw soon enough that he loved it, and so he stayed, found a place to live on the embattled South Side and got involved in coaching youth basketball and football, with the ambition of coaching a high school team some day.
“When they brought me into Phillips for an interview there were literally cages on the stairwells and kids shooting dice in the halls,” Mr. McAllister says. The school felt like a prison. And the coach, who also teaches Phys Ed., jokes that the only reason he got the job was because nobody else wanted it. The team he inherited didn’t own any footballs or have any pads to outfit the players, at least the 12 that bothered to show up the first year.
The Wildcats finished 2-7.
Four years later, though, on American Thanksgiving Day, more than 40 kids are at a morning practice, Jamal Brown among them. They are preparing for Friday night’s State Championship game at Memorial Stadium in Champaign, Ill., two hours south of Chicago.
The last time a Chicago public school team made state finals was 1982. No public team has ever won the title. Certainly, nobody would have foreseen that Phillips could be the first, or that their head coach would be a white guy.
“Saying that it was controversial, Troy coming here, is an understatement,” says his assistant. “People were literally throwing daggers at Troy and saying, ‘Why isn’t a black man leading this team?’ Other black coaches kept telling me, ‘Just wait, they are going to kick the white boy out of there.’ ”
It’s a refrain Mr. McAllister’s black colleagues at Phillips grew accustomed to hearing, one they replied to by pointing out that the coach isn’t actually white — but a Canadian.
But it’s a crack that, when uttered on the South Side, is weighted with meaning. The geography of Chicago is sketched along racial lines. Whites primarily live in the north end; blacks in the south; Hispanics and blacks in the west. The suburbs are white and wealthy, and the inner city predominantly black and poor. The racial solitudes reinforce the cycle of mutual misunderstanding and distrust. And this is America in 2014. And there is no easy fix.
But maybe what is happening at Phillips is a start.
“My upbringing wasn’t like being brought up in a Chicago,” Mr. McAllister says. “But I think when people see that you have a good heart and you genuinely care for these young men, and that you are looking out for them — they accept you.”
A cold wind is pouring off Lake Michigan, whipping across Mandrake Park, whistling over the empty lots and community housing projects and revival churches and liquor stores and the big Chicago police SUV, parked at the corner, just because the Wendell Phillips Wildcats are practicing here, in a place where bad stuff can happen, a few blocks from the school.
So Mr. McAllister blows his whistle and tells the boys to head back and get ready for the team’s Thanksgiving lunch at Pearl’s Restaurant, a local soul-food joint with spare décor, but a warm atmosphere. There is white linen on the tables and old album covers — John Coltrane, Nat King Cole, Harry Belafonte — on the walls.
Jamal warily eyes a plate loaded with macaroni and cheese. He is supposed to meet his two sisters later. They won’t be seeing their mom anytime soon. But he is now on track to graduate along with the rest of the team’s 12 seniors.
“Coach McAllister has had a huge impact on me,” the 19-year-old says. “This team is a family, and our coaches care for us, and we know they care for us, and I know they are going to always be there for me.”
Amani Jones, another player, refers to Mr. McAllister as a second “father.” His own father, he says, is in the “picture.” But his mom, who he loves with all his might, is hooked up with a man who doesn’t treat her very well and beats her down, mentally.
“I could see what he was doing to her and I couldn’t just sit and watch,” the 16-year-old says. “There was an altercation.” (He now lives with the girls’ basketball coach at Phillips.)
He says he doesn’t see Mr. McAllister as being white, so much as being a role model. He is a good man who doesn’t disappear on him and he is there to remind him that he has choices, to hold him accountable for the ones he makes.
“Once you find somebody like Coach Troy, once you find somebody that can help lead you the right way and teach you as a man, how to be a man, it really helps,” he says. “He has taught me to man up and be accountable for my mistakes. What you do — you need to explain it.
“The colour of his skin, it doesn’t matter, because it is what is in his heart.”
Jamal Brown and Amani Jones don’t look at themselves as victims. They don’t blame the world for the world they were born into. And they don’t blame it for Ferguson, either. What happened there, they say, is done.
It is tragic. And wrong. And they understand it, because they are black: Wear a Phillips hoodie at the wrong bus stop at the wrong time and there is a good chance you might get stomped. Or worse.
But worst of all, the boys say, would be failing to grasp that you actually do have a chance, same as anybody else, to try to do the right thing — a lesson they have learned from their football coach.
“You know, it is 50/50 with a lot of these kids,” Mr. McAllister says. “The tricky part is, the path we want these young men to choose, is the hard one. I tell them all the time, ‘Look, it is easy to sit at home and play video games and smoke weed all day; it is hard to come to school at 8 a.m. and go to class, then study hall, then football practice and then get home at eight o’clock at night.’
“It is a challenge. You just hope that if they accept that challenge, the reward will be winning a state championship and ultimately going on to college.”
Jamal Brown is headed to Illinois State next year on a football scholarship. He wants to be a history teacher, and a coach. His coach at Phillips, meanwhile, has an office off the gym behind a door marked, “closet.” Inside, there is a mess of papers, basketballs and football playbooks.
“Phillips is completely different than from what it was,” he says. “That is not to say we don’t still have problems, we do, but it is different.”
The caged stairwells are gone. Attendance is up. Test scores are gradually improving. The hallways are decorated with posters pointing out all the “places you will go” — Harvard, Grambling State University and Howard University. There are inspirational quotes from Martin Luther King and Gandhi. There is a photograph of Nat King Cole just inside the main doors.
“You know the old saying about crabs in a bucket, you see somebody getting out and you reach up and pull them down?” Mr. Winslow says. “Well, that is what this neighbourhood was and that is what we are trying to change. We are trying to get all the crabs out of the bucket.”
What the players don’t realize is just how learning has happened in both directions. Mr. McAllister can teach them about accountability and making smart life choices. They have taught him how remarkable life can be.
“These young men have taught me more about life in my five years here than I have learned during the rest of my lifetime,” he says. “Some of the drive in these young men is incredible, and it is eye-opening and heartwarming and every cliché you could ever think to say about it — because it is truly amazing, because these kids, from the moment they were born, were behind in life.
“But they don’t care about that, because they are determined to overcome it, no matter what.”
The coach and his players have leaned on one another, this unlikely team, and grown up together. And now they are in the big game. They are off to play under the Friday night lights at Memorial Stadium.
“We dreamed this impossible dream together,” Jamal Brown says. “But it is not impossible. You just have to want it, if you want to be successful, you just have to want it as bad as you want to breath.”
National Post
Postscript: A crowd of parents stood outside Wendell Phillips Academy at 2am Saturday morning with their collars turned up against the cold waiting for their sons, their nephews, their grandsons to get home. The Wildcats didn’t win the big game at Memorial Stadium, but they didn’t quit, either, losing 49-28 to the Rochester Rockets, the four and now five-time defending state champions. And as the team bus pulled into view, the night air erupted with the sound of car horns and clapping hands, and shouts of, ‘Hold your heads up boys, hold your heads up high. You played a good game. You made us proud.’ Before the boys left the bus Troy McAllister, their Canadian coach, had one last thing to say: “Go and give your families a big hug.”
• Email: joconnor@nationalpost.com | Twitter: oconnorwritesAn Atheist’s History of Belief: understanding our most extraordinary invention
By Matthew Kneale
Published by Bodley Head, 2013, $26.00
Reviewed by Manny Thain
Religion is still big news: the pope canonising previous popes before a crowd of hundreds of thousands, Hindu-based nationalism on the rise in India, armed fighters in Syria under the banner of Islam, the list goes on. The role of religion in society is an important issue of debate, and an atheist’s view should be a welcome addition.
Matthew Kneale sets out to explain how and why religion has changed, taking us on a journey from the times of hunter-gatherers right up to today. It is a lot to fit into 230 pages – too much, in fact. He has a basic premise: “As people’s lifestyles have altered, so have the things they most fear. It is the changes in our fears, I would argue, that have caused our religious ideas to change”.
Kneale describes the first known purpose-built temple (around 9,500 BCE – Before Common Era) in what is today Göbekli Tepe, Turkey. Five-metre tall, ten-ton, t-shaped limestone blocks were hauled up a mountainside and made the centrepiece of a stone circle. This was an important time. The Middle East’s climate became temperate. Hunter-gatherers began cultivating wild crops. Society became more sedentary. Populations increased.
This is what Kneale very loosely terms a lifestyle change. The domestication of animals and the beginnings of agriculture were massive leaps forward. They enabled groups of humans to rise above mere subsistence. It was a development of productive forces which allowed for the huge expenditure of time and energy building the temple.
Kneale raises the possibility that it was religion that led to the development of agriculture. But this is the wrong way round. The people of Göbekli Tepe could only have found the time to build it if they had already reached a stage of producing a surplus. In a society based on subsistence, by definition, every member is involved in hunting and gathering in order to survive.
New gods and spirits were invented to reflect new challenges – following on from the hunter-gatherer spirit world – to try to understand a world full of danger. Temple building was essential work – an attempt to influence the gods and exert some control over their precarious existence. It is linked to observations of the seasons, essential for growing crops and tracking animals, charting the course of the moon and stars, and other natural phenomena.
When it is possible to produce more than is immediately required for survival, it becomes necessary to work out how the surplus is distributed. Eventually, those with control over the surplus coalesce into a ruling elite, a state. Class-based society forms. Priest-kings and their entourage rise to the top. They are the people who hold the knowledge, have the time and state power. They have a vested interest in maintaining their position and passing it on to their heirs. To placate the gods, and reinforce the elite, ever more intricate rituals are developed.
Kneale shows that different societies in different regions came up with broadly similar ideas. There are parallel farming gods in China, Central Asia, the Middle East and Greece, as well as in the Americas, cut off from the rest of humanity for 10,000 years.
There are also similar themes for the afterlife. Initially a dismal underworld, it changes over time. In Egypt around 2,750 BCE, the Cheops pyramid was being constructed to reserve pharaoh Khufu’s place alongside the gods. Five hundred years later, heaven’s doors were opened up to the rich and powerful, for an eternity of leisure. By 1,650 BCE, even poor farmers get the chance to till small plots of land in eternal springtime.
Zarathustra, the founder of Zoroastrianism in 1,200 BCE (give or take 200 years), probably in today’s northern Afghanistan, moved from a multi-god system to two gods (one good, one evil). He introduced some now familiar ideas: prayer five times a day, paradise open to all depending on behaviour, an era of perfection led by a messiah, born of a virgin.
Sometime between 750 and 722 BCE in the northern Jewish kingdom of Israel, the idea of one god was elaborated. It is impossible to underestimate the importance of this innovation. Anyone could worship the gods of the pantheistic systems. This, however, was to be a specifically Jewish god, an essential part of building Jewish identity.
Kneale deals with the question of religious texts, which were constantly being revised, and forged. Scrolls would suddenly appear, claimed to be centuries old, ‘prophesying’ events (which had already happened!) and laying down new rules. Inevitably, they would be in response to some change in the situation. Daniel’s dream, written in the 160s BCE, was resistance literature at a time of occupation, promising triumph if the Jews kept the faith. The Christian Book of Revelation (around 95 CE – Common Era), ‘foresaw’ the destruction of the Roman empire. An apocalyptic text in the late seventh century spoke of crushing the Muslim Arabs – the rising new empire.
From the fourth century, Christianity was established as the favoured religion of the Roman empire. To achieve that, it had to change radically. Once Paul – converted after Jesus’ death – gets in on the act, it undergoes a major reworking. Paul was a hardliner, marginalising women and exercising strict ideological control. This was a process, a struggle against stubborn resistance by other Christian groups.
Kneale covers the rise of Islam, and includes sections on Mesoamerica, China and Buddhism, among other issues too numerous to include here. He draws attention to the significance of the Reformation in the early sixteenth century. Martin Luther’s declaration that faith alone was sufficient for salvation challenged over 1,000 years of church of Rome rule. Breaking the church’s monopoly unleashed an eruption of movements from below, enraged at its bloated corrupt bureaucracy.
Kneale is more muddled when he attempts to equate Nazism with religion. He describes how in 1875 Madame Blavatsky, a Ukrainian aristocrat, announced the Theosophy Movement, a mishmash of ‘alternative’ religion, spiritualism and racism. She proclaimed that there existed a pure race descended from priest kings: the Aryans. This bonkers notion was taken up by a few Austrian aristocrats and, to cut a long and tediously told story short, the idea of Aryan racial supremacy developed. This was embraced by figures such as Heinrich Himmler, who sent expeditions to Finland, Iceland, Iran and Tibet in search of proof of an ancient Aryan race.
In all this Kneale makes no mention of what was actually taking place in Germany at the time: the economic and social upheaval, or the colossal struggle by millions of German Marxists and trade union militants against the Nazis – or the Spanish revolution, the great depression, etc. This is an extreme example of a flaw that runs through his book; the interesting material is let down by Kneale’s abstract, idealistic approach.
Leaving aside his scandalous attempt to link Marxism with right-wing political Islam, his non-materialist atheism is summed up in his attitude towards it: “Yet I would suggest that perhaps the greatest allure of Marxism, to Russians, Chinese and others was neither its seeming modernity, nor its style, nor even its message that history was a process of class conflict which would lead to proletarian triumph. It was its vision of the end of the world”.
To fit his schema, Kneale casts Karl Marx as an apocalyptic prophet. But Marx did not hand down commandments to be obeyed and applied to every situation. Marxism is not a religion. It is a materialist philosophy based on an analysis of what is taking place at a given time, and of society, the economic foundations on which it rests, and their complicated interconnections. It understands that the world is in constant motion: physically, socially, economically, politically. It uses this flexible method to map out perspectives and likely developments – above all, to equip mass movements of the working class to bring about the socialist transformation of society, in the real world.The Barcelona full-back helped the Catalan club to two more trophies in 2010-11 and is next as our countdown of the best players in the world last season reaches its top 20
"Dani brings us a special dynamic, physique, and skills, but most of all it's the way he can change a game. He has everything."
- Barcelona sporting director Andoni Zubizarreta
MOMENT OF THE SEASON
LA LIGA
BARCELONA 2-1 GETAFE
Alves struck a sweet half-volley from with the outside of his right boot, which curled into the corner and set Barca on their way an important victory in March. In the celebration, he flexed his muscles and kissed his tattooed bicep in front of the approving Camp Nou crowd.
"In pure football terms, Alves has confirmed his status as the best right-back in the world, adding a different dimension to Barca's play under Pep Guardiola. "
Welcome to the50! In this special series, Goal.com editors worldwide vote for the top 50 players of 2010-11. We count down to the announcement of the winner on August 22 with profiles of each and every player who made it into the top 50...Barcelona's disappointing defeat at promoted side Numancia on August 31, 2008 seemed a forgettable occasion for Blaugrana fans at the time, but it marked the beginning of the most memorable era in the Catalan club's modern history. Pep Guardiola made his domestic debut as Barca coach that night, surviving the sorry Soria showing to seal an historic treble of La Liga, Champions League and Copa del Rey titles, the first steps on the way to building one of the most successful teams of all time.And one of the key members of that team has a story which runs parallel to Pep's trajectory as coach of the Catalan club. That player also debuted at Numancia and has since gone on to become the finest exponent of his position in the world. That player is Dani Alves.Before moving to Barcelona, Alves starred in the superb Sevilla side that won back-to-back Uefa Cups in 2006 and 2007. Never a prolific goalscorer but always chipping in with several strikes each season, the Brazilian represented the Andalusians' principal attacking threat - despite operating as a right-back.Alves accumulated 19 and 18 assists, respectively, in his last two seasons in the south of Spain, and has continued in the same vein at Camp Nou, racking up a career best total of 20 in 54 appearances last term.At the end of his second season, Dani was part of the Barca side that saw their hopes of retaining the Champions League go up in smoke with a semi-final defeat against Inter, who would go on to win the competition. He also watched Inter rival and compatriot Maicon take the plaudits as he was voted Club defender of the year by Uefa and named in Fifa's World XI for the season. And Maicon's form saw Alves' path to the right-back spot blocked for Brazil as well, with the Inter star also finding his way into the All-star team at last summer's World Cup.A year on, however, and the roles have been reversed. While Maicon's star is falling, Alves' ascent shows no signs of stalling. The Barca right-back plays high up the pitch for Guardiola's side, operating as an unorthodox winger and supporting the attack; Alves has formed glorious associations with both Lionel Messi and Pedro on the right. Blessed with pace, power, strength, excellent technical ability and a fierce shot, the Brazilian is the complete modern player.A return of four goals and 20 assists in 54 games from full-back is testament to that, although question marks remain over the Brazilian's solidity in defence. Alves clumsily conceded a penalty to Marcelo - even though the latter apparently later told him he had dived - against Real Madrid in early April at the Santiago Bernabeu and caused controversy with his play-acting antics in the same series of four Clasico clashes with Barca's eternal enemy.In pure football terms, however, Alves has confirmed his status as the best right-back in the game, adding a different dimension to Barca's play under Guardiola. He endured a difficult Copa America campaign, failing to impress in the opening two games and losing his place as Mano Menezes' side crashed out in the quarter-finals, but many of the game's biggest stars, including his Barca team-mate Messi, flattered to deceive in the continental competition.Feeling undervalued by Barca, Alves was seriously considering his future earlier on in the campaign, claiming through the press that he felt his club should appreciate him more. A new deal was finally agreed, however, and sporting director Andoni Zubizarreta expressed his delight, saying: "He plays with an intensity that has nothing to do with tactics but is more about spirit. Alves has everything. We have looked at the market and there is nobody like him, he’s unique in his position."It's a fair assessment: there is indeed nobody like Alves in his position - and Barca fans will be very happy to have him charging down the flank for the next four seasons. Numancia seems a long time ago now.The tiger is the largest wild cat in the world. The big cat weighs up to 720 pounds (363 kilograms), stretches 6 feet (2 meters) long.
100,000 wild tigers roamed Asia a century ago, but today their numbers have fallen to around 3,200 due to poaching.
Of this remnant population, just 1,000 are breeding females, individuals that hold the last hope for this magnificent and iconic great cat according to the Wildlife Conservation Society.
Tigers use their tails to communicate with one another. A tiger is relaxed if their tail is loosely hanging. Aggression is displayed by rapidly moving the tail from side to side or by holding it low with occasional intense twitches.
The tiger generally hunts alone, able to bring down prey such as deer and antelope. Unlike lions, tigers live solitary lives and mark their territories to keep others away.
The life span of tigers in the wild is thought to be about 10 years. Tigers in zoos live twice as long.
A tiger's stripes help to break up the outline of its body and make it hard to see. They also look like shadows as the tiger stalks through long grass in the moonlight. Tigers have striped skin not just striped fur.
The stripes are like fingerprints and no two tigers have the same pattern. The species name Tigris is Greek for "arrow". It is thought that its name was derived from the straight (as an arrow) and fast-flowing Tigris.
Tigers wait until dark to hunt. Due to a retinal adaptation that reflects light back to the retina, the night vision of tigers is six times better than that of humans. Tigers have more rods (responsible for visual acuity for shapes) in their eyes than cones (responsible for color vision) to assist with their night vision. The increased number of rods allows them to detect movement of prey in darkness where color vision would not be useful.
Less than 10% of tiger’s hunts end successfully. Once a tiger has spotted its prey, it sneaks as close as possible to its victim. Then the tiger sprints to the unsuspecting animal, usually pulling it off its feet with its teeth and claws. If the prey animal is large, the tiger bites its throat to |
consciences. We are accountable.
In my life with animals, I have come to love and respect their Dao. It is the essence of the animal nature, the heart and soul of them. I suppose this is one of the reasons I love Simon. I am trying to follow my own Dao too, and I believe that life is sometimes ruthless.Mitt Romney is indisputably a very rich man. And if he is elected president on Nov. 6, he will become one of the wealthiest people ever to hold the office.
But exactly how wealthy is Romney? The figure that gets tossed around is $250 million in net worth — meaning the total value of his assets, financial and others, minus any debts.
It’s a big number, but frankly, it seems low. Given the industry in which he made his fortune (private equity), the era when he made it (the 1980s and 1990s) and the wealth of his peers in that business (mostly billionaires), Romney should be worth a good bit more than that.
Why isn’t he?
No surprise, Romney has not made it easy to figure out the precise size of his fortune, and any inferences drawn from the available data are necessarily speculative — yet they still, I think, say something about the man who would be president.
View Graphic Mitt Romney's $250 million net worth is much smaller than that of the other big players in the private-equity and leveraged buyout business, as listed in the latest Forbes 400 list of the richest people in America.
We know that Romney’s fortune derives in large part from his founding in 1984 of Bain Capital, one of the premier private-equity firms in the world, which he ran for the next 15 years or so, during a boom time for the industry. Among Bain’s most successful investments are those in well-known companies such as Staples, Domino’s Pizza, Dunkin’ Donuts and the Weather Channel. Others include lesser-known enterprises such as Experian, an information-services company that Bain bought (with Thomas H. Lee Company, another Boston-based buyout firm) for $1 billion in 1996 and sold months laterfor a profit of $700 million; and Seat Pagine Gialle, an Italian yellow-pages business whose investors, including Bain, made $1 billion in profits after two years.
We also know that Bain was supposedly so successful under Romney’s leadership that the firm was able to charge its investors fees 50 percent higher than those of its competitors. Instead of the typical industry fee of 2 percent of the cash under management and 20 percent of the profits on individual deals, Romney extracted from investors a 3 percent fee and 30 percent of profits for the privilege of investing in Bain’s deals. Sophisticated investors — pension funds, university endowments and large foundations — that put money in private equity don’t do this kind of thing willingly. They did it at Bain because they believed it was worth the price to get into the deals.
And finally, we know that the other people who founded private-equity firms around the same time that Romney and his partners started Bain, and who had to make do with a lower fee structure, are far richer than Romney. These men — Henry Kravis and his cousin George Roberts, the founders of KKR & Co.; the late Teddy Forstmann, the founder of Forstmann Little; David Bonderman and Jim Coulter, the founders of TPG Capital; Leon Black, the founder of Apollo Global Management; Steve Schwarzman and Pete Peterson, the founders of the Blackstone Group; David Rubenstein, the founder of the Carlyle Group; and Jonathan Nelson, the founder of Providence Equity Partners — each have a net worth measured in the billions. Schwarzman, with a fortune greater than $5 billion, is the wealthiest buyout mogul, according to the latest Forbes 400 list.
“Mitt Romney should be a billionaire,” Margaret Collins and Richard Rubin stated flatly last month in a detailed Bloomberg News examination of his wealth. Yet, when Boston Magazine listed the 50 wealthiest Bostonians in 2006, Romney, then the governor of Massachusetts, was not even on the list. His Bain partner, Steve Pagliuca, who joined the firm in 1989 (five years after Romney started it) was listed at No. 35, with a net worth of $410 million.
Romney’s net worth of $250 million is an estimate provided to the media by his campaign, and it is in line with the $254 million maximum value of his financial assets found in his June 1 presidential-candidate disclosure form. Yet this form is a masterpiece of obfuscation, in large part because it allows for absurdly wide ranges of value, with little specificity.
The form shows that Romney has about $31 million in cash and between $250,000 and $500,000 worth of gold, and that less than a quarter of his financial assets are related to Bain. The form excludes his homes in California, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. It also excludes the (perfectly legal) tax-avoiding trust he established in 1995 for his children and grandchildren that Bloomberg estimates contains $100 million. But it includes his 1996 charitable remainder trust (listed with a value of less than $50,000 in cash), four speaking fees totaling $190,000, and both his and his wife Ann’s blind trusts and individual retirement accounts.
Romney’s IRA, valued between $21 million and $102 million, must contain a portion of his profits — or “carried interest,” in private-equity speak — from myriad Bain deals. He put the carried interest in his IRA when it was valued at a nominal amount and then, through the financial alchemy of leveraged buyouts, watched its value soar.
It would be illuminating to know precisely how many millions Romney still has in Bain’s private-equity funds, in various Goldman Sachs hedge funds and in hedge funds managed by his son Tagg or his former partner David Dominik — rather than the amorphous “greater than $1 million” disclosure.
Well then, what does Romney’s 813-page2011 tax return — covering the Romneys’ individual income and their trusts and estates — reveal about his net worth? His $13.7 million in income last year derived entirely from sources other than wages or salary. Romney lists $3 million in interest income, two-thirds of which came from interest on his government bonds and one-third from other sources. Although the yield on Treasury securities is historically low — a seven-year Treasury yields a little more than 1 percent — let’s be generous and assume that this portfolio yields 2 percent. That would make the underlying nest egg $150 million.
He lists an additional $3.7 million in dividend income, most of which came from his trust funds. The average dividend yield on the S&P 500 index is 1.97 percent. Using that as a proxy, the size of the underlying portfolio that would yield annual dividends of $3.7 million would be $188 million.
Romney also lists $6.8 million in net capital gains, a combination of $9 million in capital gains and $2.2 million in capital losses. But you can forget about estimating the size of the portfolio that would yield such gains. The tax return provides practically no information about how Romney made them, although his separate net worth statement shows a long list of securities that were sold last year. Setting aside the portfolio that led to the capital gains, the size of the underlying portfolio that yielded $6.7 million in interest and dividend income in 2011 would probably be around $340 million.
So, if Romney’s reported $250 million net worth seems low compared with his peers, his former partners and his securities portfolio, why would it lag so far behind? Theories abound.
Perhaps, instead of being greedy, as he could have been, Romney shared the wealth with his seven other senior partners so that each had a one-eighth stake in Bain and its profits.
Or perhaps, during Romney’s years at the firm, Bain’s funds were smaller than those of its peers; although Bain now manages a whopping $65 billion, it did not have its first $1 billion fund until 1998, the year before Romney left. (By then, Blackstone was investing a nearly $4 billion fund, and KKR was investing a $6 billion fund.)
Or maybe, unlike other funds, Bain had to “aggregate” its losses on deals against its gains before taking its 30 percent profit — in other words, despite getting industry-leading fees, the Bain team’s overall investing track record may have been subpar.
Or, unlike KKR, Blackstone, Apollo and Carlyle, Bain has not (yet) decided to cash out by taking the firm public, which often multiplies the founders’ wealth since public-market values are generally higher than private ones.
Or perhaps Romney missed what Kravis called the “golden age” of private equity in the years before the financial crisis because he went off to run the 2002 Olympics and then the state of Massachusetts. (Bloomberg estimates that if Romney had stayed at Bain, his fortune would exceed $1.3 billion.)
He has also been exceedingly charitable with his wealth, although unlike several of his private-equity peers, he has not signed the Giving Pledge, which would commit him to giving most of his fortune to philanthropic causes.
We may never know the full extent of Romney’s fortune; he has not disclosed a longer history of his tax returns, and R. Bradford Malt, the lawyer at Ropes & Gray who manages the Romneys’ trusts, did not respond to an e-mail I sent seeking comment. But to me, while Romney’s departure from Bain and his willingness to spread his firm’s riches around may account for some of the difference between his wealth and that of other private-equity barons, I still can’t help but suspect that the $250 million figure underestimates Romney’s true wealth.
Does it really matter if Romney is worth $250 million, $1 billion or more? Rich is rich after all, right? I think it does, politically as well as substantively.
Politically, the alternatives are not great. If he were perceived as the first real billionaire to run for president, it would only exacerbate popular doubts about how someone living so removed from the concerns of average Americans — or even just 47 percent of them — could effectively represent them.
And if he is not a billionaire, doesn’t it suggest that he was not a great private-equity investor after all, thus torpedoing his claim to understand how to create jobs and get the economy back on track?
Something to keep in mind on Nov. 6.
wdcohan@yahoo.com
William D. Cohan, a columnist for Bloomberg View, is the author of “Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World” and “House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street.” He has worked at Lazard Freres, Merrill Lynch and JPMorgan Chase.
Read more from Outlook:
The candidates’ message: I might be so-so, but the other guy is terrible
When Romney ran Bain Capital, his word was not his bond
To beat Obama, Romney must channel Rick Santorum
If Obama loses the election, here’s why
Friend us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.A large number of GitHub projects have an associated IRC channel whether it be for support, development or general discussion. Using IRC is great for developers as there are so many tools and clients around and you are not tied to any particular network.
However, getting people from your GitHub project to your IRC channel can be an issue if they are not familiar with IRC.
To help projects out Kiwi IRC now provides an IRC button generator that allows people to join your IRC channel with a single click and without the need for an IRC client to be installed. Using the open source Kiwi IRC client, no plugins are required and works in all browsers making sure that all of your users can access your channel.
As an example, a button for the #kiwiirc channel:
Generating your own IRC buttonIf a lack of third-party plug-in support (i.e. Flash) kept you from trying out Chrome on your Linux system, then avoid no longer. The "early developer version" now supports many plug-ins, and they seem to work pretty well.
Download Google Chrome for Ubuntu:
sudo touch /etc/default/google-chrome
Chromium is the open-source project behind Google Chrome so do not mix them.
sudo mkdir /opt/google/chrome/plugins/ cd /opt/google/chrome/plugins/ ln -s /usr/lib/flashplugin-installer/libflashplayer.so Then start Google Chrome like this:
/opt/google/chrome/google-chrome --enable-plugins %U You can add a shortcut to your Gnome panel by going to Applications > Internet, right click Google Chrome and select " Add to panel ", then right click the panel icon, click " Properties " and then in the " Command " field, paste the above command.
Enabling Flash plugin for Google Chrome is similar to Chromium, create a directory named "plugins" (without the quotes) in /opt/google/chrome/ and then create a symbolic link to your flash player.so library into your /opt/google/chrome/plugins (simply copy & paste the following commands into a terminal):Then start Google Chrome like this:You can add a shortcut to your Gnome panel by going to, right clickand select "", then right click the panel icon, click "" and then in the "" field, paste the above command.
Installing Google Chrome willso your system will automatically keep Chrome up to date. If you don't want Google's repository, do "" before installing the package.Also:Tesla has hired a new executive, long time video game engineer Scott Sims from Microsoft, to lead user interface engineering as the automaker’s new ‘Director of UI Engineering’.
Sims joined Tesla over the last month, according to his recently updated LinkedIn profile.
The engineer has been working in the video game industry for the better part of the last decade and he has been involved with popular titles such as the Halo franchise and Microsoft Kinect Sports game, which uses the tech firm’s motion-sensing technology as player inputs.
More recently, Sims was directly working for Microsoft as ‘Principal Software Development Manager’. He described his job at the company:
“AR & 3D reconstruction on mobile devices. Managed computer vision, UI and app teams developing monocular SLAM and 3D reconstruction running real time on resource constrained hardware.”
There are some parallels with what Tesla is trying to do in its cars, which are also running some advanced applications on resource-constrained hardware.
As we previously reported, Tesla has been increasingly hiring from the video game industry for its software team.
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said that he hires a lot of game programmers at SpaceX:
“We actually hire a lot of our best software engineers out of the gaming industry. In gaming there’s a lot of smart engineering talent doing really complex things. [Compared to] a lot of the algorithms involved in massive multiplayer online games…a docking sequence [between spacecraft] is actually relatively straightforward. So I’d encourage people in the gaming industry to think about creating the next generation of spacecraft and rockets.”
Apparently, the same principles apply to the CEO’s other company, Tesla, where the company has also been hiring several software engineers from the video game industry, especially for the Autopilot programs.
As for the user interface, it has been evolving a lot in Tesla’s vehicles. Here’s a look at the different versions of the UI on the center screen over the years:
Some significant changes here, but Tesla’s user interface also involves its mobile app, instrument cluster, and much more at this point.
With the focus on autonomous driving, the in-car experience is expected to evolve rapidly over the next few years and it will be an interesting aspect to follow closely.
A few years ago, Musk was talking about opening up its system to third-party apps through ‘phone mirroring’, like Android Auto and Apple Carplay, but it now looks like those plans have faded away as Tesla is focusing on keeping the user experience in-house.
Let us know what UI changes you’d like to see in Tesla’s vehicles in the comment section below.WASHINGTON — The sweeping tax overhaul approved by Congress this week hands Republicans a long-sought achievement they believe will bolster their defenses in next year’s midterm campaign, but party officials concede the measure may only mitigate their losses in what is shaping up to be a punishing election year.
While the tax legislation is broadly unpopular as it reaches President Trump’s desk, the bill offers Republicans the sort of signature accomplishment they have been lacking to galvanize their demoralized donors and many of their voters.
Republican lawmakers, who spent much of this year forced to explain or defend Mr. Trump’s erratic behavior, now have an opportunity to go on the offensive with an issue that unites their increasingly fractious party. And they hope that up-for-grabs voters will reward them should the economy keep growing while their tax bills are falling.
“Once the withholding tables change in January, voters will realize their paychecks are bigger as a result of tax reform,” said Representative Steve Stivers of Ohio, who runs the House Republican campaign arm. But, alluding to past midterm defeats for the party in power at the White House, he acknowledged that “history is against us.”Are police officers are the real victims of unarmed black men being shot dead by the police? Of course not – that would be an insane thing to believe. Even though police officers might be coming under more scrutiny as a result of recent incidents, that’s not the same thing as actually being a the victim of those incidents.
The problem is that these incidents are probably facilitated by a police narrative. In the wake of the killing of Walter Scott, a Fox legal analyst revealed that planting weapons used to be standard procedure for cops. Does this mean that cops are pure evil? No. It means that within police culture there exists have a narrative that isn’t necessarily backed up by evidence specific to the relevant incident. The argument would go that criminals exist, and sometimes criminals get lucky and can get away with it due to a lack of evidence. It’s up to the police officers to tilt the scales in the favor of justice by bending the truth. And since black men commit a disproportionate amount of the crime, there is a problem that has to be solved with evidence-agnostic action that may break a few eggs to make the omelet.
Women actually facing harassment aren’t the “real victims” of Ellen Pao’s failure to achieve her dishonest shakedown of Silicon Valley. Businesses targeted by ideological profiteers are. The ideology is based on the specious claim of the culture of Silicon Valley is a “boy’s club.” Because Silicon Valley is like this, any specific Silicon Valley company is guilty by association. This claim that Pao’s company must have been guilty of discriminating against women was made by the media before they even had the evidence. They made an evidence-agnostic claim that if Silicon Valley is sexist in general, any charge of sexism made against any tech company must true. Every narrative like this demands that we make examples of those who embody its fears.
When UVA rape story broke, the media was already waiting for it to happen. After all, fraternities as institutions of white male privilege, and therefore “rape culture,” are a mainstay of fashionable progressive demonology. When the hysteria died down and the story came under scrutiny, it unraveled. It turned out that Rolling Stone just didn’t really check their facts on the ever so narrative-friendly incident. But while the story was eventually skewered by the media, there was no real desire to adjust the narrative of a rape crisis on campus. The “real victims” of the fanciful hoax were actually women on campus, since their claims will now be more easily dismissed. It’s not the men or fraternities that were falsely accused of rape. It can’t be. When the narrative has such an embarrassing failure, the only victims of such a failure can be those who the narrative was built to serve.
Thankfully, the media doesn’t have the same narrative in favor of police officers. Just because black people are overrepresented in crime doesn’t mean that every instance of a black man being shot dead means that he deserved it. Discrimination happening doesn’t mean that any given company is guilty of it and should be made an example of. Rape being a crime that happens doesn’t mean that every overheated story about it must be taken gospel. Evidence needs to come first in these kinds of situations, and victims need to be properly identified as the villains of an agenda-driven mythology.Has the Steven Stamkos Sweepstakes already been settled?
According to Georges Laraque of 91.9 Radio in Montreal, he has heard that the superstar forward will in fact be leaving Tampa Bay this summer, and that a deal with the Toronto Maple Leafs is all but sealed at this point. Of course he can’t come out and say that’s the case, but Laraque is confident in saying that Stamkos will be signing with the Leafs this summer when the season ultimately concludes.
Stamkos will be the biggest free agent to hit the market in many years, and even if he doesn’t sign with the Leafs, he surely won’t be returning to the Lightning. The two sides haven’t come together on terms of an extension, and the Lightning are leaving themselves open to watching their franchise player walk for nothing.
And apparently, he’ll be taking his talents all the way up to Toronto. So, keeping tally here, the Leafs will have added Auston Matthews, Nikita Zaitsev and Steven Stamkos by the time July rolls around. Talk about an offseason overhaul."MbeguChoice" app, the first of its kind, offers information on the best seeds for changing growing conditions
By Chris Arsenault
ROME, June 10 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A new app launched in Kenya on Wednesday could help millions of farmers adapt to climate change by offering information on the best seeds for changing growing conditions, agriculture experts said.
Agriculture accounts for more than 70 percent of Kenya's employment, according to U.S. government figures, so an increase in food production would dramatically improve living standards.
The free "MbeguChoice" app is the first tool of its kind in sub-Saharan Africa, and was developed by a 25-year-old Kenyan software engineer. "MbeguChoice" means seed choice in Swahili.
It comprises an online database which is also available via a website, and could be expanded to other countries if its roll-out proves successful, officials behind the project said.
"The platform provides information on special characteristics (of different kinds of seeds) for drought tolerance, and the best altitude and area for growing a particular crop," Philip Leley, an advisor to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization who gave the developers technical information, said in a telephone interview from Nairobi.
If a farmer in the mid-altitude region of Makueni County, for example, searches for drought-tolerant corn varieties to plant during the rainy season, the app would show five kinds of seeds the grower could buy which would do well in that area.
The online database, containing more than 200 crop varieties, is backed by seed producers who believe it will help drive business.
More than half of Kenya's 44 million people own a cellphone, and the app's developers expect two million people to start using the tool in the next seven months.
They eventually want to provide small farmers with up-to-date market information on crop and fertilizer prices, rather than just data about seeds.
"Our research shows that a lot of farmers don't have the correct information about what seeds work best," Paul Wanyagah, CEO of Kenya Markets Trust, a business group supporting the new platform, said in a telephone interview.
Rural farmers tend to rely on what they hear from neighbours rather than relying on crop science, he said.
"This platform will help farmers make better decisions on planting."
Kenya's fast-growing population depends largely on rain-fed agriculture for its food, and precipitation patterns are expected to shift due to climate change.
About 80 percent of the country's land is dry, according to the U.N.'s World Food Programme (WFP), so the country will need to use water more efficiently as temperatures rise due to global warming.
About 1.5 million Kenyans depend on food aid for survival, the U.N. agency said.
Digital tools like MbeguChoice could help accelerate a current trend of young people becoming more interested in farming, its developers said.
"The profile of the farmer is changing," Wanyagah said. "Agriculture is starting to become cool for young people." (Reporting By Chris Arsenault, Editing by Alex Whiting; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian issues, human rights, corruption and climate change. Visit www.trust.org))
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.Software preservation can be incredibly tricky, as is the case for Hidden Palace’s recent discovery of an prototype of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 that was recently discovered from an old dumping group named CENSOR. Despite being made available to the public once before, it was not until recently that this version of Sonic 2 was not made available to a society dedicated to software preservation.
If you’re reading this expecting some significant new information about Sonic 2’s development history, you’re out of luck. However this build is actually older than the Beta 4, previously relesed by drx in 2008. This has led to speculation that this version is the Beta 3 build that was not included in SEGA’s QA archives. In fact this version is so close to the release of the final game from a matter of weeks, meaning the differences between this prototype and the Beta 4 prototype are not as drastic. However there are some notable differences, such as object layout changes in Wing Fortress, known as Sky Fortress in this version, slanted edges on the loops in Chemical Plant as well as longer load times when entering special stages due to how art was compressed in the Nemesis format.
Hidden Palace has provided a video playthrough showcasing differences, a brief history on dumping groups and the indirect role of software preservation (piracy!) as well as a page dedicated to the prototype detailing differences as well as links to download the prototype. The downloads include versions with CENSOR’s intro and copy protection bypass along with a proper dump of the ROM by itself.
Be sure to keep an eye on Hidden Palace as they have been on a roll putting out pre-release and prototype versions of games consistently. Aside from Sonic 2, they also rediscovered another CENSOR release of Gauntlet IV which predates the official Japanese release. One of the more interesting recent releases includes the 32X version of Pinocchio which, despite being ultimately cancelled, features increased color depth and parallax scrolling over the Mega Drive and Genesis versions. They also noted they will continue to put out more releases by CENSOR in the near future.
Thanks goes to GerbilSoft for pointing out the release in the Sonic Retro Discord.
[Source: Hidden Palace]WASHINGTON ― Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has settled on Indiana Gov. Mike Pence as his vice presidential running mate, according to multiple reports, including one in the governor’s local paper.
A formal announcement is expected to come on Friday in New York City. Though several outlets reported that it was a done deal, The New York Times on Thursday afternoon reported only that there were strong signals Pence was being tapped for the gig. Trump’s communication office has denied that a decision has been made.
The Indianapolis Star reported Pence dropped his re-election bid for governor in order to pursue the vice presidency. His departure from that race means the Indiana Republican State Committee will choose the GOP candidate for governor for the first time in state history.
Pence, 57, would bring nearly four years of executive experience to the ticket and could help shore up Trump’s credibility among establishment holdouts within the GOP. The governor also seems to have met Trump’s stated preference of a running mate who can ably navigate the corridors of power in Washington ― Pence previously served 12 years in the House of Representatives, including two years as chairman of the House Republican Conference.
Pence, who twice considered running for president, is well regarded by conservatives and evangelicals around the country, earning plaudits recently from the likes of Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Jeff Roe, former presidential campaign manager to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).
“I will admit that I am a Mike Pence fan. He is so well-rounded, served as a governor and I think he’s a great conservative. So I don’t think he could go wrong,” Ernst told Politico recently, after indicating she was not interested in the position herself.
Oregon GOP delegate Kevin Hoar argued Pence could help Trump with conservatives and the Tea Party wing of the party.
“I think he’s somebody who would bring along the base of the party, particularly people who might not have been the biggest Trump fans,” Hoar told HuffPost outside of an RNC rules committee hearing in Cleveland. “I think this would bring a lot of [Texas Sen. Ted] Cruz’s supporters. And the other thing is that it will bring someone who has a lot of credible experience in government. That’s something Donald Trump knows he lacks.”
Idaho GOP delegate Steve Yates, who previously advised the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign, said Pence would be a “reassuring” choice among his fellow delegates. He downplayed disagreement between the two men on issues such as trade and Trump’s Muslim ban.
“There is no mistaking who’s the top of the ticket, who’s running mate, who’s the president, who’s the vice president,” Yates told HuffPost outside of an RNC rules committee hearing in Cleveland. “I don’t think it’s really actually much of an issue. In fact, it’s very traditional that you have a running mate that may have had a difference in opinion or policy over the years. But you join a ticket to do to things you agree on together. So, if Mr. Trump is comfortable with Pence, sounds like a good deal.”
A source who spoke with Trump on Tuesday said he had settled on Pence by then, with the belief that Pence would provide the steadiness needed, and that he would be able to handle the policy substance that is not Trump’s strength. Trump added that he was impressed with the way Pence has run Indiana, and that picking him would lock down the state’s electoral votes.
Last year, Pence ignited a national controversy by signing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, legislation that sought to legalize discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals. After severe backlash from civic and business leaders, however, he was forced amend the measure ensuring protections for sexual orientation and gender identity.
Before Trump even made his pick, he had at least one detractor in prominent conservative radio host and former Red State editor Erick Erickson, who chided Pence on Twitter.
Trump picking Mike Pence would be hilarious considering how quickly Pence caved to gay activists 2yrs ago. — Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) July 7, 2016
By signing on with the Trump campaign, Pence would disqualify himself from running for re-election as governor. Indiana law bars him from appearing on the ballot as both a vice presidential and gubernatorial candidate.
Ryan Grim contributed reporting.It was a busy day of roster transactions for Ottawa Fury FC yesterday, with the signing of LW Paulo Araujo Jr., release of GK Devala Gorrick, and temporary loaning out of DM and captain Richie Ryan. Your correspondent was right on top of things on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and the forums.
However, in between welcoming Paulo Jr. to Ottawa and thanking Gorrick on behalf of the Bytown Boys, battling a cold that’s been passing around the workplace, and trying to play peacemaker between two of my fellow Fury FC blogging collaborators, on top of the actual work that he was assigned to do, I was just a little bit exhausted of social media and typing up lengthy articles for the day 🙂
By now, you’ve probably read various articles and maybe even posted your thoughts on all 3 players, so I will just add some various comments to the 3 movements, and will link various articles that have been written on the transactions.
Signing of LW Paulo Araujo Jr.
The winger seems like a very friendly guy on social media who is excited to return to North America after a year home in Brazil with Nautico in Serie B. As you may already have read, Paulo Jr. boasts experience at Real Salt Lake, Miami FC/Ft. Lauderdale Strikers, and the Vancouver Whitecaps reserves.
From the Youtube videos and from comments on social media, Paulo Jr. seems like a speedy and technical player who is right-footed and likes to cut in from the left wing, though he was stationed on the right wing while at RSL. The video footage shows a player who is more than eager to go for lengthy dribbles and a shot from various spots on the pitch, while one Strikers fan did comment that he does like to hold on to the ball as long as he can.
He will certainly be a contender to start at LW in Dos Santos’s 4-3-3 formation, fulfilling the same role that Oliver and Haworth did in the system, as an inverted winger cutting inwards looking for quick passes and shots more so than crosses. While Mayard did not return, there has been encouraging signs from Dos Santos that both Oliver and Haworth will be re-signed for 2015 and will compete with Paulo Jr., though there hasn’t been much word on Davies.
Paulo Jr. is represented by Nicolas Clavijo, who is also the agent for Richie Ryan. Clavijo was a teammate of Paulo Jr. on the 2012 Ft. Lauderdale Strikers squad, and is the son of Fernando Clavijo, technical director of FC Dallas, and part of the 1994 US MNT WC squad. As Ft. Lauderdale Strikers was owned by Traffic Sports back in 2012, and with the elder Clavijo having been the manager of the 2009 version of the team, on which Paulo Jr. also played, there may very well be some lingering connections to Traffic Sports, who is inextricably connected to NASL and CONCACAF.
We wish the best of luck to Paulo Jr. in his new adventure in Ottawa!
Release of GK Devala Gorrick
The keeper was fantastic in his displays throughout the 2014 season, with his reflexes being a particular highlight, and most fans believe that he will have no problem landing quickly on his feet in a league of similar calibre. He has proved himself as a NASL-level keeper, and with experiences in Puerto Rico, Thailand, Sweden and Germany, he may yet decide to set sails abroad again if he chooses.
Gorrick also started a blog midway through the season (devalagk.blogspot.ca), which was notable in its well-composed writing and some great insight into the life of a professional football player, written in a humble and narrative way which fans found quite endearing. He will certainly be missed by Fury FC fans, and we wish nothing but the best to Devala in all his future endeavours.
The very best of luck to you, Devala!
Possible loan out of DM Richie Ryan
The captain is likely heading off to Peterhead FC, in the Scottish League One (3rd tier), on a short-term loan, as first shared by Blog Smith and later expanded upon by Stuart Mactaggart from Fury Fanatic. Chris Hofley of Ottawa Sun reported that the club plays in Ryan’s partner’s hometown, which would serve the couple well during the long NASL off-season. As Ryan is more than comfortable with the 10 to 11-month European season, this sounds like the perfect way for Ryan to keep his competitive season going.
Other 2014 Fury FC players who we currently know are playing in other clubs during the NASL off-season include CM Tony Donatelli and ST Vini Dantas, playing with Baltimore in the MASL. As reported previously, Dantas’s contract was not renewed as he was released, while there has been little news from Ottawa on many other players whose contracts have also expired, including Donatelli.
All in all, the off-season remains busy for Ottawa throughout the festive period. There will certainly be a plethora of news come January!
—
OFFC: http://www.ottawafuryfc.com/news/detail/uuid/j505899q6g1f1jmcjnn7nwwy8/paulo-junior-joins-fury-fc#.VJMWV14CA
Ottawa Sun: http://www.ottawasun.com/2014/12/18/ottawa-fury-fc-sign-brazilian-forward
OFFC Review: https://offcreview.wordpress.com/2014/12/19/fury-fc-announces-signing-of-lw-paulo-jr-release-of-gk-gorrick-loan-of-dm-ryan/
Fury Fanatic: https://furyfanatic.wordpress.com/2014/12/18/fury-sign-brazilian-paulo-junior/; https://furyfanatic.wordpress.com/2014/12/18/ottawa-fury-release-devala-gorrick/; https://furyfanatic.wordpress.com/2014/12/18/richie-ryan-to-peterhead-on-loan-its-a-possibility/A student's law school application is composed of several parts. It includes a grade point average and a Law School Admissions Test score. It includes an undergraduate institution, and major or majors. It may include the candidate's sex, race, ethnicity, national origin, work experience, sexual orientation, post-graduate education, military history, religious affiliation, and anything else a school requests or an applicant desires to include (usually in a personal statement). Schools compete for applicants and want to create the best class they can. A school's definition of "best" can include a number of factors, but LSAT and GPA are usually two of the most significant.
The U.S. News & World Report annually ranks law schools. Almost a quarter of the ranking is based on the median LSAT and GPA of the entering class. This is intended to ascertain how "selective" the school is.
Professor Brian Leiter has noted elsewhere that LSAT and GPA are "highly manipulable" by law schools. But I'd like to focus on a slightly different area: the distortion of student quality by the reporting of medians.
A student, after all, has both an LSAT score and a GPA. But the USNWR ranking isolates LSAT and GPA. An incoming class under USNWR, then, is no longer the composite of students; it is the composite of LSAT scores and GPAs, each independently evaluated.
At the same time, schools are still trying to accept the "best" students, and they need a metric for identifying the "best." Each school often has an "index" formula, which combines LSAT and GPA into a single number, weighting each differently.
So there's a metric schools use to identify the "best" students, calculated by their indices; and there's a metric that USNWR uses to identify the selectivity of each institution, calculated by isolating LSAT and GPA medians. What happens when the two don't align?
Solving law school admissions
In order to solve law school admissions, we'll need admissions |
des Poker-Tuniers im Hotel Hyatt am Potsdamer Platz betraut waren. Nach dem Überfall dort kooperierte Michael Kuhr mit der Polizei, wie er das immer schon tat. Er trug durch seine Zeugenaussagen dazu bei, dass die Täter zu Haftstrafen verurteilt wurden. Es waren Angehörige des berüchtigtsten Clans in Berlin.
"Mir war klar, dass die mir das niemals vergessen würden", sagt der ehemalige Kickbox-Weltmeister heute. Tatsächlich verdichteten sich nach den Urteilen die Hinweise, dass ein Auftragskiller angeheuert und eine MP besorgt worden war, um Kuhr zu ermorden. Der potenzielle Täter hatte schon dessen Umfeld ausgekundschaftet. Nun wurden die Oberhäupter dieser Großfamilie zur "Gefährderansprache" ins Landeskriminalamt bestellt, wo ihnen ranghohe Polizeiführer erklärten, von den Mordplänen zu wissen. Monatelang wurde der Bodyguard nun selbst von Personenschützern begleitet.
Michael Kuhr, der einen guten Einblick in Berlins Unterwelt hat, zieht eine traurige Bilanz: "Die Hauptstadt ist verloren. Diese Strukturen haben sich in allen Bereichen des organisierten Verbrechens manifestiert, sodass man nie mehr auf den Stand von vor 20 Jahren kommen kann. Zudem sind die Leute brandgefährlich und haben beinahe jeglichen Respekt vor der Staatsmacht verloren." Allenfalls SEK-Einsätze mit Elite-Polizisten versuche man zu vermeiden.
Das Geld kommt meistens aus dem Libanon
Eine Entwicklung, die Oberstaatsanwalt Kamstra mit Sorge beobachtet. "Wir sind durchaus noch in der Lage, diesen Herrschaften klare Stoppsignale zu geben. Aber es macht mir Angst, dass sie in der Tat keinen Respekt mehr vor der Polizei haben." Fürchtet er um sein Leben? "Wissen Sie, ich bin in der Tat schon Personen der Großfamilien begegnet, gegen die ich ermittelte. Mir gegenüber waren sie respektvoll und höflich. Denn das ist auch klar – wenn man mich aus dem Spiel nehmen würde, sitzt morgen ein anderer auf dem Stuhl und macht den Job."
Alarmierend ist, wie schnell verbrecherische Aktivitäten in legale Geschäfte münden. Immer tiefer fressen sich die Clans ins Gefüge der Stadt. Nach Informationen der "Welt am Sonntag" investieren sie längst ihre illegal erworbenen Gelder in legale Unternehmungen. Sie betreiben Shisha-Bars, Restaurants, Nachtclubs und handeln mit Autos. "Einige", sagt Kriminaldirektor Jacob, "führen mittlerweile ein fast schon normales Leben und verwalten ihr Vermögen."
Vermehrt kauften sie Mietshäuser, etwa im Wedding, und wandeln sie in Flüchtlingsheime um. Auch in andere Immobilien investieren die Clans, teils im hohen sechsstelligen Bereich, die Gelder kommen meist von Verwandten oder Geschäftspartnern im Libanon. "Wir können die Herkunft und das Entstehen dieser Gelder aber nicht kontrollieren", bedauert Jacob. "Wenn wir ein Rechtshilfeersuchen an die libanesischen Behörden stellen, bekommen wir in den meisten Fällen nicht einmal eine Antwort."
Ernüchternd ist auch die Bilanz, die Oberstaatsanwalt Kamstra zieht: Strukturen und Vernetzungen der arabischen Großfamilien könnten nur dann erhellt und effektiv bekämpft werden, wenn Polizei und Staatsanwaltschaft Einblicke in deren Geldströme hätten. "Der Gesetzgeber lässt uns an dieser Stelle aber im Stich. Finden wir beispielsweise in der Wohnung eines Beschuldigten 150.000 Euro, obwohl er als Hartz-IV-Empfänger ein Legaleinkommen von weniger als 1000 Euro hat, müssen wir ihm nachweisen, dass die Summen aus kriminellen Geschäften stammen. Wir brauchen die Beweislastumkehr, es müsste genau andersherum laufen."
Zudem sei das organisierte Verbrechen technisch stets einen Schritt voraus. "Es gibt neue Smartphones, die wir nicht abhören können und von denen die Täter wissen, dass wir sie nicht abhören können." Dazu kämen personelle Engpässe. Es dauere teils Monate, bis die Polizisten dazu kämen, abgehörte Telefonate zu übersetzen und auszuwerten. "Dann", so ein Ermittler, "sind die Taten meistens schon begangen worden und die Beute ist verteilt."
Eine juristische Beweislast, die oft nicht zu schultern ist, personelle wie technische Unterlegenheit der Ermittler, dazu ein Gegner, der aus einem geschlossenen ethnisch-familiären Milieu heraus agiert und in der Stadt so herrisch auftritt, als gehöre sie ihm – das alles macht den Kampf gegen die Clans zu einer Disziplin, die auf Sieg nicht hoffen darf. Berliner Polizisten brauchen das Gemüt eines Ackergauls, der stur Furche um Furche zieht, ohne viel Aussicht, je groß zu ernten.Joseph Smith dictated the words of the entire Book of Mormon, as we know it today, in about 3 months. This of course does not take into account the time to produce the 116 pages that were lost or the near decade of time Joseph was either producing this narrative in his mind, or receiving instruction from the angel Moroni, whichever story resonates more with you. There are disparate opinions among Latter-day Saints about the divinity of the Book of Mormon. Some view it entirely an ancient work, translated miraculously through the gift and power of God. Some believing Mormons view it as modern expansion of an ancient source, meaning Joseph Smith added some of his own ideas and copied KJV passages of scripture into the text. Some critics view it as a 19th century work crafted carefully by Joseph Smith over a long period of time and put to paper in a short period of time. Hugh Nibley famously challenged his BYU students to come up with a similar work as the Book of Mormon, with all its complexities, in a semesters time (more time than he said Joseph Smith had to produce the Book of Mormon).
What about the examples in history of others who were also gifted, prolific dictators of text? Does it automatically prove their works are inspired, or divine?
What similarities are there between Joseph Smith and Pearl Curran-aka Patience Worth?
Pearl Curran was a housewife, who on July 8, 1913 in St. Louis Missouri, through the use of a ouija board, introduced Patience Worth to the world. Patience was a spirit, who had been dead for over 250 years. Here is the first communication received from Patience.
Irving Litvag said:
I need to make it clear that I am in no way trying to prove or disprove the authenticity of the work produced either by Joseph Smith or Pearl Curran. I am simply pointing out some interesting parallels between two gifted orators, who lived almost a century apart.
Very limited formal education
Pearl Curran:
Joseph Smith:
Difficulty composing text on their own, when not dictating their works
Pearl Curran:
Joseph Smith:
Both were able to coherently dictate large volumes of text in a short period of time
Pearl Curran:
Joseph Smith:
Both were able to pick up dictation right where they left off, dictate without written material in front of them, and both had many different scribes
Pearl Curran:
Joseph Smith:
Joseph Smith had many different scribes to transcribe his dictation. Some of the scribes were Martin Harris (for the 116 pages), Emma Smith and perhaps her brother Reuben Hale. Oliver Cowdery was the main scribe for the book as we know it today. Another individual who may have served as a scribe for a short stint is John Whitmer (it’s been suggested it is his handwriting attributed to an “unknown scribe.”)
Both were unfamiliar with the historical period they were writing about, but claimed to receive details through “divine” means.
Pearl Curran:
Joseph Smith:
Both outgrew the need for physical objects
Joseph Smith:
Pearl Curran:
Both sincerely believed in the authenticity of their work
Pearl Curran:
Joseph Smith:
Conclusion
So were the literary creations of Joseph Smith and Pearl Curran the products of imaginative, creative minds, divine inspiration, or perhaps a little of both? This blog post does not attempt to critique the methods or results of what Joseph and Pearl dictated, but their claims were taken at face value. There are a number of differences between Joseph Smith and Pearl Curran, but based on the number of similarities, can someone accept one of them as inspired and reject the other as uninspired? If the quality and speed at which Joseph Smith dictated the words of the Book of Mormon are indicators of divine inspiration and assistance, can the same be said about the religious works of Patience Worth?There’s a common misconception that the GM handles all the plotting and storytelling in a game. While majority of the load does fall on his shoulders, there’s also quite a lot of opportunities for players to actually take the reins and lend direction to where a game is going. Proactive and enthusiastic players can contribute by pushing their own respective agendas, and taking time off to tell the GM before or after the session to remind him of what they intend to do.
Here are a few ways that Players can encourage the GM to pursue subplots revolving around your characters.
If you’re interested in something pursue it – As long as it can be rationalized in-character, there’s plenty of opportunities to make a passing comment grow into something more.
– As long as it can be rationalized in-character, there’s plenty of opportunities to make a passing comment grow into something more. Pay attention to your character’s motivations – Everyone has something that interests them, or gets them to move. Don’t wait for the GM to dangle something, pursue it, look for and make opportunities.
– Everyone has something that interests them, or gets them to move. Don’t wait for the GM to dangle something, pursue it, look for and make opportunities. Involve other players – The more opportunities you have to bring other player characters along to get involved with your stories, the more incentive the GM has to work it into the game.
As with all things, communication is yet again key. Tell your GM that you’d like to get your character to do something, or go through a particular scenario. Who knows, he might just pull it out and use it in the game. We GMs aren’t exactly geniuses in everything, and sometimes, even if we love the character concepts, we occasionally draw blanks when it comes to plotting for a specific character.
Take note that this isn’t a technique to steal the spotlight, but one that will help the GM think of plots, further your character’s interests, and make the game more enjoyable for you and, hopefully, everyone else.Doctor Who S08E03: "Robot of Sherwood"
The legend of Robin Hood and his Merry Men is a personal favorite of mine (with decidedly less fangirling than Clara), but I rolled my eyes when I heard Doctor Who was going there in "Robot of Sherwood" because it felt too silly for the series, clearly forgetting that silliness is an inherent piece of the Doctor Who puzzle. To my credit, and to the credit of Whovians all over the world who feel the same, the series often left the silliness behind over the years as it morphed into a more adult drama.
The series has created some terrifying-looking monsters and produced several successful episodes with various horror motifs over the years, but it also often deals with difficult topics like morality and genocide, concepts that children can understand on a basic good vs. bad level, but will probably not fully grasp until later in life. It's not like we're talking Battlestar Galactica-level of science fiction here, but the show hasn't been playing toward children for a long time now, even since before its rebirth in 2005. So despite the fact that the Doctor often acts like a manchild, when the show tries to infuse good, silly fun into the series, it's often met with a quizzical brow or, if you're like me, with a bit of eye rolling.
David Tennant and Matt Smith were able to channel the Doctor's innate silliness and make it charming, and Capaldi's Doctor is struggling in that regard. Some people will argue it's because he's in his 50s, and while I won't rule out age as a factor, it's definitely not the only issue plaguing the series at this point. Previous incarnations of the Doctor played by older actors were still able to be silly and fun, but the main hindrance to the success of Capaldi's Doctor right now is the simple fact that our expectations aren't lining up with reality.
We were told to expect a darker Doctor this season, and while there have been hints at the darkness within him, we haven't seen that darkness take form. Capaldi has a certain strength and gravitas that Smith—no offense—never had, and I wish the series would play to that more, instead of the other way around. There were a few times during "Robot of Sherwood"—particularly the spoon fight—that felt like Capaldi was just doing his best Smith impression, and I don't want to keep thinking in that mindset. Capaldi is never going to be able to make this character his own if the writers keep writing the Doctor the way they wrote the character for Smith, whose clumsiness and spastic, frantic movements were as much Smith as they were Doctor. The Doctor should be fun, he should be silly, and overall, I think "Robot of Sherwood" was a fun, silly romp through the woods, but it certainly isn't what any of us expected to see after all the trailers and interviews promising a different take on our favorite Timelord.
And yet, despite the silliness of the episode, it wasn't completely filler, as the series wove a meaningful message regarding the Doctor's status as a hero into the very fabric of the episode's main story. The Doctor didn't believe Robin Hood was a real person, but just a legend invented to give the people of England hope in desperate times, so he spent much of the episode trying to prove Robin and his Merry Men weren't real, taking blood tests, stealing sandals, and generally acting like the know-it-all we've come to love. The series soon called this a terrible idea and the Doctor realized Hood was a real man and a legend. "I'm just as real as you are," Robin told the Doctor at episode end, and so Robin Hood became a metaphor for the Doctor.
I could say something snarky about how the show and the writers view themselves, but to be honest, the show just celebrated its 50th anniversary last November—I think it's earned the right to call itself a legend. The Doctor is a cultural figure, a character well known to millions of people around the world, someone who means something different to each and every viewer. The show is a pop culture phenomenon starring a hero who doesn't view himself as such, someone whose stories will live on forever and have already been passed down from generation to generation. So yeah, I'm cool with Doctor Who using Robin Hood as a metaphor, especially since it adds to the Doctor's ongoing introspective journey. He's learning about himself, about how he's viewed through everyone else's eyes, just as we're trying to figure out what kind of man this particular incarnation of the Doctor is supposed to be. It's this personal journey that I want to see more of, because it adds the humanizing element the show needs to balance the out-of-this-world adventures. As long as the series continues to tie these messages into the stories of the week, I'll be pleased.
Meanwhile, Clara continued to come into her own as a character this week as she was the voice of reason when Robin and the Doctor were arguing, and again when she weaseled information out of the Sheriff of Nottingham using quick thinking. I've enjoyed Clara much more in these first three episodes of Season 8 than I did in nearly all of her Season 7 episodes as a companion. By physically separating her from the Doctor, she was able to act as a real character with real motivations rather than just as an accessory to the Doctor. Clara is becoming a companion worthy of traveling with the Doctor now that she is allowed to be a person (and even her fangirling over Robin Hood helped to flesh her out because it gave us a hint at the girl within) and not just the Doctor's savior. He's finally becoming her hero, rather than the other way around.
Some of you have taken issue with the fact that I haven't discussed Missy and the Promised Land very much in my last two reviews, and to be honest, it's not because I don't think it's important—it's obviously the overarching storyline this season—it's because we don't know much about it yet and it's hard to discuss what basically amounts to a minute and a half of screentime.
In the season premiere "Deep Breath", the wannabe human droid woke up in a garden with yet another eccentric female character claiming she was the Doctor's girlfriend and that the droid was in heaven. In "Into the Dalek", the soldier who sacrificed herself to save the Doctor, Clara, and Journey joined Missy, too, but we still didn't have much to go on, so I didn't really discuss it. There are speculations that each person who dies in the name of the Doctor, or who's convinced to give their life in his presence, is transported to this slightly Tim Burton-esque wonderland (ugh, now I'm bummed Missy isn't played by Helena Bonham-Carter). This week, we learned these particular time-traveling robots were, much like the droid in the premiere, attempting to reach the Promised Land when they were stranded in a moment of time in Earth's history. There are officially two patterns at work here and we can at least begin to discuss what this means, as we can assume they probably were transported to Missy's garden once the spaceship blew up.
So far we've seen two instances of time-traveling robots trying to reach the Promised Land, or Heaven. We've also seen a soldier give her life and end up chilling with Missy in the "after-life." At this point, I'm not very excited by this storyline, and I think it's because it feels too obvious. I haven't watched Season 1 in awhile, but I feel like the various appearances of "Bad Wolf" weren't quite as in-your-face as these have been. Doctor Who isn't really a subtle show, but if this mystery is going to become meaningful and come to a head later on, I'd like the show to be a bit more clever in how it integrates the overarching plots. I think the series did a great job during Season 3 with the recurring appearances of Mr. Saxon prior to the Master's arrival. That was fun, especially when you go back to look for all the clues you missed throughout the season like it was The Sixth Sense or something. I wish there was a way to make Missy and her heavenly garden more mysterious. Maybe this will become an exciting storyline as the season goes on, but right now I'm more interested in the Doctor's journey and in Clara's development than I am about these patterns.
– I still think they could have spent a bit more money on Robin Hood's costume. He looked like he was dressed up for Halloween and about to knock on your door for some candy.
– I don't know about everyone else, but I think I like the curmudgeonly side of the Doctor, the one who apparently hates laughter and said he was going to punch Robin Hood if he kept doing it.
– I like that that the show used the phrase "the impossible hero" this week after so much talk about "the impossible girl." Nice complement.
– What do you think about the Missy/Heaven storyline?
thekaitling:list:doctor-who-what-did-you-think-of-robot-of-sherwood/Progress on a planned coal-fired power plant in Kansas was put on hold yesterday after a judge sided with environmental groups, ruling that a federal agency ignored requirements set forth by environmental laws in approving the project and providing tax incentives.
In a ruling that agreed with arguments by activist organizations Earthjustice and The Sierra Club, DC-based federal Judge Emmett Sullivan found that the U.S. government’s Rural Utilities Service, part of the Department of Agriculture, overstepped its authority in pushing the project forward.
The ruling means the long-debated Sunflower coal power plant will have to undergo more public input and more detailed environmental studies before it can proceed.
The judge’s decision in the case was issued under seal to protect the Sunflower Electric Power Corporation‘s business information. Kansas media mostly quoted attorneys for the Sierra Club, who’d seen the long-form ruling. They said a condensed version would be made public in the coming weeks.
“With this much debt and federal support, Sunflower is effectively a ward of the federal government, Jan Hasselman, an attorney with Earthjustice, said in an advisory. “As a public project, the Holcomb plant requires close public scrutiny and a meaningful analysis of alternatives and environmental risks. Without it, both taxpayers and our environment are at risk.”
The plant was initially facing roadblocks from then-Governor Kathleen Sebelius, who vetoed four Republican bills that tried to require approval of the project.
After her resignation to head the Obama administration’s Department of Health and Human Services, the new interim governor, Democrat Mark Parkinson, “made a deal” with the Sunflower plant, according to Dieon Liefler, writing for The Wichita Eagle.
That arrangement would provide for significant carbon offsets and other improvements to make a scaled-back version of the project a possibility.
This week’s ruling puts that in doubt, however, and will likely force the federal government to reevaluate other options for environmental offsets to the coal plant.
“Sunflower, as well as many other electric co-ops, has been propped up by taxpayers for years,” Sierra Club representative Mark Kresowik said in a release. “It’s time for the federal government to take a hard look at the risks of continuing to support the development of new coal projects that rely on dirty and outdated technology.”
Image credit: A coal plant, by Flickr user eutrophication&hypoxia.WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has finalized a rule that would ban the importation and interstate transportation of four nonnative constrictor snakes that threaten the Everglades and other sensitive ecosystems across the United States, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced today.
The final rule – which incorporates public comments, economic analysis, and environmental assessment – lists the Burmese python, the yellow anaconda, and the northern and southern African pythons as injurious wildlife under the Lacey Act in order to restrict their spread in the wild in the United States. It is expected to publish in the Federal Register in the coming days.
“Thanks to the work of our scientists, Senator Bill Nelson, and others, there is a large and growing understanding of the real and immediate threat that the Burmese python and other invasive snakes pose to the Everglades and other ecosystems in the United States,” Salazar said. “The Burmese python has already gained a foothold in the Florida Everglades, and we must do all we can to battle its spread and to prevent further human contributions of invasive snakes that cause economic and environmental damage.”
The four species were assessed by the U.S. Geological Survey as having a high risk of establishing populations and spreading to other geographic areas in that agency's 2009 report, Giant Constrictors: Biological and Management Profiles and an Establishment Risk Assessment for Large Species of Pythons, Anacondas, and the Boa Constrictor.
Sixty days after publication of the final rule in the Federal Register, interstate transport and importation of live individuals, gametes, viable eggs, or hybrids of the Burmese python, northern and southern African pythons and yellow anaconda into the United States will be prohibited. None of these species is native to the United States.
“Burmese pythons have already caused substantial harm in Florida,” said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe. “By taking this action today, we will help prevent further harm from these large constrictor snakes to native wildlife, especially in habitats that can support constrictor snake populations across the southern United States and in U.S. territories.”
Ashe said the Service will continue to consider listing as injurious the five other species of nonnative snakes that the agency also proposed in 2010 – the reticulated python, boa constrictor, DeSchauensee's anaconda, green anaconda and Beni anaconda.
Most people who own any of these four species will not be affected. Those who own any of these four species of snakes will be allowed to keep them if allowed by state law. However, they cannot take, send, or sell them across state lines. Those who wish to export these species may do so from a designated port within their state after acquiring appropriate permits from the Service.
The Burmese python has established breeding populations in South Florida, including the Everglades, that have caused significant damage to wildlife and that continue to pose a great risk to many native species, including threatened and endangered species. Burmese pythons on North Key Largo have killed and eaten highly endangered Key Largo wood rats, and other pythons preyed on endangered wood storks.
In the Everglades alone, state and federal agencies have spent millions of dollars addressing threats posed by pythons – an amount far less than is needed to combat their spread. If these species spread to other areas, state and federal agencies in these areas could be forced to spend more money for control and containment purposes.
Interior and its partners, including the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), South Florida Water Management District, and others are committed to controlling the spread of Burmese pythons and other large nonnative constrictors. For example, FWC recently implemented the use of a “snake sniffing” dog to help in its efforts to find and eradicate large constrictor snakes. This dog was present at the Secretary's announcement today, along with a 13-foot-long Burmese python.
Under the injurious wildlife provisions of the Lacey Act, the Department of the Interior is authorized to regulate the importation and interstate transport of wildlife species determined to be injurious to humans, the interests of agriculture, horticulture, forestry, or to wildlife or the wildlife resources of the United States.
For more information on injurious wildlife and efforts to list the four species of snakes as injurious under the Lacey Act, please visit: http://www.fws.gov/invasives/news.html.
###Detroit’s history is full of bizarre stories and fascinating characters, yet many of the strangest still lurk in the faded clippings of old newspapers, lost amid the forgotten of pile media rubble.
One such story is that of Thomas Lynn Bradford.
A Detroit resident in the early 1900s, Bradford was an interesting character. Professionally, he was something of a job hopper, spending time as an electrical engineer, professional athlete, and even as an actor. Toward the end of his life, though, Bradford turned his attention to some deeper explorations.
[quote_center]Spiritualists view the after life as a place where spirits continue to live and evolve once the soul has left the physical body at the time of death[/quote_center]
He began to study spiritualism, which, broadly defined, is the belief that humans don’t really die, but rather, they live on as spirits who can still communicate with the living world. Spiritualists view the after life as a place where spirits continue to live and evolve once the soul has left the physical body at the time of death, and they seek to communicate with the living world in order to share valuable information regarding important moral and ethical issues, as well as the nature of God.
Bradford wrote essays and gave lectures on spiritualism, the occult and other supernatural topics, and even marketed himself as a psychic in the Detroit area.
Then, on the evening of February 6, 1921, Bradford shocked the Detroit community when sealed off his apartment, put out the pilot light on his heater and cranked the gas. He was later found dead by police by way of asphyxiation. Found in his typewriter was a page of an unfinished manuscript with a quote that read, “— and it is through scientific facts that I propose to demonstrate clearly the phenomena of the spirits, and prove that all the phenomena are outside the domain of the supernatural.”
The Search For Answers
Police were baffled by the apparent suicide and cryptic note and began an investigation. Before long, their search for clues led them to a woman named Ruth Doran.
As it turns out, several weeks before his suicide, Bradford had posted an ad in the local paper looking to hire someone “interested in the spiritualistic sciences.” Doran, a roughly 40-year-old writer and lecturer from a prominent Detroit family, had recently returned to the city to work on a historical research project.
Doran told police she was a member of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and had no ties to the spiritualistic community, but simply found the ad intriguing and decided to respond. Further, she repeatedly stated that while Bradford told her that he planned to prove that spirits cold speak to the living, he never said he planned on committing suicide as part of the experiment.
Eventually, police concluded that she was telling the truth. They could find no motive for a murder, largely because as it turns out, Bradford was struggling financially when he died.
So the investigation ceased and the death was ruled a suicide. And once the police backed off the investigation, the truth behind Bradford’s seemingly senseless suicide began to take shape.
The Afterlife
Doran soon began executing the later half of the plan. Gathering a group of Detroit area Spiritualists, she hosted a series of séances at her home in an attempt to hear Bradford calling from the beyond. Despite her best efforts, though, the group could not make contact.
Still, Doran did not lose her optimism, telling The New York Times in February of 1921, “I am his friend, if he can cause his spirit to come back to earth, I believe his spirit will come back to me first. I believed in him in life, and I will wait and see if there is any spirit manifestation. If there is such a thing as spirit communication, I believe he will make his presence known to me.”
Hearing Voices
That same week, a theosophist and spiritualist by the name of Lulu Mack came out of the woodwork, telling the local newspapers that she had been contacted by Bradford’s spirit, despite having no knowledge of him or his experiment.
She told reporters that she had felt a sense that she was being called on by an unknown spirit, and had held a séance at her home to get to try and connect with whoever was calling her. During the seance she claimed to have heard the faint voice of a spirit repeatedly calling the name, “Thomas Bradford.”
When reporters pushed her for answers as to why he had contacted her and not Doran, she explained that because Bradford had only entered “the first sphere of the heavenly constellation,” he would be unable to communicate strongly enough for someone like Doran to hear, and further, that it might take years before his spirit achieved the necessary strength to do so. She purported that this was due in part to the nature of his death. Suicide was considered “neither wise nor right”, in the spiritualist belief system, and thus, it would take time for his soul to repent for the decision in the afterlife, and attain the power to speak with the living.
Despite her claim, there was still no conclusive evidence that Bradford’s experiment had worked.
A Fainting Spell
The final piece of the puzzle came soon after Mack’s story surfaced, when Ruth Doran gathered a group of spiritualists for one more shot at connecting with Bradford.
That night, as Doran stood in her parlor with the group, she suddenly exclaimed that she could hear the professor speaking to her. With hands on temples and eyes closed, she cried out for one of the members of the group to grab a pen and pad, and then she recited this message supposedly from Bradford’s spirit.
[quote_box_center]“I am the professor who speaks to you from the Beyond. I have broken through the veil. The help of the living has greatly assisted me. I simply went to sleep. I woke up and at first did not realize that I had passed on. I find no great change apparent. I expected things to be much different. They are not. Human forms are retained in outline but not in the physical. I have not traveled far. I am still much in the darkness. I see many people. They appear natural. There is a lightness of responsibility here unlike in life. One feels full of rapture and happiness. Persons of like natures associate. I am associated with other investigators. I do not repent my act. My present plane is but the first series. I am still investigating the future planes regarding which we in this plane are as ignorant as are earthly beings of the life just beyond human life.”[/quote_box_center]
Immediately after dictating the message, Doran collapsed to the ground. When she came to, she swore she had reached Bradford, “I am convinced. I never heard a spirit voice before. That was the professor, without doubt.”
Implications of the experiment and Bradford’s legacy
[quote_center]One can’t help but wonder if it was all just a well-planned hoax … or if he really did make contact with the two women.[/quote_center]
Despite the claims of each woman — one a devout spiritualist, one a protestant — neither the spiritualist community nor the general population were convinced that Bradford’s experiment had worked, and that his spirit successfully communicated with the living world.
Soon after the two supposed connections, the media attention around the startling event died down. As for Doran and Mack, both faded into obscurity, and we found no record of what became of either one.
Sadly, the outcome for Bradford was more or less the same. Since the initial claims of connecting with his spirit, there is no record of anyone in the spiritualistic community or elsewhere who have recorded successful connections with his spirit; and it seems that very few have even tried.
In he end he didn’t change the world. He didn’t prove his that his hypothesis was true, and he certainly didn’t leave a mark in the history books. Instead, Bradford’s legacy is nothing more than a bizarre and somewhat tragic story that has faded into the abyss of time.
Still, despite the way the story ended, one can’t help but wonder if it was all just a well-planned hoax … or if he really did make contact with the two women.
I guess we’ll all find out the truth one day.TEL AVIV – Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has vowed to never cease paying terrorists their monthly salaries – even if it costs him his job, according to an announcement on his party’s Facebook page Sunday.
“‘Even if I will have to leave my position, I will not compromise on the salary (rawatib) of a Martyr (Shahid) or a prisoner, as I am the president of the entire Palestinian people, including the prisoners, the Martyrs, the injured, the expelled and the uprooted,” a Palestinian Media Watch translation of Abbas’ quote on Fatah’s Facebook page said.
According to its 2016 budget, the PA currently pays 26,800 families of “Martyrs” a total of NIS 660 million ($183 million) per year and 6,500 terrorist prisoners receive PA salaries amounting to NIS 486 million ($135 million) per year.
The independent Arab news agency Wattan reported that senior Fatah official Jamal Muhaisen reiterated Abbas’ pledge to never suspend the terrorists’ stipends, and added that it wasn’t an issue of money but preserving the “historical narrative” of the Palestinian people in which terrorist martyrs who lose their lives while attacking Israelis are heroes.
Regarding the salaries (rawatib) of the Martyrs and prisoners, Dr. Muhaisen emphasized that this is not a financial matter, but rather a matter that is connected to the Palestinian historical narrative, according to which the prisoners and Martyrs represent our Palestinian people’s struggle. He praised the position of [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas, who responded to the American administration: “Even if I will have to leave my position, I will not compromise on the salary of a Martyr or a prisoner.”
The news comes as the PA faces pressure from Israel, Europe and the U.S. to stop such payments.
President Donald Trump raised the issue with Abbas during both of their May meetings.
Palestinian media reported last month that Abbas was “fuming” following his Thursday meeting with Trump’s advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner in which American concerns about the payments to imprisoned terrorists were raised once again. Abbas reportedly refused to comply with watered-down demands from Washington that the PA cease payments to 600 terrorists imprisoned on multiple counts of murdering Israelis.by Carolyn Baker
Edward Abbey famously said, “Action is the antidote to despair.” Clearly, if we find ourselves engulfed in despair, anger, fear, or any other painful emotion, one way to move through it is to “minimize” it on the screen of our emotional operating system and take action on behalf of whatever cause is calling us. What is more, it is not enough to just feel our feelings about the obscenity of planetary pillage that the human species has wrought. Even though our action cannot undo it or reverse the inevitable, it is the least we can do in response to environmental ecocide, and it is a means of practicing good manners toward all of the species that have not yet vanished.
That said, it is equally irresponsible to take action while repressing, ignoring, or minimizing our feelings. This essay attempts to address why this is so.
First, it is precisely because of denying our emotional response to the miracle of life on Earth that we are in the process of eliminating it. |
’] lofty, and wise, and noble understanding of the justice of the Creator to His creatures. Yes, gentlemen, to all His creatures, to the whole great family of man. In their enlightened belief, nothing stamped with the Divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on, and degraded, and imbruted by its fellows. They grasped not only the whole race of man then living, but they reached forward and seized upon the farthest posterity.
A near-relative of Lincoln’s argument appears in one of the first documents of colonial American history, Alexander Whitaker’s Good Newes From Virginia of 1613. Whitaker urges that the Indians be well treated; after all, “One God created us, they have reasonable soules and intellectuall faculties as well as wee; we all have Adam for our common parent: yea, by nature the condition of us both is all one.”
There is also a remarkable similarity between Lincoln’s thought and a rabbinic midrash according to which a phrase in Genesis—“these are the archives of Adam’s descendants”—is the single greatest statement in the Torah. Why? Because it teaches that all men, being descended from the same ancestors, are equal in dignity.
Of the creed’s three elements, democracy might seem the least likely to be traced back to biblical sources—but Americans of past ages knew the Bible much better than we do. The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, often called the “first written constitution of modern democracy,” were inspired not by democratic Athens or republican Rome or Enlightenment philosophy but by a Puritan preacher’s interpretation of a verse in the Hebrew Bible. They were drafted in May 1638, in response to a sermon by Thomas Hooker before the general assembly in Hartford.
Hooker cited the biblical passage, “Take ye wise men, and understanding, and known among your tribes, and I will make them rulers over you” (Deuteronomy 1:13). This he interpreted to mean “that the choice of public magistrate belongs unto the people, by God’s own allowance.... The foundation of authority is laid, firstly, in the free consent of the people.”
[COMMENT: These passages should be memorized by every politician (which means every voter!). EF]
Hooker’s interpretation was hardly novel or eccentric. Many preachers knew and believed the same thing. In 1780, roughly a century and a half after Hooker’s epoch-making sermon, with the Revolutionary War under way, Pastor Simeon Howard of Boston was pondering the new nation’s government. He too decided—on the basis of this same passage, and of the classical Jewish historian Josephus—that America should be a democratic republic.
Howard’s advice was as radical as it was straightforward, as avant-garde as it was Puritan, Bible-centered, and godly. “In compliance with the advice of Jethro,” he preached,
Moses chose able men, and made them rulers [over the Israelites in the desert]; but it is generally supposed that they were chosen by the people [emphasis added]. This is asserted by Josephus, and plainly intimated by Moses in his recapitulary discourse, recorded in the first chapter of Deuteronomy.
Historians have pointed out that the clergy wielded far more influence over the colonial public than a Tom Paine or John Locke did. In 1776, three-quarters of American citizens were Puritan. Puritans have long been classified as strait-laced, dour, and joyless, far from passionate revolutionaries or radical democrats. Like nearly all stereotypes, these are partly true—but they are a long way from the whole truth.
A recent Pew Research Center survey found that not even a third of American journalists have “a great deal of confidence” that the American electorate makes correct choices at the polls. The Puritans thought otherwise, and so did Abraham Lincoln. The historian William Wolf cites Lincoln’s belief “that God’s will is ultimately to be known through the people.” Lincoln said: “I must trust in that Supreme Being who has never forsaken this favored land, through the instrumentality of this great and intelligent people.” What chance is there that American journalists or professors or school-teachers would describe Americans today as “this great and intelligent people”?
[COMMENT: Given that the professors and journalists have themselves ensured that American children will not learn to think, largely through our government-controlled school system, how can anyone describe Americans today as "this great and intelligent people"? They, pagans and Christians alike, can hardly think their way out of a wet paper bag. Thanks largely to home schooling, there are signs of that changing. E. Fox]
VI. American Zionism
We can go further. To sum up Americanism’s creed as freedom, equality, and democracy for all is to state only half the case. The other half deals with a promised land, a chosen people, and a universal, divinely ordained mission. This part of Americanism is the American version of biblical Zionism: in short, American Zionism.
The relation between Americanism and American Zionism is something like the relation between Anglicanism and Anglo-Catholicism. Anglo-Catholicism is Anglicanism, but the name was invented to underline the closeness between Anglicanism and Roman Catholicism. The term “American Zionism” similarly underlines the closeness between Americanism and the biblical idea of a divinely chosen people and promised land.
When I say that Americanism equals American Zionism, I am in one sense merely adding up statements by eminent authorities. John Winthrop in 1630: “Wee shall finde that the God of Israell is among us.” Thomas Jefferson in his Second Inaugural address: “I shall need... the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our fathers, as Israel of old, from their native land and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessaries and comforts of life.” (The last phrase is an update of the Bible’s “flowing with milk and honey.”) Abraham Lincoln declared his wish to be a “humble instrument in the hands of the Almighty and of this, His almost chosen people.”
Hundreds of other statements along the same lines might be gathered from the whole formative period of Americanism, from the early 1600’s through the Civil War. Among the most striking is one of the earliest, from the famous journal of William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation. Once the Pilgrims had landed in the new world, Bradford writes, “What could now sustain them but the Spirit of God and His grace?” And he continues:
May not and ought not the children of these fathers rightly say: “Our fathers were Englishmen which came over this great ocean, and were ready to perish in the wilderness; but they cried unto the Lord, and He heard their voice and looked on their adversity,” etc.
Bradford is paraphrasing verses from Deuteronomy (26:5 ff.) that read (in the Geneva Bible of 1560, which Puritans preferred to the King James version): “A Syrian was my father, who being ready to perish for hunger, went downe into Egypte.... When we cried unto the Lord God of our fathers, the Lord heard our voyce, & looked on our adversitie.”
The Bible reports that the Israelites were instructed to speak these verses when they brought the year’s first fruits to the Temple in Jerusalem, there to recall publicly the Lord’s gift of the promised land. Bradford was equating the arrival of Englishmen in Plymouth with the arrival of the wandering Israelites in the promised land. The same verses play a central role in the Haggadah recited by Jews on Passover to this day—although Bradford could not have known that. Showing an uncanny tendency to think like a Jew, he singled them out on his own, and put them at the center of his own version of (what we might call) a Pilgrim seder.1
Evidently the historian Samuel Eliot Morison did not realize the Passover significance of these verses, either. His scrupulous edition of Bradford’s journal is the scholarly standard, with plenty of footnotes—but none at this point. In other places where Bradford quotes or paraphrases the Hebrew Bible without giving a citation, it is not quite clear whether or not Morison has picked up the reference. Yet you cannot really understand the Pilgrims, or Puritans in general, unless you know the Hebrew Bible and classical Jewish history; knowing Judaism itself also helps. But people with this sort of basic knowledge have rarely bothered to study the Puritans, and those who study the Puritans have rarely bothered to know what the Puritans knew.
Early exponents of Americanism tended to define even their own Christianity in ways that make it sound like Judaism. Thus John Winthrop: “the onely way to avoyde this shipwracke [of angering the lord] and to provide for our posterity is to followe the Counsell of Micah, to doe Justly, to love mercy, to walke humbly with our God.” Lincoln, a profoundly religious man, refused all his life to join a church. But he did make the celebrated assertion that he would join a church whose entire creed was “what our lord said were the two great commandments, to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and mind and soul and strength, and my neighbor as myself.” He was referring to the Gospel passage in which Jesus cites these two verses from the Hebrew Bible as the essence of Christianity.
I do not claim that Lincoln, Winthrop, and Bradford were crypto-Jews. They were not. The point is that classical Israel’s (and classical Zionism’s) contribution to Americanism is incalculable. No modern historian or thinker I am aware of—not Huntington or Morison or Perry or Mead or Perry Miller or even Martin Marty or Sydney Ahlstrom—has done justice to this extraordinary fact. They seem to have forgotten what the eminent 19th-century Irish historian William Lecky recognized: that “Hebraic mortar cemented the foundations of American democracy.” And even Lecky, I suspect, did not grasp the full extent of this truth. Unless we do grasp it, we can never fully understand Americanism—or anti-Americanism.
VII. Four Climacterics
There have been at least four crucial turning points —“climacterics,” Churchill would have called them—at which Americans spoke explicitly and simultaneously about the religious content and the world mission of Americanism. The first was when the colonies declared their independence. Here is Dr. Banfield, in 1783:
’Twas [God] who raised a Joshua to lead the tribes of Israel in the field of battle; raised and formed a Washington to lead on the troops of his chosen States. ’Twas He who in Barak’s day spread the spirit of war in every breast to shake off the Canaanitish yoke, and inspired thy inhabitants, O America!
In 1799, with the Great Republic safely established, Abiel Abbot delivered a Thanksgiving sermon:
It has been often remarked that the people of the United States come nearer to a parallel with Ancient Israel, than any other nation upon the globe. Hence OUR AMERICAN ISRAEL is a term frequently used; and our common consent allows it apt and proper.
Washington’s early biographer Jared Sparks quotes him to the effect that “there never was a people who had more reason to acknowledge a divine interposition in their affairs than those of the United States.”
The second climacteric was the Civil War. Lincoln’s understanding of that conflict, writes Edmund Wilson, “grew out of the religious tradition of the New England theology of Puritanism.” In 1862, Lincoln made “a solemn vow before God” to free the South’s slaves. William Wolf notes that this vow was “more in conformance with Old Testament than with New Testament religion,” was “imbedded in Lincoln’s biblical piety,” and “came to him as part of the religious heritage of the nation.” The “climactic expression of his biblical faith,” according to Wolf, was the Second Inaugural address:
It reads like a supplement to the Bible. In it there are fourteen references to God, four direct quotations from Genesis, Psalms, and Matthew, and other allusions to scriptural teaching.
“We can appreciate even in these few words,” writes Sidney Ahlstrom of the Second Inaugural, “the astounding profundity of this self-educated child of the frontier, this son of a Hard-shell Baptist who never lost hold of the proposition that nations and men are instruments of the Almighty.” If Americanism is a religion, this is its holiest document after the Bible and the Declaration; and Lincoln is its greatest prophet.
[COMMENT: As a youth, I had Lincoln on a pedastal. Then when I first heard the southern version of the war, and learned how he had helped to engineer us into the war against the south on the pretext that no state has a right to secede, he fell mightily in my estimation. But, as Gelernter indicates, he had a passionate Biblical (if unchurched) faith. Some say that he accepted Christ as savior near the end of his life. EF]
World War I marked the third turning point: America stepped forward to assume its role as a world power. It happened under President Woodrow Wilson, the son and grandson of Presbyterian ministers.
Many people found Wilson hard to take. At the end of his career, on his return from negotiations in Paris at the close of the war, he went down in flames—shot out of the sky like the Red Baron by a Senate and nation unwilling to join the League of Nations, which Wilson had more or less invented, or ratify the Treaty of Versailles, which he championed.
Yet Wilson stands right at the center of classical Americanism. No President spoke the language of Bible and divine mission more lucidly. His First Inaugural address was composed in pure and perfect American, Lincoln-inspired:
The nation has been deeply stirred by a solemn passion, stirred by the knowledge of wrong, of ideals lost, of government too often debauched and made an instrument of evil. The feelings with which we face this new age of right and opportunity sweep across our heartstrings like some air out of God’s own presence, where justice and mercy are reconciled and the judge and the brother are one.
During Wilson’s administration, Americanism accomplished a fundamental transition. It had always included the idea of divine mission. But what was the mission? Until the closing of the frontier in the last decade of the 19th century, the mission was to populate the continent. With the frontier closed, the mission became “Americanism for the whole world.” Of this transition, the historian William Leuchtenberg writes:
The United States believed that American moral idealism could be extended outward, that American Christian democratic ideals could and should be universally applied.... The culmination of a long political tradition of emphasis on sacrifice and decisive moral combat, the [world] war was embraced as that final struggle where the righteous would do battle for the Lord.
In his speech asking for a declaration of war, Wilson told Congress that “The world must be made safe for democracy”—a much-ridiculed phrase, and one that captures perfectly America’s sense of obligation to spread its own way of life and its own good fortune. In another speech, this one explaining American war aims and intended for German consumption, Wilson concluded with these words about America: “God helping her, she can do no other.” The historian Mark Sullivan comments:
Probably not one in a hundred of his American hearers recognized that paraphrase of Martin Luther’s declaration, immortal to every German Lutheran, “Ich kann nicht anders” (I can do no other).
And so we circle back to the beginnings of Protestantism, which begot Puritanism, which begot Americanism.
[COMMENT: Like Lincoln, Wilson fell in my estimation when I began to see the difference between Biblical and socialist, centralist forms of government. Both Lincoln and Wilson pushed us in that direction. But clearly, Wilson was inspired by a Biblical vision, though he did not understand how to implement that politically. EF]
The final climacteric was the cold war—its start and its finish. Franklin D. Roosevelt had taken the United States into World War II, but stubbornly refused to accept Churchill’s diagnosis of Stalin as a ruthless imperialist. His successor, Harry Truman, followed FDR’s path—at first. But in 1946 Truman changed course dramatically. When Britain was no longer able to prop up the non-Communist governments of Greece and Turkey, Truman decided that the U.S. must take over that soon-to-lapse commitment. He announced the Truman Doctrine. From then on, the Soviets would no longer be allowed unlimited scope for their imperialist ambitions; the United States had decided to get into the game.
Truman’s announcement was in the spirit of classical Americanism. It recognized America’s message and duty to all mankind:
I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or outside pressure.... The free peoples of the world look to us for support in maintaining their freedoms.
Although historians often skip over this point, Truman’s world-view centered on the Bible nearly to the extent Lincoln’s had. By his own account, he had read through the Bible three times by age fourteen; he read it through seven times more during the years of his presidency. It shaped his understanding of the American enterprise. Truman makes this remarkable comment in his Memoirs: “What came about in Philadelphia in 1776 really had its beginning in Hebrew times.”
The end of the cold war was presided over by Ronald Reagan, who returns us (once again) to the nation’s beginning. In one of his best-remembered phrases, Reagan declared that America was and must always be the “shining city upon a hill.” John Winthrop had conceived this idea aboard the Arabella bound for Massachusetts Bay in 1630. The phrase goes back to Matthew (“Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid”), and indirectly to the prophet Isaiah (“In the end of days it shall come to pass that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and many nations shall flow unto it”). Reagan’s use of these words connected modern America to the humane Christian vision—the Puritan vision—the vision (ultimately) of the Hebrew Bible and the Jewish people—that created this nation.
[COMMENT: It never occurred to me to think of Truman having roots in the Bible. He seemed to me a secular man, though I never paid much attention to politics. I had been vaguely aware of Reagan's Christian faith, but never thought it had anything to do with his politics.
Why did these powerful men fail so badly to inspire America with a Christian faith? It was largely, I believe, due to the massive failure of Christian intellectual integrity. Over the 1800's and early 1900's, with a few exceptions who were not much followed even when read (e.g., C. S. Lewis and Francis Schaeffer), Christians had lost any capacity to defend their faith in public. We had given ourselves (and God) the reputation of being mindless fools, or spiritual tyrants -- in either case, not welcome to the public arena. And, I fear, a much deserved reputation. (Not for God, just us.)
Christians lost any sense that they had a very specific and very defensible worldview, and they lost every attempt to convince the public that they knew how to explain why their views were true. Christians had, by and large, rejected truth as the basis of their faith, alienated themselves from both science and politics (i.e., participation in the forming of public policy). We deserved what we got.
Lincoln, Wilson, Truman, and Reagan may have indeed had a sincere Biblical vision. But they did not have any grasp on the Biblical worldview, or how to defend or present it in the public arena. They were over their heads in their theology, and they were let down and betrayed by Christian intellectuals who, for the most part, had given up on the public arena. Churches had holed themselves up within their church walls, and offered little encouragement or helpful advice to those men who tried to express their Christian faith on the front lines of the public arena.
There are strong currents of recovery, and I expect the 21st century to be quite a different story for the Christian faith. See especially the Intelligent Design library.
Perhaps what Gelernter is pointing to is why God has preserved America. I have often wondered why we have survived our descent into murder and/or sexualizing of our children. Gelernter points toward something deep and profound in the American psyche. We have still a chance to become that Beacon on a Hill.
Just by the way, I live at the top of a hill, called Beacon Hill, on US #1, just south of Alexandria, Virginia. It is alleged to be the highest point on US #1 all the way from Maine to Florida, and a good place to pray from. I have been doing a weekly prayer walk right at the very top of that hill for several years now, beseeching the Lord's judgement and mercy on America and the world. (Judgement and mercy always go together in the plan of God.) His judgement is the shining of His light (as per John 3:19). We either run to Him, into the Light, or head for the bushes. And so judge ourselves. We should pray for His judgement, His shining of the Light of truth. Only truth sets us free -- if we want it. EF]
VIII. Denunciations of American Religion
Some agreed with Ronald Reagan and some disagreed. Some approved of him and some disapproved. Yet, to a remarkable extent, those who hated him are the ones who hate America—for many of the same religion-mocking reasons that made them ridicule Woodrow Wilson.
The great British economist John Maynard Keynes had this to say regarding Wilson’s behavior at the Paris Peace Conference: “Now it was that what I have called his theological or Presbyterian temperament became dangerous.” Wilson’s idealistic peace plan—the “Fourteen Points”—became, according to Keynes, “a document for gloss and interpretation and for all the intellectual apparatus of self-deception, by which, I daresay, the President’s forefathers had persuaded themselves that the course they thought it necessary to take was consistent with every syllable of the Pentateuch.”
The British diplomat Harold Nicholson concurred. He described Wilson as “the descendant of Covenanters, the inheritor of a more immediate Presbyterian tradition. That spiritual arrogance which seems inseparable from the harder forms of religion had eaten deep into his soul.”
The same type of accusation would be directed at Ronald Reagan. On the occasion of his “evil empire” speech, for example, the columnist Mary McGrory called Reagan’s denunciation of the Soviet Union “a marvelous parody of a revivalist minister.” Another journalist, Colman McCarthy, wrote that Reagan had descended “to the level of Ayatollah Khomeini”—to the level, that is, of an enemy of mankind who uses religion to do evil.
That Americanism is the successor of Puritanism is crucial to anti-Americanism. In the 18th century, anti-Americans were conservative, monarchist anti-Puritans. (Boswell reports Samuel Johnson’s announcement that “I am willing to love all mankind, except an American.”) In the 19th century, European elites became increasingly hostile to Christianity—which inevitably entailed hostility to America. In modern times, anti-Americanism is closely associated with anti-Christianism and anti-Semitism.2
Anti-Americans are still fascinated and enraged by Americans’ bizarre tendency to believe in God. In the months before the Iraq war in spring 2003, a Norwegian demonstrator waved a placard reading, “Will Bush Go to Hell?” An expatriate American wrote recently (for the FrontPage website) of being instructed by Londoners that “the United States is one giant fundamentalist Christian nation peopled by raging Bible-thumpers on every street”; that America is “running wild with religious extremism that threatens the world far more than bin Laden.”
And we needn’t go to Norway or Britain to find angry denunciations of President Bush and the Americans who support him in religion-mocking terms. The President’s faith, said one prominent American politician in September 2004, is “the American version of the same fundamentalist impulse that we see in Saudi Arabia, in Kashmir, and in many religions around the world.”
The speaker was former Vice President Al Gore. His comments were offensive and false. Today’s radical Islam is a religion of death, a religion that rejoices in slaughter. The radical Christianity known as Puritanism insisted on choosing life. Americanism does, too.
Puritans took to heart these famous words from the Hebrew Bible: “I have set before you this day life and death, blessing and curse: therefore choose life and live, you and your children” (Deuteronomy 30:19). On board the Arabella, John Winthrop closed his famous meditation of 1630 by citing that verse from Deuteronomy, centering his words on the page for emphasis:
Therefore let us choose life that wee, and our Seede, may live; by obeying his voice, and cleaveing to him, for hee is our life, and our prosperity.
No Saudi fanatic, no Kashmiri fanatic could have written those words. John Winthrop was a founder of this nation; we are his heirs; and we ought to thank God that we have inherited his humanitarian decency along with his radical, God-fearing Americanism.
[COMMENT: When Christians recover their public voice, we will see many things happen. Christians will begin to win the culture war. And Christians will begin to feel serious persecution -- in the West. Let's get on with it. EF]
DAVID GELERNTER is a professor of computer science at Yale and the author of Machine Beauty, Drawing Life, 1939, and other books. His novella, “Swan House,” appeared in our July-August 2004 issue; “Judaism Beyond Words,” a five-part series, was published in 2002 and 2003. The present article, in different form, was given as a lecture sponsored by Susan and Roger Hertog in New York in October of last year.
FOOTNOTES:
1. One day, it seems to me, there will be a Thanksgiving Haggadah for Americans to recite at the national holiday Lincoln proclaimed. I have in mind an actual document telling the story of Puritan sufferings in England; of America’s birth; of the bloody Civil War struggle to realize the creed’s promises; of repeated re-enactments of the Exodus that make up America’s history—interspersed with passages from the English Bible. This is a project I’m at work on myself.On August 28, the Pirate Party of Sweden made their election program official. An introduction stating the ideas and ideology behind their program, the party stated their program for the election in a number of concrete points.
The program consists of a total of 15 pages, and should be the most concrete and factual of the programs presented by parties running in the elections.
After The raid on the popular BitTorrent tracker “The Piratebay“, the Pirate Party has transformed into the largest party without parliament seats. In Sweden, you get seats in the parliament if you get four percent of the votes. The Pirate Party has arount the same member count as the Green Party, which is a party that supports the current government, and without them, the current government can’t maintain their majority This leads the Pirate Party to believe that if they get into the parliament they can fill such a vital role, and thereby make a big difference. Worth noting is that some unofficial gallups from various sources indicate that the Pirate Party is the most likely party for a Swedish first-time voter to choose on election day.
Here is a translation of the introduction. If you happen to read Swedish, the manifesto can be retrieved in PDF here.
The Pirate Party Election Manifesto 2006
Preface
The election program of the Pirate Party consists of various nautical charts, describing what we want to do in each of the areas within the Pirate Party policies. These charts are divided in sections based on deadline and what is to be done on a Swedish and on a European level.
As an introduction to these charts, we describe our ideology and our main policies.
Protected integrity in an open society
The development of technology has made sure Sweden and Europe stand before a fork in the road. The new technology offers fantastic possibilities to spread culture and knowledge all over the world with almost no costs. But it also makes way for the building of a society monitored at a level unheard of up until now.
In no time, the monitoring state has advanced its positions strongly in Sweden. This development threatens equality and safety before the law, and nothing indicates that it even adds to security. The Pirate Party believes this is the wrong way to go.
The right to privacy is a corner stone in an open and democratic society. Each and everyone has the right to respect for one’s own private and family life, one’s home and one’s correspondence. If the constitutional freedom of information is to be more than empty words on a paper, we much defend the right for protected private communication.
The arguments for every individual step towards a monitoring society may sound very convincing, but we only have to look at the recent history of Europe to see where that road leads. It is less than twenty years since the fall of the Berlin wall, and there are numerous other terrible examples. To claim that it’s only those with something to hide that has anything to fear is simply lacking knowledge of history, and lacking courage.
We have no problem with police monitoring and spying on suspected criminals. That is exactly what the police is suppose to be doing. But routinely monitoring ordinary citizens hoping for something suspicious to turn up is not only a gross violation of the privacy of honest people. It is also a waste of valuable police resources.
We have to pull the emergency break on the train running towards a society we don’t want. Terrorists can attack our open society, but only governments can disband it. The Pirate Party wants to ensure that this doesn’t happen.
Private communication and file sharing
A driving force behind the current monitoring hysteria is the entertainment business, which wants to prevent people from file sharing copyrighted material. But to achieve this all private communication must be monitored. To know what ones and zeros make up a movie, the ones and zeros has to be analyzed. It is the same sort of ones and zeros that is sent, regardless of if it makes up a piece of music, or a letter to a doctor or a lawyer.
Therefore society ha to choose: do we want a possibility to trustingly communicate over the Internet to exist?
If your answer is yes, it means that also those that shares copyrighted material can use these possibilities.
If you answer is no, it means that you abolish the right of information, the right to mail secrecy and the right to a private life.
There are no other answers.
It is not possible to claim that society should allow mail secrecy for certain purposes, but not for others, since it is impossible to separate the different cases without breeching the secrecy. It is the same types of ones and zeros being used, and only by opening the message, it is possible to see what it contains.
The current copyright legislation can not be combined with freedom of information and protected private communication. Since the fundamental principles of the open, democratic society is more important than conserving old business models within the business of entertainment at all costs, copyright has to fold.
But this is not negative. A reformed copyright legislation, expressing a balance between different interests in society instead of being an order form from the large media companies, has its own benefits. It is a possibility for Sweden and Europe, not a threat.
The spreading of culture and knowledge is a positive thing
Thanks to the Internet it is today possible for everyone with a computer to take part of a fantastic treasure of culture and knowledge.
Instead of being limited to a cultural canon decided from above, the youths of today has access to the music, theater and pictures of an entire world. This is something we should embrace, not something we should try to forbid. File sharing is good for society and its people.
All non-commercial acquiring, using, bettering and spread of culture should be actively encouraged. The Internet is filling the same function today as popular education did a hundred years ago. It is something positive and good for the development of society.
The copyright legislation must be changes so that it is made perfectly clear that it only regulate use and copying of works done for commercial purposes. To share copies, or in any other way spread or use someone else’s work, should never be forbidden as long as it is done on an idealistic basis without the purposes of commercial gain.
Unfortunately, the legislation has developed in quite the opposite direction. On July 1, 2005, a million ordinary Swedes were suddenly turned into criminals over night, simply because they download movies and music. This doesn’t only hurt our possibilities to take part of culture. In the long run it undermines the trust of our entire judicial apparatus. This development has to end.
In a similar fashion, patents are used to inhibit the spread and use of knowledge, which hurts society as a whole.
Medical patents make people in poor countries die for no reason. It twists the priorities in research and makes the costs for medications a problem in every health care budget.
Software patents inhibit technical development within the info tech area and presents a serious threat against small as well as mid-sized businesses and individual developers. They run the risk of putting the power over the Internet completely in the hands of a small number of multi national businesses.
We want to release knowledge, and have specific suggestion on how to avoid the negative consequences that the patent system means.
Sweden and Europe has everything to gain from choosing the path of openness.
No other issues
The Pirate Party does not have any policies on issues that traditionally concerns the left-right scale, or any other issues outside of our program of policiies.
We particularly does not concern ourselves with the division of wealth. We are not after dividing money between different groups in society. None of our propositions costs any money for the state, and several of them may potentially save money in the budget. Because of this, we can place ourselves outside of the struggle concerning the budget, with good faith, and leave it to the old parties.
We are ready to support a social democratic as well as a non-socialist government, we claim that both Göran Persson as well as Fredrik Reinfeldt are well capable of taking the role as the head of government in a satisfactory manner. We do not believe that the differences between them are that big, in reality, and every one of us are ready to live with any of them as our prime minister.
The only thing that concerns us, is the protection of our open society and democracy, that the march towards a controlled society is cancelled, and that culture and knowledge are set free.
Our goal is to reach the parliament and being in a position where we can tip the scale. If we succeed in this we will talk to both Göran Persson and Fredrik Reinfeldt alike. We will explain what we want, and point out that our policies in no way differs from either traditional social democratic policy or traditional liberal/non-socialist policy.
After that, we will support the person aspiring to form a government, who is ready to make the best deal with us on our policies. On any matter outside of our policy statement, we will support and vote for the current government, no matter what we believe individually on different matters.
Due to the fact that we do not have a view on everything on this earth, but concentrate completely on the issues where we have formed a policy, we can promise a result if we make it to the house of parliament in a scale-tipping position. That makes us unique in Swedish political history.
We are the only party that will never deal away our free and open society for the benifit of any other issue or interest.
More on the Pirate Party tipping the scale
The Pirate Party does not take a stand in issues generally associated with the right or left, or any other issues that are not part of our declaration of principles. We are ready to support a socialdemocratic as well as a non-socialist government. The only thing that concerns us is that the march towards a controlled society is cancelled, and that culture and knowledge in society are set free,
On of the factions within Swedish politics has really anything to lose in reality by satisfying more or less all of our demands. Neither Persson nor Reinfeldt have any personal interest in keeping the absurdity that is current copyright legislation. The fact that things look like they do, is primarily due to lack of interest in the area, and that they have therefore allowed the ‘experts’ (i.e. the lobbyists of the entertainment industry) have their way.
In a situation where they can gain position of forming a government by striking a deal with us in an issue that they, themselves, believe to be less important, there is every reason to believe that they will be eager to find a solution.
But in either case, there are three possible scenarios:
1) One of the factions agree to our demands, and the other does not. Then we will choose the faction that agree with us. Whether this is the red faction of the blue faction is of no concern for us. As long as we see that they are doing their best to seriously run our issues, we will support the government in all other issues as well, without questioning.
2) Both the factions agree to our demands. If there are differences of nuances making one faction looking slightly better than the other, we will choose this faction. If both are exactly as good, we will support the faction with the more votes. This way we won’t influence the balance between the factions in Swedish politics. As long as the government is running our issues, we will support them in all decicions, just as in the first scenario.
3) Both the factions refuse to meet our demands. This is the more complicated case, but we can handle this one too. Initially we will support one faction, and make a government possible. Most likely this will be the ones with the less votes, so that the others, the ‘victors’, will feel that they have lost power they were entitled to. They can, however, not do much about it, since we will support the government without questioning in anything that does not involve our principles.
When the “victors” are safely placed in the penalty box of opposition, we start our businesslike, low-voiced conversations with them, until they realize that our proposals are not, in fact, that dangerous, and that they can only win from working with us. When they have seen our arguments in the glow of the miraging governmental position for a while, there are good reasons to believe they will agree with us. This is when we will call for a vote of non-confidence and change the government. After that, the Pirate Party with support the new government without questioning, in all issues, as long as the government runs our issues forcefully, just as in scenario 1 and 2.
This is our entire strategy. This way we can guarantee that our policies will have a break-through.
Questions and |
Ismail left, and he was arrested the morning of April 12 and charged with threatening to commit a crime.
MassLive reported that during an April hearing, Alan Rubin, Ismail’s attorney, explained Ismail arrived in the United States in 2013 seeking asylum from Ghana. Ismail hoped to receive a green card in March 2018 through a scheduled immigration hearing.
During the hearing in April, Covington said deportation proceedings have begun. However, Rubin explained how the process of seeking asylum includes deportation proceedings.
According to the Daily Hampshire Gazette, Shawn Neudauer, ICE spokesman for New England, said, “Ismail was previously arrested by federal immigration agents after crossing into the U.S. illegally in 2013.”
Neudauer also said, “The most recent conviction in Massachusetts has increased the significance of his case, and he will remain in ICE custody pending a bond hearing before the immigration court.”
This story will be updated as new information is released.
Abigail Charpentier can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @abigailcharp.MIAMI BEACH (CBS4) -Two sisters from Toronto say they were assaulted and insulted with profane comments by two Miami Beach Officers when they were arrested for resisting arrest without violence just before Christmas.
It’s a story making headlines in Toronto but the Police Chief of Miami Beach tells CBS4’s Peter D’Oench that the charges are unfounded and that the case was investigated thoroughly.
“They called us dirty Canadians and said we had HIV because we were from Canada,” said 24-year-old Angelina Mastrangelo. She told D’Oench, “They asked me how much I weighed and said I was Miss Piggy.”
“They called me a dirty whore, a slut,” said her sister, 20-year-old Michele Mastrangelo.
According to police, six-year veteran officers Edward Alba and William Beeker confronted the women after a smell of marijuana was coming from the beach side of the Ritz Carlton Hotel on the night of December 23rd, 2012.
The sisters say they were with three men, including 18-year-old Jodee Hopkins. They say they had been bar hopping and say the men were smoking in marijuana. Hopkins was charged with possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia.
“They told us we were under arrest for drinking, which we were not,” said Angelina Mastrangelo. “I said ‘why are you taking us to jail?’ And one officer pushed me up against the wall and then flipped me over on the ground on my back. And this officer was huge on top of me. I had to push him off.” I felt very humiliated and degraded. I have never been in trouble before, and I was in a cell with hookers and prostitutes.”
“I felt very helpless watching this,” said Michele Mastrangelo. “I couldn’t do anything because they were police officers. This was disgusting and I also felt degraded. I think something should be done like maybe they should lose their jobs. This was not fair.”
Surveillance tape released by Miami Beach Police shows the two sisters jumping up and down and dancing after their arrest.
“I can’t explain their behavior,” said Police Chief Raymond Martinez. “They were acting strange and out of character.”
The officers said the sisters appeared “irate and unruly” and they were concerned for their own sister. One of the officers displayed a taser in case they had to use it. They did not.
Chief Martinez told D’Oench that the case was thoroughly investigated and the allegations were unfounded.
“We take all allegations seriously and this was thoroughly investigated,” said Martinez. “It’s troubling to me as a Chief and troubling for the officers when false allegations like this are made.”
“The sisters filed a complaint but they refused to give a sworn statement,” said Martinez. “My concern is to clear the name of the officers and clear the name of Miami Beach.”
Other surveillance tape released by police shows an officer in the processing room escorting Michele Mastrangelo to a bathroom. But she refused to use it and instead relieved herself on one of the seats.
“This video shows how on three separate occasions she was taken to use the restroom,” said Martinez.
“I told the female officer that I was not going to let her pull my tampon out of me,” said Michele. “Plus she was going to keep the door open so other people could see me. So I went to the bathroom on the seat. This whole thing was disgusting. We were in custody for 11 hours.”
Michele Mastrangelo was charged with disorderly intoxication, resisting arrest without violence and criminal mischief. Angelina Mastrangelo was charged with resisting arrest without violence.
They appeared in a Miami-Dade courtroom on Thursday where they were ordered to perform 25 hours of community service each in Canada.
The sisters said this experience should not deter them from coming to Miami Beach, which they’ve been doing for the past six years. They said they are considering a lawsuit, even though the Police Chief says there was no wrongdoing by his officers.
Officer Alba is a veteran who served in Iraq. The Chief also said Officer Beeker used to be a New York City cop.Analysis of the impact made by the English-manufactured Dukes ball on last summer's Sheffield Shield competition has shown it might provide a boost for Australia's Test team striving to break a 16-year Ashes drought in the UK.
Cricket Australia's Head of Cricket Operations, Sean Cary, said the statistical data collected from the five rounds of Shield matches (plus the competition final) that employed the Dukes ball had yielded results largely in keeping with expectations that drove the trial.
The most significant being the drop in the average number of runs scored per wicket taken; 28.9 against the Dukes ball as opposed to 34.6 in the three rounds of Shield cricket last summer that featured the traditional, Australia-made Kookaburra red ball.
As well as the comparative reduction in individual centuries – 19 against the red Kookaburra (6.3 per round of matches) versus 18 in total in preliminary Shield rounds using the Dukes (3.6 per round) – suggesting that batters found it tougher against the English ball that is reputed to swing further and retain its hardness longer.
CA announced last October they had worked with UK-based manufacturer to produce a ball that mirrored the performance of the English version, but was designed to suit harsher Australian conditions, to help the nation's top-level domestic batters and bowlers better adapt to the idiosyncrasies of the Dukes.
Watch all of Chadd Sayers' 62 Shield wickets
The trial was driven by the struggles that successive Australia Test teams have endured against their Ashes rival on English soil, where the visitors have not won a campaign since Steve Waugh's team triumphed in 2001.
"It (the two-month Dukes trial) delivered what we thought it would deliver, we thought it would create challenging environments for the batsmen and give the bowlers a little bit more to work with," Cary told cricket.com.au.
"I think the long-form game, if anything, needs to favour the bowler a little bit because the batsmen get plenty of favouritism in the white-ball formats.
"So it was about allowing local cricketers to adapt, and seeing who among them can adapt more quickly, as well as those who are prepared to accept that challenge.
"And then they put their foot forward in terms of selection for 2019 if they can become consistent."
The unique properties of the Dukes ball – slightly smaller and darker than its red Kookaburra counterpart, and with a more prominent seam – were most evident on day one of the 15 Shield matches played prior to the final between Victoria and South Australia (which also featured the English ball).
Joe takes Mennie wickets in Shield return
In eight of those matches, the team batting first lost their initial six wickets for 150 runs or less, compared to 12 such day-one collapses in 34 matches using the red Kookaburra ball over the past two summers.
As a result, the average total of the team batting first on day one dropped from 335 against the red Kookaburra at the start of the summer (when pitches are traditionally at their most lively) to 270 from February onwards when the Dukes ball was used.
"We've seen that the Dukes ball swings in any conditions, and at different times of the day as well," Cary said of the ball's performance in Australia.
Pattinson rips through Bulls in Shield
"It was quite interesting in the Shield final (at Alice Springs last March) on the first day, it didn’t swing at all early on when it was quite warm and humid yet the days after that it did swing around when it was quite dry."
Cary acknowledged that a key element of playing Test cricket in England – the presence of heavy, low cloud and high levels of air and surface moisture,such as prevailed at Trent Bridge in 2015 when Australia was bowled out for 60 in less than a session – cannot be replicated during an Australia summer.
But he noted it was the players who had experienced first-class cricket in the UK who adapted most readily to the introduction of the Dukes ball to Sheffield Shield, with four of the five leading runs scorers against the Dukes (Ed Cowan, Moises Henriques, George Bailey and Joe Burns) all having previously plied their trade on the England county circuit.
And that it was genuine swing bowlers who historically pitched the ball fuller and 'kissed' the pitch – seamers such as leading Dukes ball wicket-taker Chadd Sayers and Western Australia pair Jason Behrendorff and David Moody – who proved most potent when the Dukes was first introduced.
Cummins snares eight wickets on Shield return
"Over the course of the five rounds and the (Shield) final, the bowlers learned to adjust," Cary said.
"There were some comments early that Australian bowlers are taught to hit the deck and they weren't swinging it, but those bowlers that were genuine swing bowlers were able to reap benefits early, and then the other bowlers caught up over the course of the five rounds.
"So by the time the final came along, the Victorian pace bowlers (James Pattinson and Chris Tremain) had learned how to swing the Dukes ball, and they were very effective.
"Ed Cowan made some comments in light of his experience of batting in England, that very early on in the game you've just got to play with really soft hands and let the ball come on to the bat and be patient.
"And then, as you get in, you can start to formulate your innings and force the pace."
While a decision on whether the Dukes ball will be used in the coming Australia domestic summer is yet to be made by CA, Cary believes the feedback from players and coaches as well as the data gathered from matches indicated the trial was a success.
NSW quick Doug Bollinger with the Dukes ball // Getty
He said the only setback was unexpected wear and tear problems with some of the Dukes balls in the early matches, but the manufacturer had quickly acknowledged the performance fault and pledged to rectify it.
"Coaching staff were really positive around the use of different balls and the way it taught the players to learn to adapt," said Cary, the former WA seamer who departs CA next week to take up a role as senior director with the United States Tennis Association based in Florida.
"Players don't necessarily like change at the best of times, but sometimes we've got to force the change on them so that they develop adaptability skills and learn to challenge themselves in different environments.
"Hopefully it holds them in good stead for opportunities down the track where they need to go back to their memory banks and recall how they learned to adapt to a different environment."
"From a CA perspective, we're happy because we're getting appealing, result-driven cricket.
"As far as Test cricket's concerned, that's really important.
"If we're going to maintain an attractive format and long-term product for fans then we need results, and we need bowlers to be in the game all the time."In her teens, strangers flashed her on the subway, teachers asked for hugs and boys joked about her breasts. Should she laugh off a lifetime of objectification – or get angry?
The two worst times for dicks on the New York subway: when the train car is empty or when it’s crowded. As a teenager, if I found myself in an empty car, I would immediately leave – even if it meant changing cars as the train moved, which terrified me. Because, if I didn’t, I just knew the guy sitting across from me would inevitably lift his newspaper to reveal a semihard cock, and even if he wasn’t planning on it, I sure wasn’t going to sit there and worry about it for the whole ride.
On crowded train cars I didn’t see dicks – I felt them. Pressing into my hip, men pretending that the rocking up against me was just because of the jostling of the train.
The first time I saw a penis on the subway, I was on the platform for the N train three blocks from my house in Queens, on my way to school. I was 12. I had just missed a train, so I was the only person there other than a man all the way at the other end of the platform. He was so far away that I could see only the outline of his shape, but soon I noticed his hand moving furiously – and that he was walking quickly towards me with his penis in his hand. I had always thought myself prepared for something like this; I knew I was supposed to yell or run, but I just stood there. I didn’t look away or turn around, and even though I felt my knees giving out, my feet felt strongly planted to the ground.
As another train started to pull into the station, he stopped midway down the platform and zipped himself up. The doors of the train opened and he walked on, normally. My feet still in the same place, I tapped a man in a suit coming off the car on the shoulder and asked for help in a small voice, but he didn’t stop moving. So I stood there. When the next train came, I got on, figuring I should get to school, but I got off one stop later, to call my parents from a station phone booth. I noticed that my hands and face had pins and needles.
***
It’s called the cycle of violence, but in my family, female suffering is linear: abuse is passed down like the world’s worst birthright, largely skipping the men and marking the women with scars, night terrors (and fantastic senses of humour). My aunts and my mom joked about how often it happened to them when they were younger: the man who flashed a jacket open and had a big red bow on his cock; the neighbourhood pervert who masturbated visibly in his window as they walked to school as girls. (The cops told them the man could do whatever he wanted in his own house.) “Just point and laugh,” my aunt said. “That usually sends them running.” Usually.
Of course, what feels like a matrilineal curse is not really ours. We don’t own it; the shame and disgust belong to the perpetrators. At least, that’s what the books say. But the frequency with which women in my family have been hurt or sexually assaulted starts to feel like a flashing message encoded in our DNA: Hurt. Me.
My daughter is five and I want to inoculate her against this. I want Layla to have her father’s lucky genes – genes that walk into a room and feel entitled to be there. Genes that feel safe. Not my out-of-place chromosomes that are fight‑or-flight ready.
This is the one way in which I wish she was not mine.
***
My dad assured me that no cop would ever arrest him for beating a man who flashes children
For months after the man showed me his penis on the subway platform, my father walked me up the stairs every morning to wait for the train. The booth worker let him through the gate without paying, after my dad explained what had happened. He gave him a bag of cherries from the tree that grew in our yard as a thank you every week.
As we were talking on the platform under the sun, I noticed an odd shape under my father’s jacket. He tried to distract me with a joke, but when I asked him about it a second time, he pulled up his shirt to show me a metal pipe sticking out of the top of his trousers. He assured me that no cop would ever arrest him for beating a man who flashes children. Today he tells me he knew that was a lie, but he brought the pipe with him anyway.
On the worst day – a few years later – I didn’t notice the man at all. The train was crowded; my mind was elsewhere. I was listening to A Tribe Called Quest on my Walkman and thinking about how warm it was. When I stepped out of the subway, the sun hit my face and I was happy to be almost home. But when I started to put my hand in my back pocket, I felt something wet: I had made it the whole ride back without noticing that a man, whose face I would never see, had come on me.
I wiped my hand on the lower leg of my jeans and looked around to see if anyone had noticed. I walked the three blocks home with my backpack slung as low as possible, so that no one walking behind me could see what had happened or could think I had peed myself.
I peeled the jeans off when I got home and, even though most of the semen had landed on the pocket – giving me two, rather than just one, layers of protection – the skin on my ass was still damp from it. I ran the tub until there were two inches of scalding water along the bottom, squirted in some of my sister’s Victoria’s Secret vanilla-scented bath gel, and sat in it quickly, my shirt still on.
I wrapped a pink towel around myself when I stepped out of the tub and turned my jeans inside out before putting them in the laundry basket so my mother wouldn’t find out. I knew she would cry. I piled some sheets on top of the jeans to be safe.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘As soon as I got a chest, the taunts about my face stopped as boys became more interested in feeling me up than making me cry.’ Photograph: Chris Buck for the Guardian
Later I would find out that the guy rubbing up on you in the subway isn’t just an asshole – he has a disorder. In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the American Psychiatric Association describes “frotteurism” as “recurrent, intense, or arousing sexual urges or fantasies, that involve touching and rubbing against a nonconsenting person”. There are online forums for men – because, let’s be real, frotteurs are almost exclusively men – who rub on women and girls on the train, in bars, wherever they can do it while getting off unnoticed.
They have handles like “Bum Feeler” and “Rock Hard”, and share stories of their exploits and pictures of the women they have surreptitiously dry-humped. Some give advice, such as backing away occasionally, so your victim gets the impression that you’re working hard not to touch her and that any contact is the fault of the crowd.
“Women are forgiving if you can make it seem like this,” Rock Hard writes. “Almost like you can’t help it, not like you’ve preyed on them like a piece of meat.”
***
There was a large mirrored cabinet above the sink at the house I grew up in. If I pulled out all three of the doors, I could create a three-way mirror to look at my face from all possible angles.
I wrote in my diary at the time, I’m so ugly I can’t stand it. I have a big gross nose, pimples, hairy arms. I will never have a boy like me or a boyfriend. All of my friends are pretty and I will be the one with no one.
I was feeling that loneliness acutely at the time, because I was obsessed with a boy named Matt. Matt – the first in a long line of blond boys I would fall for – told me once that I would be so, so pretty if not for my big nose. All I heard was, he thought I could be pretty!
I started to measure my nose. First with my fingers, which I would try to keep the same distance apart as they were when they were on my face and then bring them over to my mother and her nose to demonstrate just how much bigger mine was compared with hers. She would insist that my nose was smaller – the kind of well-meaning parenting that just inspired fury and distrust. The nicest thing someone said to me was that a lot of people my age had big noses, and that I would eventually “grow into it”. The comment acknowledged that the ugliness I was feeling was valid and not some childish self-hatred. It was the only thing that gave me hope, the idea that my face would slowly morph into something more proportional than the monstrosity I was currently working with.
The thing about hating your face so intently is that it takes an extraordinary amount of care and attention. The obsession is almost contradictory, because you start to love the self-hatred a little bit. It becomes a part of your routine – you whisper, “I hate you” when you pass by a mirror, or you think it when trying on clothes or putting on makeup, acts that feel foolish at the time, because you know you’re not tricking anyone into thinking you’re beautiful. There’s nothing that you could pile on your body or face that would make it worthy.
But at least I could bear to look. A friend I lived with for a short while had an ID card for work that she was supposed to keep around her neck at all times. To avoid having to look at the picture of herself, she carefully cut a small piece of yellow paper into a square and taped it over her face. Later, I would find plastic bags of vomit hidden underneath her bed, wrapped in towels meant to mask the smell that eventually led to their discovery.
I was an ugly girl who became a sexy girl once my breasts grew in and I started telling dirty jokes
I started carrying a piece of paper with me that I would position over the bump on my nose when I looked in that three-way mirror to see what I might look like if it were gone. My father tells me my nose is part of my Italian heritage, that getting rid of it would be a slap in the face to our ethnicity. I tell him we’ll always have spaghetti. He is not convinced.
I imagined all of the things that would go right if I were just to have a smaller nose. I would have a boyfriend and the girls in school would stop making fun of me. That year, several girls would bring me to a playground to have a “talk” about why we could not be friends any more. Because I am too loud, because I agree with everything they say – desperate for approval in a way that is unseemly. We’re not trying to be mean, they say, it would just be better if you ate lunch somewhere else. I know if I looked more like them, with a small nose and long, light hair in braids and bows, I would not have to go to the building where the younger children are to eat lunch with my sister.
I find out from my male friends that there are cute girls, pretty girls, hot girls, sexy girls, and sometimes variations or combinations of all of the above. The worst to be is a fat girl or an ugly girl. I was an ugly girl who became a sexy girl once my breasts grew in and I started telling dirty jokes with abandon.
As soon as I “got a chest”, as my mom would say, the taunts about my face stopped as boys became more interested in feeling me up than making me cry. I started to forget about my face and mean girls, and focused on the things my body could do and inspire. During summer break, a male friend whom I had known since childhood put his hand on my breast as we watched a movie in the room over from our parents, saying nothing. I remained frozen, unsure what to do. Wasn’t he supposed to kiss me first? I was 11.
***
When I left junior high, I had what I thought seemed like a reasonably womanish body and improving makeup skills. I was optimistic that I could leave behind my reputation as the nerdy one of my friends. In my new school, a top school, full of maths and science aficionados, the girl with well-developed boobs was queen. I was being asked on a lot of dates. Proper dates to pool halls and movie theatres, lunches at a diner on the weekend or a walk to Central Park. I had boyfriends. Later, in between high school relationships, my male friends would jokingly/not jokingly ask to “talk business” with me – code for “Let’s negotiate how it’s in your best interest to suck my dick.” I turned them down, but was secretly pleased nonetheless. It hadn’t yet occurred to me that the boys my age would want to hook up for any other reason than they liked me.
At first I was thrilled to be in a class in my junior year of high school with a teacher whom I’ll call Mr Z. He was a well-known easy grader and kind of a joke in a sad-old-man way; he had what we suspected was a glass eye, a hard time keeping drool in his mouth as he spoke, and walked with difficulty. The kind of classes he taught were normally held on the sixth floor, but administrators made sure he was out of sight on the 10th.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Pretending these offences roll off our backs is strategic – don’t give them the satisfaction – but it isn’t the truth.’ Photograph: Chris Buck for the Guardian
On the first day of class, Mr Z told us that if anyone came in to observe the class – “an important-looking person” – we should raise our hand no matter what question he asked. “If you don’t know the answer, raise your right hand. If you do know the answer, raise your left. I’ll only call on you if you’re raising the left!”
Everyone looked around at each other, smirking.
Mr Z didn’t really teach as much as he showed movies like Braveheart, but one day he had an actual lesson. And though he almost never called on students, he called on me. “Come up to the board, Jessica.” He smiled, small bits of white spit accumulating at the corners of his mouth. “We all want to get a closer look at your shirt.”
He laughed, but the class was silent. I wasn’t really wearing a shirt but a brown bodysuit, which was popular at the time – it snapped at the crotch and I wore it with jeans baggy enough to see the cutout above my hips. I remember the way I slid sideways through rows of desks, my arms crossed over my chest. I don’t remember what I wrote on the board. I never went back to the class.
***
When I started at high school, I went from being one of the smartest kids to being a nominally good student without the same drive and pedigree as my cute and smart girlfriends. Their parents had gone to college, grad school even. They lived on the Upper West Side or in Park Slope, in apartments filled with books and paintings and cabinets full of alcohol. One friend had an entire floor of a four-storey park-side brownstone as their “room”. I lived in a house where once or twice a week my mom would go outside wearing yellow rubber gloves to clean up the used condoms that littered the sidewalk.
One of my best girlfriends was a lithe dancer who had professional head shots for when she did the occasional acting job. She was the kind of Wasp-y pretty I desperately wanted to be – the type of beauty that provoked starry-eyed crushes instead of ass slaps. She lived in a duplex apartment with a spiral staircase, and we bonded over our older boyfriends. The first time she came to my house, she remarked how much she liked my mom’s “uneducated” accent. “It’s cute!” she said, smiling as she helped herself to a soda from the fridge.
He asked if I wanted a good grade. Of course I did. Just give me a hug then, he said, opening his arms. I aced the class
That same year I was called to the board in Mr Z’s class, 1995, the school started investigating an English teacher for describing sex fantasies and his masturbation routine during class. He talked about having a dream in which he raped a maid who had his wife’s face. Another student said he asked her to play spin the bottle with him and later let her off writing an essay because she was “pretty”. He was suspended for a few months, and then four years later – after a different man, an assistant principal, was arrested for fondling and exposing himself to a freshman – he was suspended again. That first time, though, the feigned outrage in the school lasted as long as the newspaper articles did. We had a brief student assembly on the subject and moved on.
A few weeks before the semester was going to end, I ran into Mr Z in the hallway, and he pointed at me, smiling. He was wearing a striped shirt that was slightly discoloured in spots, and his belly was hanging low over his trousers. “I’ve been missing you!” he said as he walked up to me. He was breathing heavily, as if the walk down the hall had taken effort. He asked if I still wanted a good grade. I responded that of course I did.
Just give me a hug, then, he said, opening his arms. All I want is a hug from you.
I aced the class.
***
We know that direct violence causes trauma; we have shelters, counsellors, services. We know that children who live in violent neighbourhoods are more likely to develop PTSD. Yet we still have no name for what happens to women living in a culture that hates them.
When you catch a cold or a virus, your body has ways of letting you know that you are sick. But what diagnosis do you give to the shaking hands you get after a stranger whispers “pussy” in your ear on your way to work? What medicine can you take to stop being afraid that the cab driver is not actually taking you home? And what about those of us who walk through all this without feeling any of it – what does it say about the hoops our brain had to jump through to get to ambivalence? I don’t believe any of us walk away unscathed.
I do know, though, that a lot of us point and laugh. The strategy of my aunts and mother is now my default reaction when a 15-year-old on Instagram calls me a cunt or when a grownup reporter writes something about my tits. Just keep pointing and laughing, rolling your eyes in the hope that someone will finally notice that this is not very funny.
Pretending that these offences roll off our backs is strategic – don’t give them the satisfaction – but it isn’t the truth. You lose something along the way. Mocking the men who hurt us, as mockable as they are, starts to feel like acquiescing to the most condescending of catcalls: “You look better when you smile.” Because even subversive sarcasm adds a cool-girl nonchalance, an updated, sharper version of the expectation that women be forever pleasant. This sort of posturing is a performance that requires strength I do not have any more.
My daughter is happy and brave. When she falls down or gets hurt, the first words out of her mouth are always: “I’m all right, Mom. I’m OK.” And she is. I want her to be OK always. So while my refusal to keep laughing or making people comfortable may seem like a real fucking downer, the truth is that this is what optimism looks like.
Naming what is happening to us, telling the truth about it – as ugly and uncomfortable as it can be – means that we want it to change. That we know it is not inevitable. I want the line of my mother and grandmother, that world’s worst birthright of violations, to stop here.
• This is an edited extract from Jessica Valenti’s memoir Sex Object, published by Harper Collins at £16.99. To order a copy for £12.99, go to the Guardian bookshop or call 0330 333 6846.
Comments on this article are pre-moderated and will only be visible after being approved by a moderatorIn his long career as a prosecutor and state and federal judge, the Honorable Gabriel Thomas Porteous of New Orleans has tried and presided over hundreds of cases involving malfeasance and misdeeds.
This week, in a chilly Senate hearing room, he is the defendant, accused of decades of corruption, in an impeachment trial that could result in him being kicked off the federal bench.
The trial is an extraordinary spectacle, featuring allegations that lawyers and bail bondsmen plied the judge, a reformed drinker and gambler, with gifts to gain his courtroom favor. Cash in envelopes. Bottles of Absolut and coolers of shrimp. A Vegas bachelor party for Porteous's son, complete with lap dance. It showcases both the often-sordid politics of Louisiana and a struggle over constitutional precedents.
But while this is the first Senate impeachment trial since President Bill Clinton's in 1999, and the first for a member of the judiciary since 1989, the historic procedure is underway largely outside the zone of the public's attention. Amid the tumult of the midterm campaigns, Washington's attention has been occupied elsewhere.
The same room, No. 216 in the Hart Senate Office Building, was packed two months ago for the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court justice Elena Kagan. Now it sits mostly empty of press and spectators.
The place is full, however, with prosecutorial heft, rare bipartisan teamwork and top-drawer defense lawyers who have increasingly been trying the patience of Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-M0.), a former city and county prosecutor who is chairing the 12-member Senate Impeachment Trial Committee. The panel will make recommendations to the full Senate, which is expected to vote on impeachment sometime after the November elections.
A team of six House impeachment managers, headed by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a former U.S. attorney who tried public corruption cases, is prosecuting the four articles of impeachment, which also include charges that Porteous lied on his 2001 bankruptcy petition and to FBI agents who were conducting background checks after he was nominated to the 5th Circuit Court.
Porteous' defense lawyers, led by George Washington University professor Jonathan Turley, say the charges are overblown and do not rise to the "high crimes" described in the U.S. Constitution. He urged senators to consider carefully before making Porteous the only judge in U.S. history to be forced off the bench through impeachment without having been charged with a crime.
"The secret is out, Judge Porteous gambled, he probably gambled too much," Turley said in his opening statements Monday, "but that's not illegal."
Schiff countered that the House voted unanimously in March that Porteous's conduct was "so violative of the public trust that he cannot be allowed to remain on the bench without making a mockery of the court system."
Porteous, 63, a large, balding man with thick gold rings on each hand, is suspended from the bench, but still collecting his salary. He has sat impassively at the defense table, sometimes making a note or two on a legal pad, as a string of colorful characters have spilled the alleged tale of his dishonor and human failings.
His Metairie home was destroyed in Hurricane Katrina. Four months later, his wife, Carmella, died of a heart attack, his son testified Wednesday. "After that, he became very isolated, he stayed at home, he was depressed," said Timothy Porteous, also a lawyer.
Mutterings about the ethics of Porteous, a state judge for 10 years and former prosecutor, began almost as soon as he landed on it in 1994. He was suspected of being way too cozy with Louis and Lori Marcotte, a pair of siblings who had monopolized the lucrative bail-bond business on the West Bank, and he was one of the local judges investigated in Operation Wrinkled Robe, a wide-ranging FBI investigation into corruption at the Jefferson Parish courthouse. Two of his fellow state judges went off to jail for mooching off the Marcottes, and a third was taken off the bench by the state Supreme Court.
Marcotte took the judge to Las Vegas and treated him to expensive lunches, he testified this week, and his employees fixed Porteous's fence and his cars, often returning them from the detailing shop with the vodka or shrimp left inside as a special goody bag. Lawyers slipped Porteous cash, prosecutors charge, to influence their cases before his bench. The defense says those lawyers were longtime friends just trying to help out a man they knew had fallen on tough times because of gambling debts.
The judge's longtime secretary, Rhonda Danos, testified that she picked up an envelope in 1999 from Jacob Amato, a lawyer the judge's son said he called "Uncle Jake," who had a case pending with the judge. When Danos asked Amato's secretary what was in the envelope, "she just rolled her eyes," Danos said. "I said, 'Never mind, I don't want to know.' " Prosecutors said the envelope was stuffed with $2,000 or so in cash.
Danos also paid the judge's gambling markers at casinos, she testified, after he and his wife had filed for bankruptcy in 2001, initially under false names. Prosecutors charge Porteous accumulated tens of thousands of additional gambling debt after the filing and never disclosed it to the court.
The impeachment trial's rules of evidence are unlike civil or criminal trials, and McCaskill often has leaned over to seek guidance from Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the committee's vice-chairman and a longtime Judiciary Committee member. And the case is complicated, for all of the hours of narrative that would seem to place Porteous in the parade of infamous Louisiana public servants, from former Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) with his cash in the freezer all the way back to Huey P. Long.
The FBI and the Justice Department conducted a lengthy criminal investigation of corruption and declined to press charges against Porteous more than three years ago. And Porteous has said he will retire in a few months, but if the Senate voted to impeach, he would lose his substantial federal pension.
"The House has pursued impeachment despite the fact that Judge Porteous will retire in a matter of months and has already been severely sanctioned by the Fifth Circuit (mainly a suspension from hearing cases) for the appearance of impropriety created by his actions," his lawyers said in their pretrial brief. "If removed on the basis of an appearance of impropriety, the Senate would set a dangerously low and ill-defined standard for future impeachments."28/08/2012 NEWS: Opera |
OS: After ouster, Ald. Austin’s son back on city payroll
Alderwomen Carrie Austin (center) and Leslie Hariston in the rear of the Chicago City Council Chambers in 2015. File Photo. Brian Jackson/ For the Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago aldermen rarely get angrier than when their own flesh and blood face scrutiny from City Hall’s inspector general.
After an internal investigation forced her son Kenny to quit his job with the city last year, Ald. Carrie Austin — one of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s most important City Council allies — cussed like she was the mayor himself.
“That’s what the inspector general wanted because it’s my son,” Austin said, maintaining her son’s innocence in a crash involving a city vehicle. “I’m sick and tired of this f—— city witch-hunting my g——- family.”
Austin now has decided to put your taxpayer dollars where her uncensored mouth was.
The influential alderman recently arranged for Kenny Austin, 51, to become the new Streets and Sanitation superintendent for her 34th Ward, on the Far South Side.
OPINION
A spokeswoman for the Emanuel administration says Kenny Austin started at the $73,212 a year job on Monday.
His new pay is a modest raise from the $72,384 annual salary he was getting as a Streets and San laborer — the job he had before an investigation by Inspector General Joe Ferguson prompted him to quit 14 months ago.
I found Kenny Austin on the job at the Streets and San faciliity on 103rd Street before dawn on Wednesday. He didn’t want to discuss the new spot his mom got him on the city payroll.
“I don’t talk to the Sun-Times,” he said, and walked away as another Streets and San man told me I had to leave the premises immediately.
Last year, this newspaper reported Kenny Austin quit after Ferguson’s office concluded that he crashed a city vehicle while driving on a suspended license and had a co-worker cover for him, to avoid taking a mandatory drug test.
The inspector general said Kenny Austin violated personnel rules by driving on a suspended license, failing to report the crash and falsely claiming that the other city worker in the car actually was the driver at the time of the incident. Drug tests are required for city drivers in on-duty accidents.
Back then, Kenny Austin’s mom said, “My son didn’t do any of that.” Carrie Austin told Sun-Times City Hall reporter Fran Spielman that her Kenny wasn’t the driver in the 2012 crash and that his co-worker was the one who had lied to Ferguson’s office.
Ferguson called for Kenny Austin to be punished severely, and the city was about to fire him. By resigning before the city canned him, Kenny Austin avoided landing on the city’s “do not hire” list.
A city official said Kenny Austin “resigned under inquiry.” Had he been fired instead, he wouldn’t have been able to accept the new gig as mom’s ward sup.
The veteran alderman — who has led the Council’s Budget Committee since Emanuel became mayor — didn’t answer my calls about her son’s new city job.
But Kenny Austin’s work woes may not be over. He lacks a vital credential for the new position.
Records from the Illinois Secretary of State’s office show he doesn’t have a valid driver’s license. State officials say Kenny Austin’s license was suspended again in December 2015, for failure to make child support payments, and he hasn’t had a license in nearly two years.
The spokeswoman for Streets and San says every ward sup must have a valid driver’s license. It’s a job requirement, but she did not say how Kenny Austin got hired without a license.
As for Carrie Austin, let’s just say many politicians can secure government jobs with a good salary and great benefits for their family and friends. But it takes real clout to serve up another chance for someone who has fouled up already.- A fatal fall has prompted the closure of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library at San Jose State University Monday afternoon, a campus spokeswoman said.
University officials learned about a person who fell down from the sixth floor atrium to the ground floor at about 3 p.m., SJSU spokeswoman Pat Lopes Harris said.
The person died of their injuries. Harris couldn't confirm the person's age or gender, but they were not a SJSU student or employee, according to Lopes Harris.
There is no threat to public safety or foul play suspected in the incident, Harris said.
The library, which is located at the corner of East San Fernando and South Fourth streets, has been closed to patrons and employees have been excused for the rest of today, she said.
The San Jose and San Jose State University police departments have responded to the scene, Harris said.
The Santa Clara County medical examiner's office will identify the person once their next of kin has been notified, she said.
SJSU and the city of San Jose co-manage King Library, which serves the public and all university community members.
In a statement, the university offered its condolences to, all "affected by this tragedy".
The library is scheduled to reopen at 8 a.m. Tuesday, university officials said.This year’s NHL trade deadline saw quite a few transactions — 74 veteran players switched teams in the month leading up to (and including) the March 2 moratorium — and some of the moves could shift the league’s balance of power with the playoffs a little more than a month away.
In anticipation of Monday’s cutoff, we listed about 35 likely trade candidates and their possession metrics, to get a sense of who the advanced statistics would favor if any of them were dealt. But now that all the deals have been cut, how highly do the numbers regard the big names moved at the deadline?
It totally depends on which numbers you look at. Conventional stats — such as goals, assists and plus-minus, as synthesized into point shares above replacement (PSAR) — favor players like newly acquired Detroit winger Erik Cole. Cole bounced back from a pair of down seasons to average a goal every three or so games with a +4 rating (on a Dallas team that’s -11 overall) before being traded. That performance was enough to lead all deadline acquisitions in 2014-15 PSAR. But as we’ve learned, the NHL’s #EnhancedStats movement emphasizes more than traditional counting statistics.
Advanced metrics such as Corsi and Fenwick (ahem, “shot attempts” and “unblocked shot attempts”) started a trend in player evaluation of focusing on his ability to improve his team’s puck-possession rate while on the ice. If possession is a reliable path to team success, the reasoning goes, you want to stock your roster with players most associated with strong team possession rates when they’re in the game.
Now, Stephen Burtch’s Delta Corsi (dCorsi) and Domenic Galamini’s Usage-Adjusted Corsi have pushed attempts to isolate a skater’s effect on his team’s possession rate even further. The relatively new twist provided by those stats? Attempting to account for player-usage factors — such as position played, teammate and opponent quality, zone starts and even faceoff winning percentages in dCorsi’s case — on a player’s possession rate in addition to looking at on-ice versus off-ice differences.
In the past, you’d have to eyeball a player’s workload and usage as a means of context for, say, his relative Corsi. But these new stats attempt to bake those contextual factors into a single number by comparing a player’s actual possession rate to what we’d expect of an average NHL player at his position if placed in the same situations.
You might think there’d be a decent amount of crossover between conventional numbers and these new possession-based advanced stats, but the correlation is practically nonexistent. Rescaling PSAR against an average baseline to make an apples-to-apples comparison, I found essentially no relationship with Burtch’s dCorsi Impact (which gives players more credit for maintaining strong possession rates relative to average in greater amounts of ice time) this season:
Take Cole again. Despite his solid counting stats and a very good point share tally, Dallas’s possession rate when Cole was on the ice was actually lower than what would be expected from an average player in the same situations with the same teammates and opponents. Or take FiveThirtyEight favorite Jaromir Jagr, whose relatively down conventional stats belie a player still capable of driving play with the proverbial skills that don’t show up in the box score.
They’re not alone among the bigger-name deadline acquisitions. Much was made when the Arizona Coyotes shipped away center Antoine Vermette and defenseman Keith Yandle. Both players were solid PSAR contributors for Arizona this season but also ranked among the least valuable dCorsi players at their respective positions.
Meanwhile, Zbynek Michalek, another former Coyote, boasted extremely unimpressive counting numbers (8 points and a -6 rating in 53 games) even by the standards of his position but ranks as one of the best defensemen in hockey according to dCorsi Impact.
In case it wasn’t clear by now, all this goes to show that it’s nearly impossible to guess whether a player is a possession star or scrub based on his conventional numbers. As is the case with most of these new-school-versus-old-school metric battles to recently crop up across almost all sports, a player’s true value probably lies somewhere in between. But in hockey, that fact just underscores how little we still know about who’s helping and hurting their teams.Produce a Sura like it You claim that the evidentiary miracle is present and available, namely, the Koran. You say: "Whoever denies it, let him produce a simi...
A list of unanswered questions This is an incomplete list of questions on Islam. Muslims usually do not seem to have answers or become hesitant to give clearcut answers to...
The black history of the Black Stone For 40 years, the Black Stone in kaba, which is being kissed by millions of muslims, were once used as urinal by a muslim called Bin Hassan...
Blasphemy law in Islam It is one thing to follow a moderate, watered-down version of islam via cherry picking and reinterpretation, it is totally another thing to...
Where are the Buddhist suicide bombers? Where are the Buddhist suicide bombers? Anyone who imagines that terrestrial concerns account for Muslim terrorism must answer questions...Last week, the world watched in horror as a massive militarized police force attacked prayerful indigenous water protectors fighting for the water of 18 million people. Over and over, people were brutalized, pulled out of sweat lodges while in ceremony wearing only their underwear. Medics and journalists were arrested alongside water protectors. Cars were searched and impounded, personal possessions were taken by police.
Lost in that day, in the horrific stories of degradation, is a small story of victory.
Everyone by now has seen the videos of the assault last Thursday. Here at Standing Rock, the age-old story of government forces raising arms against Native people is being repeated in real time through social media.
But lost in that day, in the horrific stories of degradation, is a small story of victory, of how 40 to 50 Native people stood against more than 250 police on a bridge on County Road 134 in rural North Dakota.
Word-of-mouth announcements went out to the Oceti Sakowin camp that there was going to be a police raid of the front-line camp that had been set up in the way of the pipeline. A raid means people are in imminent danger, and that is widely understood here. Over Labor Day, campers were attacked by dogs and pepper sprayed by Dakota Access security. And since then, we’ve seen increased militarization. It has been apparent that the government, specifically Morton County Sheriff’s office, is the security force protecting the pipeline, so no one doubted that this time the police would be the ones to desecrate bodies and lifeways.
My original plan was to take County Road 134 to photograph the pipeline being forced into the earth.
History rarely teaches us about when Natives win against the state.
Instead, I found a blockade of wood logs and hay bales set up in an area where water divided the back country road. No one there was armed with anything other than prayer. It was a strategic juncture because police vehicles couldn’t cross the narrow embankments on their way to the raid. If they were stopped at this bridge from the east, they could only come from the north.
In the morning, police did come, and from both sides. When I arrived, this blockade had already stopped an LRAD—a sonic weapon often called “sound cannon,” which can cause permanent hearing loss—from making it to the camp. Even as police numbers grew, eventually well beyond 200, the water protectors held their ground, fearless.
Then the dancing began.
People began dancing to a hand drum, entranced by the power of prayer. A single elder, a veteran, repeatedly walked out and yelled: “Send one unarmed like I am out here to negotiate. Please. We are protecting the water for our children and yours. Send one out here to negotiate. Let’s talk! Please!”
He was met with no negotiation.
But the water protectors held the bridge. For hours and hours, police advanced and retreated.
This was an unforgettable moment unfolding. With the dancing going on and the veteran trying to negotiate out front, a young woman stepped up and began moving her body to the beat of the drum. She was power incarnate. Her arms were wide open, her pink fingernail polish glistening. She was crying. Just waiting to be pepper sprayed, she wore a painter’s mask, one which would have done nothing much for protection.
That standoff’s foundation was ceremony and song, the truest essence of religious freedom.
This is what colonial violence looks like: 250 police—some of them snipers, some with guns drawn on the crowd—in a standoff with 40 to 50 unarmed indigenous people who just want to be allowed to live.
The untold story of this day was that those troops never made it from the east to join the others in raiding the camp, dehumanizing the friends and families of those on that bridge. There were 250 fewer officers able to show up to brutalize people and pervert prayer ceremonies on October 27. History rarely teaches us about when Natives win against the state. And that’s how injustice flourishes: in the shadows.
So let me be clear. On October 27, when a colonial force armed with military weapons faced off on a bridge against veterans armed with only prayer, the Natives won.Global mapping platforms like Google Earth, WikiSky and other contenders offer hours, even days of amusement. Some pretty freaky things have been found, including dead bodies, criminal activity, UFOs and even, ahem, couples enjoying intimate moments together.Anomaly hunters pore over published maps, looking for weird things and, naturally, some of the attention is drawn to myths out of the pre-digital world. Is there a bigger, unsolved mystery than the Loch Ness Monster?Mappers have studied Loch Ness inch by inch because finding "Nessie" would be the scoop of the century. But, maybe, they're looking in the wrong place?A video on YouTube comes close to making the assertion that the Loch Ness Monster has been found. Not in Scotland, but near the bottom of the globe in Antarctica.The screenshot above is a still frame from a YouTube video postulating that a mysterious, long-necked, hump-backed shape lying frozen in a vast expanse of the South Pole may actually be a fossilized Plesiosaurus, an extinct, reptilian dinosaur long suspected of having just one descendant left on Earth and plying her trade in the deep lakes of Scotland.The object certainly resembles the classic shape. But is it the "Nessie" of legend?If so, she's a long way from home.Check it out:Network Ten’s online catch-up viewing and streaming service tenplay achieve its biggest ever month of video viewing in August.
More than 36.3m video segment views were recorded on tenplay in just one month, up 37% compared with July this year and up 52% compared with August 2016.
Until last month, tenplay’s best viewing month was October 2016, when 32.3m views were achieved.
In August this year, tenplay also attracted 4.37m total unique visitors, up 14% year-on-year. That number included 2.17m video unique visitors, up 28%.
From 1 January to 31 August this year, tenplay recorded 175.96m video segment views, up 30% from the same period in 2016.
The record-breaking results last month were driven by key shows such as The Bachelor Australia, Australian Survivor, Have You Been Paying Attention?, Offspring and Neighbours.
The Bachelor Australia, for example, had 13.87m video segment views in August alone, up 41% on the same month in 2016.
Network Ten general manager digital Liz Baldwin said: “We’re thrilled with the results for tenplay, both across video views and our online catch-up viewing results.
“Through connected TVs, our audience can still have that great broadcast experience in their lounge rooms beyond a traditional broadcast window. What hasn’t changed is their desire to watch quality programming like Offspring, Australian Survivor and The Bachelor Australia.
“Tenplay is across 13 platforms and strategically growing on new ones. Our job is to allow people to access our fantastic content where and when they want it.”Today we are pleased to announce the release of ArrayFire v3.0. This new version features major changes to ArrayFire’s visualization library, a new CPU backend, and dense linear algebra for OpenCL devices. It also includes improvements across the board for ArrayFire’s OpenCL backend. A complete list ArrayFire v3.0 updates and new features can be found in the product Release Notes.
With over 8 years of continuous development, the open source ArrayFire library is the top CUDA and OpenCL software library. ArrayFire supports CUDA-capable GPUs, OpenCL devices, and other accelerators. With its easy-to-use API, this hardware-neutral software library is designed for maximum speed without the hassle of writing time-consuming CUDA and OpenCL device code. With ArrayFire’s library functions, developers can maximize productivity and performance. Each of ArrayFire’s functions has been hand-tuned by CUDA and OpenCL experts.
Major updates and new features
Major changes to the visualization library
Introducing handle based C API
New backend: CPU fallback available for systems without GPUs
Dense linear algebra functions available for all backends
Support for 64 bit integers
New functions added in the following categories
Data generation
Computer Vision
Image Processing
Linear Algebra
Visualization
Benefits of the binary installers
We're now using MKL in our installers to speed up CPU and OpenCL backends. The CUDA backend is compiled to be optimized for each CUDA architecture, making it more portable. By default, building the open source version compiles only for the GPUs present in the system.
What people are saying
Kent Knox, Senior Member of Technical Staff from AMD, says:
Arrayfire is a model example of how open sourcing scientific libraries should work. They have made their own code open to the public for review by the community at large, and they build upon existing open source math libraries to improve their own. With their investment in robust automation, they enhance the correctness and performance of the overall scientific ecosystem.
Jason Ramapuram, a machine learning engineer, says:
ArrayFire has provided an elegant and simple solution for deploying GPU based machine learning applications. Being able to implement neural networks and auto encoders without delving into the any CUDA/OpenCL/BLAS details has been immensely helpful for research purposes. All of this is bundled in a brilliant open source package with an amazingly helpful team that is very open to implementing and resolving an issues that arise.
Availability
Visit ArrayFire’s website to download ArrayFire v3.0 Installers or GitHub account page to download and build the source code. The ArrayFire software library operates under the BSD 3-Clause License which enables unencumbered deployment and portability of ArrayFire for all uses, including commercially.
Dedicated support and coding services
ArrayFire offers dedicated support packages for ArrayFire users.
ArrayFire serves many clients through consulting and coding services, algorithm development, porting code, and training courses for developers.OTTAWA — A penalty of $250 U.S. for smoking in a hotel room was among the expenses charged to taxpayers by Bev Oda, Canada’s former minister of international co-operation.
The then-minister was dinged in 2010 for smoking in a hotel room during a trip to Washington, D.C.
Oda had been in the U.S. capital for a conference organized by maternal health advocates.
Related stories
Her department confirms she expensed the fee, but paid it back two years later following a review of all her expense claims.
That review was in ordered in April after The Canadian Press revealed a number of extravagant expenses on a trip to London in 2011, including a $16 glass of orange juice.
Oda resigned from cabinet and the House of Commons in July.
The issue of her expenses had become a thorn in the Conservative government’s side, with backbench Tory MPs reporting that they heard about her high-flying ways on the doorstep more often than any other issue.
Cabinet ministers are required to publicly disclose their spending on travel and hospitality.
The files made public for Oda show that expense reports for several trips during her five years as international co-operation minister have been amended.
But the details of why they were changed aren’t posted to the website.
Officials in her department say some — but not all — of the amendments in her expense claims are the result of repayments.
A total dollar figure for the amount she was forced to repay the public purse has never been revealed, but her office insists that every questionable expense was repaid.
Many had questioned why Oda spent so long in cabinet, given her spending habits. During the London trip in 2011, she billed taxpayers for the cost of rejecting one five-star hotel in London, England and rebooking at a swankier establishment at more than double the rate. She also hired a luxury car and driver at an average cost of nearly $1,000 a day.
In 2006, she used limousines to ferry her to and from the Juno Awards ceremony in Halifax, racking up $5,475 in bills.
When the expenses were criticized in the House of Commons, she said she had reimbursed the taxpayer $2,200 of the bill.
A year later, Oda billed taxpayers more than $1,200 for another limousine ride that took her to both a government event and a party activity.
Besides the spending scandals, Oda left a mixed legacy behind at CIDA.
Some praised her ability to focus the agency’s work and more directly target aid, especially in making the decision to untie assistance, meaning goods could be sourced from wherever they were most cost efficient.
But others criticized her approach to partnerships with the non-governmental sector, arguing that those relationships had become politicized.
She was replaced in the post by Julian Fantino, who had been leading the government’s efforts on the F-35 fighter jet file.Multiple Ruby Version Support on Heroku
Maximizing parity between development and production environments is a best practice for minimizing surprises at deployment time. The version of language VM you're using is no exception. One approach to this is to specify it using the same dependency management tool used to specify the versions of libraries your app uses. Clojure uses this technique with Leinigen, Scala with SBT, and Node.js with NPM. In each case, Heroku reads the dependency file during slug compile and uses the version of the language that you specify.
Today, we're pleased to announce that we've added support for specifying a Ruby version to Gem Bundler, the dependency management tool for Ruby. This will allow you to specify a version of Ruby to be used in your Ruby app on Heroku.
Try it out:
$ gem install bundler --pre
In your Gemfile :
source 'http://rubygems.org' ruby '1.9.3' gem 'rails', '3.2.3'
Then:
$ bundle install $ git add Gemfile $ git commit -m 'use Ruby 1.9.3' $ git push heroku master
Prove that you're running 1.9.3:
$ heroku run 'ruby -v' ruby 1.9.3p194 (2012-04-20 revision 35410) [x86_64-linux] $ heroku run 'ruby -e "puts RUBY_VERSION"' 1.9.3
While you can specify the version of Ruby for you app, you can't specify a patch version, such as Ruby 1.9.2-p290. Ruby patches often include important bug and security fixes and are extremely compatible. Heroku will provide the most secure patch level of whatever minor version number you request.
Thanks to Terence Lee Heroku Ruby team member and bundler maintainer for the additional support of ruby versions to the Heroku Ruby Buildpack and orchestrated the release of Bundler 1.2.0. Also thanks to Yehuda Katz and the entire Bundler team for helping get this release out the door.The Republican bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act is moving full steam ahead—approved by two committees this week on party line votes—despite the fact that Congress’ research arm has not yet issued its report on how much the bill would cost the government and how many people could lose their health insurance if it passes.
A report from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is expected next week, and experts at the Brookings Institute—who have performed their own analysis of the bill—predicted it will bear bad news for Republicans.
“CBO’s analysis will likely estimate that at least 15 million people will lose coverage under the American Health Care Act (AHCA) by the end of the ten-year scoring window,” wrote Brookings analysts Loren Adler and Matthew Fiedler. “Estimates could be higher, but it’s is unlikely they will be significantly lower.”
The Brookings report is based on past CBO analyses of policies included in the new GOP bill, all of which are predicted to cause people to lose their insurance coverage. These policies include repealing Obamacare’s individual mandate that everyone must purchase some form of health insurance, changing Medicaid into block grants to states on a per capita basis, replacing the current Obamacare subsidies with less-generous tax credits, and allowing insurers to charge people higher premiums if their coverage lapses for more than 60 days.
Though they predicted a potentially less catastrophic outcome than Brookings, Standard & Poor’s also estimated in a report this week that millions will lose coverage under the Republican plan. The ratings agency predicts that two to four million people would drop out of the individual insurance market due to rising premium costs, and that another four to six million would lose their Medicaid coverage.
The authors of the bill, when asked directly this week if it will cause people to lose their health insurance, have refused to answer.
Ahead of the CBO’s likely gloomy report, which could come as soon as next week, Republican lawmakers and the White House have worked to erode the public’s trust in the office, calling its work “inconsistent,” and “way off,” and accusing them of having “scored everything wrong for decades.”
Republican members of Congress told TPM that will instead rely on their own internal analyses of the bill, backed up by “some spreadsheets or whatever.”SIPTU General President Jack O'Connor has said the executive council will campaign in favour of the extension to the Croke Park deal.
Mr O'Connor said the union is recommending acceptance of the extension because it wants to keep the protections of the agreement.
He said the proposals are the best that could be obtained through negotiations, and the best strategy for workers is to stick with the proposed collective agreement.
He said voting No will not make the problems in Ireland go away, and will leave workers facing the cuts agenda without agreement protections.
Mr O'Connor urged every SIPTU member to consider the proposal carefully and decide whether they can go along with them, with the objection of recovering lost ground later.
The decision came after a five-hour meeting at Liberty Hall in Dublin this afternoon.
The Croke Park proposals call for a further €1 billion reduction in the State payroll bill over the next three years.
They include pay cuts for staff on over €65,000 a year, increment freezes, longer working hours and reductions in overtime and premium rates.
Those advocating acceptance, including IMPACT and the Public Service Executive Union, say it is the best deal that could be secured.
They say the alternative would be pay cuts imposed by the Government.
Opponents, including unions representing doctors, nurses, some teachers, higher civil servants and gardaí, say the cuts are too extreme.
The 24/7 Frontline Alliance has said it will continue its campaign of lobbying against the agreement.
Prison Officers Association to recommend deal
The Prison Officers' Association has decided to recommend that its 3,300 members should accept the Croke Park proposals.
The POA had been campaigning against the proposals with the 24/7 Frontline Alliance prior to the conclusion of the negotiations three weeks ago, but remained in the talks to the end.
Under a side agreement with management, the POA was allowed to retain all existing premium payments for weekend and evening work, while many other frontline workers, including nurses and gardaí, lost the entitlements.
General Secretary John Clinton said the POA executive believed it could not achieve anything better than the Croke Park proposals by negotiation.
He said he had informed other unions in the alliance opposing the proposals of the POA decision.
Mr Clinton said the POA had made it clear that the key issue for it was retention of premium payments and it had secured that.
He said it would make no sense for it to continue to campaign against the agreement with the alliance while the executive recommended acceptance.
The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation said the campaign of the 24/7 Frontline Alliance against the Croke Park proposals will continue, despite the POA decision.
INMO General Secretary Liam Doran said it respected the decision of the POA and had been anticipating it for some weeks.
He said the alliance campaign, which includes the INMO, the Irish Medical Organisation, UNITE, the Civil Public and Services Union as well as the two garda representative bodies, would continue.
Rally hears calls for No vote
Four leading trade union leaders called for a No vote at a rally this evening opposing the proposals for the extension of the Croke Park agreement.
Up to 200 people attended the rally at City Hall in Cork this evening.
It is the first in a series of rallies being held nationwide and organized by the INMO, the IMO, UNITE and the CPSU.
The CPSU's general secretary Eoin Roynayne told the gathering that the proposals would unfairly penalise workers on lower incomes and women in particular.
Asked about the Prison Officers' Association's decision to recommend a Yes vote, Steve Tweed, of the Irish Medical Organization said they had to respect the unions and the decisions they make within their executives, but the IMO took the decision to reject the deal.
The next rally takes place in Letterkenny, in Co Donegal next Tuesday.Before you sign up with DirectTV, please stop and look for an alternative way to get your television fix. Even if you have to go sit in Circuit City at primetime to watch your favorite shows, do that instead of signing an agreement with DirectTV. Seriously.
We tried the “no TV route”. We tried the “watch TV on the internet” route. Not because we needed to save money, but we wanted to do without the TV…but it didn’t work and we needed to sign up for service. I looked at our local cable company, but they wanted a fortune for basic cable, and if I had wanted DVR service as well, then forget it – I would have had to have given them my first born child. So I check out DirectTV – the rates were great, the DVR service was cheap, the installation was free – everything looked great. The guy on the phone set everything up, told me my final price, the installation went smoothly and we were enjoying our first month of having TV in the house again…and then it all came crashing down when I got my first bill from them.
My $41.99 for 12 months is now $67.99 for 12 months…and they say I never got an offer for $41.99, so too bad.
I know the first thing anyone is going to ask – “Do you have it on paper?”…and no, I don’t. But when was the last time you called up the cable company to ask for a deal/discount/service set up and got anything in writing as to your deal? I have been paying for cable TV for 16 years now and not once have I gotten (or needed) anything in writing. You call up, they tell you the deal, you get the deal. Done. Finished. But not with DirectTV – with them you call up, get the deal, then they switch it and say it never existed. And that is exactly what happened with me and I am not too happy with it.
I asked the woman to prove that I had signed up for anything that would cost $67.99 and she couldn’t – they have nothing with my signature on it agreeing to this price. But on the other hand, I don’t have anything saying I should be paying $41.99 other than the two phone calls I had with reps when signing up. Are we, as consumers, supposed to record our phone calls now? After 45 minutes of arguing with the woman on the phone, I gave up – but only with them. I am now taking this to the next level, by filing complaints with the New Mexico Attorney General’s office, the Better Business Bureau, and anyone else I can find to complain to. And after a little digging, seems many people have similar complaints about DirectTV, so I know I am not alone nor wrong in this situation:
Consumer Affairs
DirectTV Idiocy
Pissed Consumer
Complaints Board
Rip-off Report
About.com
Don’t know where any of this is going to take me, but I am going to do my best to try to complain as much as possible and let as many people know about this bait and switch that DirectTV has going on. And to be fair, there are a ton of complaints against cable companies, but I never had one…and now I wish I had just gone with them in the first place as DirectTV has a contract you have to stay in. Has anyone else had an experience like this? Any advice? Would love to hear from you!
No related posts.Ra's al-'Ayn (Arabic: رأس العين, Kurdish: Serê Kaniyê) is a Syrian city administratively belonging to Al-Hasakah Governorate. It had a population of about 50 thousand, mostly consisting of Assyrian/Syriacs, Arabs, Kurds and Armenians.
Together with its Turkish twin city Ceylanpınar (predominantly Kurdish population of formerly around 45 thousand, also called Serê Kaniyê in Kurdish) it's divided by the Turkish-Syrian border since after WWI following the Sykes-Picot Agreement. The Baghdad Railway runs along the border which is guarded exclusively by the Turkish Army following the so-called Adana agreement from 1998.[1]
As of January 2013, Ceylanpınar hosts one of the largest refugee camps on Turkish soil with over 35 thousand inhabitants mostly coming from Ras Al-Ayn due to the events covered in this article.[2]
Who's fighting?
Flag of Western Kurdistan
While the Free Syrian Army (FSA) will be known to most readers, the forces of the other side and the general situation may require a short introduction to illustrate the significance of the conflict.
The Democratic Union Party (PYD) is the largest single Kurdish party in Syria and is ideologically affiliated with the Turkish PKK (Kurdistan Worker's Party), which is labeled as terrorist organization by basically anybody who wants to do business with Turkey. Both share the ideology of Abdullah Öcalan, which is aside from Kurdish nationalism a form of non-hierarchical self-organization through committees, but the PYD denies sharing the violent methods of the PKK and having direct ties to them. There are a number of other Kurdish political organizations of different ideologies in Syria, some of which are organized in the Kurdish National Council (KNC) formed in 2011. KNC forces have accused the PYD of collaboration with the Assad government, while the PYD denies the accusation and says they are part of the revolution, like the KNC.
YPG march in Ras Al-Ayn, Jan 27, 2013
In July 2012, PYD and KNC together formed the Kurdish Supreme Committee (KSC) as interim governing body of the Kurdish dominated Syrian territories, which they call Western Kurdistan (Kurdish: Rojava), and the Popular Protection Units (YPG) as armed wing of that governing body. While in other parts of Syria army defectors have joined the FSA, Kurdish soldiers are more likely to have joined the YPG, although its bulk consists of local militias. According to PYD leader Salih Muslim, the YPG has around 10,000 men and women under arms. There have been reports about a deal between Kurdish forces and Assad government about more autonomy in the region parallel to the formation of KSC and YPG, but Salih Muslim denies any kind of deal.[3]
However, by start of the events in November 2012, most but not all Syrian Arab Army forces have left the region.
As should be known by now, there are many different fractions who operate under the banner of FSA, and what is called FSA especially in the beginning of this article is not operating on behalf of what comes closest to an FSA leadership, at least according to the latter.
Additional remark from July 2014: There has been a seamless transition from forces using the "FSA" label talked about in the beginning of this article, over Jabhat Al-Nusra and other more openly Islamist forces mentioned later, to fighters belonging to ISIS who in the summer of 2014 started an Assault on Kobane which quite exactly mirrors the events discussed here.
Summary of events
On February 1, 2013, Syrian Kurds in the UK delivered a letter on behalf of the KSC to Foreign Minister William Hague. It's reproduced here in full because it contains a brief summary of the events covered in detail below.[4]
Dear Mr William Hague, We, the representatives of the People's Council of Western Kurdistan and the Kurdish National Council in the Uk, would like to draw your attention to the recent attack on civilians in Sere Kaniye (Ras al Ain). Armed Selafist groups entered the region from Turkey supported and facilitated by the Turkish military and regional powers with the aim of destabilising the relatively peaceful region and dragging it into a violent sectarian war. Since the second attack began on 16 January 2013 armed mercenaries have been using heavy weapons to shell the city killing civilians indiscriminately, many |
industry has taken to common carrier rules. Sprint notes that it entered the US phone industry after the FCC allowed new competition under Title II, and continued to upgrade its network over time under the same regulatory regime.
This view became public the same day that Republican lawmakers, seeking to preempt a scheduled FCC vote in February on net-neutrality, introduced legislation that would prevent the FCC from treating the internet as a common carrier. Sprint’s position muddies the industry’s argument, giving more credence to the push for open internet rules, but that won’t stop its larger competitors from challenging them in court the moment they are set to paper.This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Arkansas carried out a double execution Monday night, marking the first time in nearly 17 years that any state has killed two people on the same day. At 7:20 p.m. local time, 52-year-old Jack Harold Jones was pronounced dead in the death chamber at the Cummings Unit state prison. Infirmary workers had spent more than 45 minutes unsuccessfully trying to put a central line into his neck. According to a court filing, during Jones’s execution, he was, quote, “was moving his lips and gulping for air,” unquote, which suggests he continued to be conscious during the lethal injection. The controversial sedative midazolam is administered as part of a cocktail of execution drugs to make prisoners unconscious, but it’s repeatedly failed to do so during other executions, leading to painful deaths. Ahead of Monday night, Jones’s lawyers had argued his medical condition was likely to reduce the sedative’s effectiveness, leading to an unconstitutionally painful death, but this argument was rejected by a court. Before being killed, Jones gave a long final statement in which he apologized to the daughter of Mary Phillips. Jones has admitted to raping and killing Mary Phillips in 1995. His final words were “I’m sorry.”
Lawyers for the second man, Marcel Williams, filed a last-minute appeal for a stay of execution following Jones’s killing, arguing Williams could also experience a botched, painful death. A district court judge initially granted a temporary stay of Williams’s execution but then allowed the execution to go forward. Williams was pronounced dead at 10:33 p.m. He had been convicted and sentenced to death for the 1994 kidnap, rape and murder of Stacy Errickson.
AMY GOODMAN: Monday night’s executions came after legal challenges reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which rejected a stay for Williams. The only justice to dissent in this ruling was Justice Sonia Sotomayor. The last double execution carried out in the U.S. was in 2000 in Texas. Arkansas carried out its first execution in 16 years Thursday, killing Ledell Lee, and plans to execute a fourth man, Kenneth Williams, this coming Thursday. The state had initially planned execute eight people within 11 days this month—an unprecedented rate of executions in modern U.S. history. They wanted to perform these executions before the end of the month, when midazolam would expire.
For more, we’re joined via Democracy Now! video stream by The Guardian reporter Ed Pilkington, who has been following the executions closely with local reporters on the ground.
Ed, welcome back to Democracy Now! You have a witness statement on the execution. Can you explain—there were two—what the witness saw?
ED PILKINGTON: Yeah. We worked with Jacob Rosenberg, who is a reporter for Arkansas Times. He was in the death chamber for the second execution last night, of Marcel Williams. And a very interesting account, I think, really important part of it—there are two things, really. One, because of the court’s stay that happened for Marcel Williams, while the judge considered what had happened to the first prisoner to die, Jack Jones, Marcel Williams was kept strapped to the gurney the entire time. Now, we don’t quite know when that began. It’s probably around something like 8:00 p.m. last night. And he was pronounced dead at 10:33. So, for maybe longer than two-and-a-half hours, this 400-pound prisoner was kept strapped to a gurney, which I think is fairly disturbing in itself.
The other thing that came out of our eyewitness report is that there’s a sort of missing half an hour. Now, the media—the three media witnesses were kept held in a van while this—the delay was happening because of the court proceedings. They had a little window at the back of the van that they could look out the back of. They saw Marcel Williams being taken out to the bathroom and then brought back. He was brought back at about 9:29. The execution began at 10:16. We don’t know anything about what happened in that period. And I think that’s important and will continue to be important, and it’s because of the secrecy that the death penalty states have imposed on the entire process of execution. The media witnesses were only allowed to see when the curtain was opened and the execution began. They were not allowed to see the crucial period in which IV lines were tried to be found. And that was a problem that we had in the Jack Jones execution earlier in the evening. The state, by its own admission in court filings, admitted that they tried to find an IV line in the prisoner’s neck and failed.
And this is precisely the kind of problems that have come up time and time again, with Clayton Lockett, the gruesome execution in Oklahoma where he writhed for 43 minutes on the gurney—that was down to an IV line that couldn’t be found—and in Arizona, the Wood execution, where they tried—they stuck him 15 times and injected him 15 different times, because they found it so difficult to find a vein. So, I think we’re starting to see the same old problem emerge yet again: secrecy, the fact that the public cannot see what’s being done in its name when prisoners are being killed, leading to problems in the process.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Ed Pilkington, what are the requirements in terms of the public’s ability to view this, or the witnesses, at least, who are there, who are permitted to see the execution, being able to witness the entire process?
ED PILKINGTON: Well, that’s the problem. Like so much to do with the death penalty, it’s down to each individual state. But there is something in common here. And that is, all the death penalty states, all sort of nine or so of them that are still being—actively trying to pursue the death penalty, have taken the same line, which is, we should let the public know as little as possible. So they don’t let us know the members of the execution team. Now, maybe that’s understandable, because, you know, the executioners could face harassment. But they won’t let us know who manufactures the drugs they use or where they got them from. And that’s problematic because we don’t know, you know, were these drugs sort of knocked up in a corner shop. They have tried that in the past. And now they’re fighting over how much the public can see in the process.
And in Arkansas, they went to extraordinary lengths to make our job difficult as reporters—and I’m one of them. To start with, they wouldn’t even allow us laptops into the media room, where we were watching if we weren’t in the death chamber. Now, this is just a visiting room. We’re not anywhere near the death chamber. We’re not a security issue. We weren’t allowed laptops, to start with. They consented on that in the end, but we weren’t allowed telephones in the room. And in the end, they only allowed reporters to take in notepads and pencils supplied to them by the prison service, as though there was something like a reporter would carry in their own notebook that would do something subservient or something. And the whole process has like been a battle between the media, which is the eyes and ears of the public, and the prison service, that, after all, is doing the most serious thing that any state can do, and that is to kill one of its own citizens.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you, Ed Pilkington, about the deputy solicitor general, named Nicholas Bronni, who admitted in a court filing the execution team had tried to place a central line in Jones’ neck, but the attempt was unsuccessful. Talk about the significance of this and what happened next, and that leading to the lawyers for the next man, Marcel Williams, trying to get a stay on his execution, so he would not be tortured as he was killed.
ED PILKINGTON: Right. And, I mean, when I saw that in the court filing coming from the state itself, I was astonished. They were trying to rebut the case made by the lawyers for the second prisoner to be executed, Marcel Williams, that the first execution had been botched. That’s what essentially was going on. And in order to rebut that argument, the state said, “No, everything was fine. Look, we tried to find an IV line in Jack Jones’, the first prisoner’s, neck, and we failed. And then we went on. We actually decided not to use a third IV line. We would just use two.” Now, they made that argument as though that showed that the whole process had been a success, which I found rather astonishing when I read it in the court filing.
Then we went on to the Marcel Williams execution, the second one. We don’t know, as I say, what happened in half an hour when they were trying to find an IV line. We know nothing about that at all. What we do know, from The Guardian's work with the Arkansas Times and the reporter who was in the room for us, Jacob Rosenberg, that Marcel Williams was seen to do—once he was sedated with midazolam—which, you have to remember, is a sedative, it's not an anesthetic, which is—it is not used in operations to put people under before surgery. It is just used to relax them. So it’s an entirely inappropriate medicine for use in surgeries, and you might, therefore, say inappropriate for use in executions. They gave him the midazolam. He relaxed. He started to breathe very heavily. Now, our reporter from the Arkansas Times saw him rise up and down. His back arched countless times. He actually lost count of the number of times his back arched. This lasted over just a relatively short period of time, for about five, six minutes, compared with some of the really botched executions we’ve seen, say, of Clayton Lockett, which was 43 minutes. But nevertheless, it suggests that maybe the prisoner was experiencing difficulty. And again, will we ever find out anything more about that? There is no indication that Arkansas carried out an official inquiry into what happened. Often it takes months, if at all, to see the internal results of their own inquiries. The whole process is shrouded in secrecy, and it makes it very, very difficult for the media and for the public to assess exactly what happened.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Ed Pilkington, you’re the chief reporter for The Guardian US. Briefly, in the few moments we have left, could you tell us what’s the response in Britain and in Europe, in general, to this continuing obsession in the United States with executions?
ED PILKINGTON: Well, it’s been very widespread coverage and quite a lot of anger and dismay. I mean, it comes at a time when the world had been thinking that the death penalty was receding, was on the wane in the U.S. Last year, there were only 20 executions. And it has been going steadily down. Then, suddenly, a Republican governor in Arkansas decides that he needs, for his own reasons, all to do with the supplies of medicines, nothing else—for his own reasons, he needs to execute eight prisoners in 11 days. And, bam, the whole thing is back. And Europe and Britain are incensed again. And here we are, talking about it all over again.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Ed Pilkington, what happens next? I mean, for people to understand, who are watching this around the globe, the reason there are what they call these doubleheader executions now in Arkansas, to—they attempted to kill—some were stopped in the killing—eight men in 11 days, was to hit that deadline by the end of the month, when the—one of the execution drugs, midazolam, expires by the end of the month. So, who’s on—who is on the list next to be killed?
ED PILKINGTON: Well, we’ve got one more execution coming up this Thursday in Arkansas. And then, sort of the battle continues. You have to say that the death penalty states are waging a losing battle here, because the drug companies are now absolutely in unison. They do not want their drugs, which are designed and manufactured to save lives—they do not want those drugs used to kill people. They’re all saying it. More than 30 of the major manufacturers are now saying that. Distribution companies are also saying that. They do not want this to happen, and they are making it incredibly difficult for prison services to find the drugs. And as a result, the prison services are doing more and more extreme things, with more and more botched executions. And, you know, it feels to me like the whole thing is falling apart.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Ed Pilkington, we want to thank you for being with us, chief reporter for The Guardian US, after what they call a doubleheader, a double execution, in Arkansas last night. It hasn’t happened in this country since 2000.
This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. When we come back, Donald Trump is approaching his hundredth day as president, but there are a group of people who are calling for a third party and pushing Bernie Sanders to run. Stay with us.Today one of our most popular guests of all time has returned for an encore performance. According to a poll in the TSP forum you guys most wanted Paul to return next to go more in depth about wofati eco buildings.
While the main topic of today’s show is going to be wofati building there have been a ton of hugelkultur questions as well so we will open with a few of them.
Many of the details shared about the wofati structure are highly visual and referencing Paul’s Article titled “wofati eco building” will be of great help. Also highly recommended is Mike Oehler’s book, The 50 Dollar and Up Underground House.
The wofati building is essentially a modified and improved version of Mike Oehler’s design (approved of by Mike himself) which improves the overall thermal mass, keeps the structure 100% dry, increases the flow of light into the structure and offers several other advantages.
Join us today as we discuss…
Many hugelkultur beds are built up, can you build them down
Are some areas to wet for hugelkultur
What types of wood must be 100% avoided with hugelkultur
What is a wofati building
How do you assess a site for wofati construction
How do you avoid problems with permits and codes, etc.
What materials are required for wofati building
How to you eliminate water problems with an earth berm structure
Along with plenty of humor and observation from Jack and Paul
Additional Resources for Today’s Show
Remember to comment, chime in and tell us your thoughts, this podcast is one man’s opinion, not a lecture or sermon. Also please enter our listener appreciation contest and help spread the word about our show. Also remember you can call in your questions and comments to 866-65-THINK and you might hear yourself on the air.FYI: Discussion of the FISA bill (S.2248) has begun in the Senate this morning and is being broadcast live on C-Span2. I’ll be updating as I can on this throughout the morning, and following the proceedings closely. At the moment, Mitch McConnell is speaking — and, apparently, the "Democrats are trying to unpatriotically steal your money" meme is alive and well inside the Beltway. Do these people never get new material?!? Here’s a thought Mitch: America is watching, and your willingness to give away the Constitution in subservience to an imperial presidency is duly noted. Rockefeller is up next mainly talking process, and according to the order as read, Dodd will be given a chunk of time to control as opposition to the SIC bill. Here we go…
______________________
In this nation of ours, our elected leadership is only as good — or as bad — as the American public allows them to get away with being. Thomas Jefferson said it best here:
Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories.
– Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 14, 1781
The power for change rests in our hands alone. The Constitution and the rule of law are not just arcane concepts that lawyers throw around for billing purposes. They are, in fact, bedrock principles that we allow to be ignored at our peril.
Congressional Quarterly has an updated article on the ins and outs and various currents of influence involved in the FISA legislation, including some updates on potential amendments that may be offered today. And Glenn has some information about the superhero powers of the "hold," except when it is placed on legislation by Chris Dodd apparently.
As you can see from the video, Sen. Chris Dodd fundamentally understands that the rule of law and patriotism are things that go hand in hand. And he’s willing to put action and leadership where his values are. As do Senators Russ Feingold and Ted Kennedy who have agreed to aide in the filibuster today and are to be applauded for it. Sen. Feingold has an article at TPMCafe this morning detailing why this fight is so important. As is Rep. John Conyers who sent out a note of support for Sen. Dodd’s efforts yesterday.
I would hope that every Senator who was a signatory to the letter to Harry Reid urging that the SJC version of the FISA bill be the base bill would stand in support of Dodd’s filibuster efforts:
Senators Russ Feingold (D-WI), Chris Dodd (D-CT), Barack Obama (D-IL), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Joe Biden (D-DE), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Tom Harkin (D-IA), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), Daniel Akaka (D-HI), Jim Webb (D-VA), Ted Kennedy (D-MA), and Barbara Boxer (D-CA)
As the day progresses, we’ll see which other Senators stand up for American values…and which ones stand only for themselves. I know I’ll be watching.
Reader JimWhite distilled the FISA battle against retroactive telecom immunity very well yesterday, and I wanted to be certain everyone saw this:
Thank you Senator Dodd for your patriotic service to our country. I see this FISA battle you are waging as a clarion cry for our country to return to the rule of law. I am not asking that the government abandon surveillance. I am only asking that the government abide by reasonable laws and allow appropriate levels of independent oversight so that we the people can be assured that the powers which we vest in our intelligence community are used for the purposes for which they have been designated. Please make it clear to anyone listening tomorrow that the Senate Judiciary Committee version and House version of the FISA renewal do not weaken our surveillance capability in any way but instead improve the Constitutionally mandated oversight function which has been missing. Without law, we have no government.
For every elected leader out there let me just say this: actions speak far louder than words, and we will be watching what you do today…and what you do not do. So think carefully before you try a dodge and phony show of support without actually providing any support on this filibuster. That goes for procedural manipulations as well. We have long memories…and we have learned a lot about primary challenges that we are willing to put to good use.
You take an oath to uphold and support the Constitution of the United States and the laws of this nation. Isn’t it time you did everything you could to uphold that oath — for your nation, for this generation and every one that follows, and for the very foundations of our government? That responsibility rests on your shoulders, and we will hold you to every ounce of it or you’ll have to step aside for someone who will actually do the job. And last I checked, the Fourth Amendment doesn’t have an exception for the President’s demands not quite meeting the letter of the law that day.
Being a patriot is something that you do. How about some inspiration and leadership today?
Here’s a way to nudge some leadership forward:
Here is the Dodd phone tool for calling your Senators. Senate phone numbers are here; we should focus first on the 14 Senators who promised to help Dodd. Here are their fax and phone numbers:IFest organizer to file for bankruptcy
The 44th annual International Festival celebrates music, dance and cultures from around the world. This year's theme is Australia and is located in downtown Houston around Houston City Hall, 901 Bagby. L-R ID: Allyson Howard, 17; Juno Rettenmier, 17; and Makena Barron, 17 rest after hiking around the festival. less The 44th annual International Festival celebrates music, dance and cultures from around the world. This year's theme is Australia and is located in downtown Houston around Houston City Hall, 901 Bagby. L-R ID:... more Photo: Craig Hartley, For The Chronicle Photo: Craig Hartley, For The Chronicle Image 1 of / 28 Caption Close IFest organizer to file for bankruptcy 1 / 28 Back to Gallery
The Houston Foundation Festival, organizer of the city's International Festival, will file for bankruptcy this week.
"Over the past few years, the Foundation has sold all of its assets to pay its bills and has no assets left at this time," read a statement from the board of directors. "The hope had been that this year's festival would have provided some profit to begin to pay off some debt but that did not happen."
The festival foundation, which has organized iFest for 44 years, had said it needed strong attendance at this year's celebration to start moving the nonprofit out of crippling debt. Last summer, the group reported in federal disclosure forms that it was at least $725,000 in debt, but had said it was committed to saving the four-day spring celebration of the city's diversity.
In the statement Tuesday, the group attributed its financial troubles to an increase in the number of similar events sponsored in the city and failures to find investors or partners that could help the nonprofit move forward in the black.
This year's festival, over the last weekend in April and first weekend in May, saluted Australia.Plunging home sales could sink recovery
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- With home sales plunging to their lowest level in 15 years, economists warn that a double-dip in housing prices is just around the corner, threatening to further slow the overall recovery.
Existing home sales sank 27.2% in July, twice as much as analysts expected, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.83 million units. Much of that drop is attributed to the end of the $8,000 homebuyer tax credit.
That credit brought buyers out in droves, as they tried to sign home contracts before the April 30 deadline. Now, two months later, sales are 34% below April's tax incentive-induced peak.
"Home sales were eye-wateringly weak in July," said economist Paul Dales of Capital Economics. "It is becoming abundantly clear that the housing market is undermining the already faltering wider economic recovery. With an increasingly inevitable double-dip in housing prices yet to come, things could get a lot worse."
The sales pace of all homes -- single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops -- is at the lowest since NAR began tracking the figure in 1999. Sales of single-family homes, which account for a bulk of the transactions, are at the lowest level since May 1995.
Inventory has also continued to climb, rising 2.5% to 3.98 million existing homes for sale. That represents a 12.5-month supply at the current sales pace, the highest since October 1982 when it stood at 13.8 months. A six-month of supply is considered normal.
The combination of weak demand and glut of homes has put downward pressure on prices.
And as the recession proved, the housing market and the broader economy are closely intertwined. When housing prices collapse, so does the overall wealth and confidence of Americans.
"Falling housing prices strain the overall confidence in the economy and discourage Americans from spending," Dales said. "They also mean that banks lose money on their investments and curtail lending, meaning there is less money out there to invest and boost the economy.
The NAR report showed that the median price of homes sold in July was $182,600, up 0.7% from a year ago. Just under a third of homes sold during the month were distressed properties.
Though prices have yet to fall back, Dales expects they will decline about 5% from current levels over the next six months.
On the bright side, Dales said while a drop prices will put a dent in the economy recovery, it won't lead to another recession.
"The bulk of the downward adjustment in housing prices has been achieved over the last several years, so we're not headed for a complete disaster," said Dales. "We're going to see a double-dip in housing prices, but not a double-dip in the overall economy."
Sales by property and region: Sales of single-family homes sank 27.1% in July compared to the prior month, while condominium and co-op sales tanked 28.1%.
The Midwest fared the worst last month, with sales dropping 35% to an annual pace of 800,000 units in July. that's 33.3% lower than a year earlier.
Resales in the Northwest dropped 29.5% from the previous month to an annual pace of 620,000 units.
They fell by 25% in the West and 22.6% in the South.Nobel laureate Aziz Sancar receives his award
STOCKHOLM / OSLO
2015 Nobel chemistry laureate Professor Aziz Sancar receives his award from King Carl Gustaf of Sweden during the 2015 Nobel prize award ceremony in Stockholm Concert Hall December 10, 2015. REUTERS/Jonas Ekstromer/TT News Agency
Turkish scientist Aziz Sancar, the 2015 Nobel laureate in chemistry, received his prize at a ceremony held in Stockholm, on a day that Tunisia’s National Dialogue Quartet were also presented their Nobel Peace Prizes in Oslo.Sancar, who works at the University of North Carolina, was among three scientists awarded the prize for their work on DNA repair. Sancar won the prize along with Tomas Lindahl and Paul Modrich for his work in mapping the cells which repair ultraviolet damage to DNA. Their research was an important step for treating cancer.“I have observed in the U.S. [during my studies] how important it is for girls to be educated,” the laureate said at a ceremony in Stockholm a day earlier. Meanwhile, Tunisia’s National Dialogue Quartet urged the international community to make the global fight against terrorism an “absolute priority,” upon receiving its Nobel Peace Prize at a ceremony in Oslo.“Today, we are in a great need of dialogue between civilizations, and peaceful coexistence... Today, we need to make the fight against terrorism an absolute priority,” said Houcine Abassi, secretary general of the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT), one of the four members of the quartet.At Oslo’s City Hall, which was decked out in flowers, Abassi denounced the “barbaric and heinous terrorist acts” in recent months in Tunisia and around the world, pointing to Paris, Beirut, Sharm el-Sheikh and Bamako.THIS incredible footage shows what is arguably the most dangerous motorway in the world after a huge goods train rumbles over a seven-lane motorway with no warning.
Motorists in Azerbaijan are seen desperately breaking as they are suddenly cut off from continuing as the huge locomotive pulling the carriages crosses over the seven lanes, plus a slip road. The remarkable images were shot by Javid Sadradinzadeshows in the city of Baku in eastern Azerbaijan. He filmed the moment the moving train crosses the road and noted that given its size and the number of carriages the train had no chance at all of stopping had a car ended up in front of it.
CEN BIZARRE: Motorists are seen desperately breaking
“What if I came to Baku by car and did not know that secret railroads exist?!” Online user The bizarre footage clearly shows that the railway is almost impossible to see and is not apparently marked in any way with signs, never mind flashing warning lights or a barrier. In addition to that there are no traffic policemen to inform drivers about the approaching vehicle. Since the train is moving at a very low speed some drivers try to speed up and pass the rails prior the arrival of the train, while others stop to wait until the train has passed.
CEN INVISIBLE: There is no indication whatsoever that a railway existsFERGUSON, Mo. — A day of peaceful protest commemorating the killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed black 18-year-old, by a white police officer one year ago ended in gunfire late Sunday as multiple shots rang out on West Florissant Avenue, the commercial district hit by rioting last summer.
A St. Louis County police officer was involved in the shooting, which occurred at about 11:15 p.m., after coming under heavy gunfire, the department said in a post on Twitter. Another department post said, “At least 2 unmarked cars took shots.”
About 100 people who had been milling about in the street scattered, seeking cover behind cars. Police officers sought protection behind their riot shields and drew their weapons. The streets cleared as an eerie silence took hold, the only sound coming from a helicopter overhead. There was no immediate word from the police on injuries.
The event during the day drew a range of political leaders, national activists and ordinary people who said they felt a connection to the events of a year ago. With the writer and academic Cornel West behind them, Mr. Brown’s family stood over the freshly repaved patch of Canfield Drive where Mr. Brown died. Relatives of Eric Garner and Oscar Grant, two other black men who died in confrontations with the police in Staten Island and in Oakland, Calif., also attended.The copyright industry is amazing at pretending the copyright monopoly has always been there in its current form. But international copyright monopolies didn't exist in practice across the Western world before 1989.
I sometimes try to hold the copyright monopoly to the same legislative quality standards as other laws.
It fails laughably at the “necessary, effective, and proportionate” test, where a law must be necessary (meet an identified legislative need), effective (solve that problem effectively), and proportionate (not cause worse damage in the process).
Most of the time, the copyright monopoly fails all three tests, and when legislators have this pointed out to them, they shift uncomfortably in their chairs and change the subject.
I don’t know any profession except legislation that gets away with such abysmal quality assurance.
Most of the time, the discussion focuses on the “effective” and “proportional” parts of copyright legislation, illustrating how it is absolutely toothless in the absence of draconian privacy invasions, which is exactly what the copyright industry is tenaciously pushing for – which brings us to the “proportional” part right in the next sentence.
For once, though, “necessary” is up for debate. Is the copyright monopoly even necessary to solve a real problem? If so, what specific problem is it trying to solve? This passage is notably absent from most copyright monopoly legislations: “The purpose of this law is X”. If you were arguing for the introduction of such a monopoly today, how would you justify it? Could you conceivably do so?
To that effect, a new book, Without Copyright, was published recently. It reminds us of a sobering fact – even though the copyright monopoly was created in 1554 in England by “Bloody” Mary I in order to persecute political dissenters, it didn’t have much of an international effect until the 1900s. The copyright monopolies only protected authors of books in their own countries; outside the author’s own country, it was generally a free-for-all, and nowhere moreso than in the United States.
The international convention that turns copyright monopolies international is known as the Berne Convention, and it is overseen by the UN organization WIPO (the only UN organization to be funded by outside private interests). The United States ratified the Berne Convention only when it became geopolitically important to aggressively push its monopolies onto other countries, as described in The History of Copyright. More specifically, the United States ratified international copyright monopolies on March 1, 1989.
That’s very recent. To put it in perspective, that’s a newer event than Mario Bros, Die Hard, The Princess Bride, and The Legend of Zelda. It’s over fifteen years after the introduction of TCP/IP, the communications protocol of the modern Internet.
The U.S. had recognized some international monopolies to a very limited degree before that point. But before 1891, only citizens and residents of the United States could qualify for copyright monopolies at all. In today’s words of the United States: America was a rogue piracy state, plain and simple. That begs the obvious question – if there was no copyright monopoly, how did the writers make money, and since we have been told this always depends on the copyright monopoly, why were any books written at all in this time period?
But books were written before 1891. Tons of them. And there’s nothing to indicate more books were written after the United States accepted international monopolies, neither in the 1891 change nor in the 1989 change.
The answer, it turns out, was very simple. There wasn’t really any need for the copyright monopoly. There was a whole slew of tools available for publishers and authors to enforce business terms and make their agreed money, where – notably – not a single one of them involved lawyers. And this was considered modern times.
So that lets us return to the question:
How necessary is the copyright monopoly, anyway?This Christmas is a little brighter for families at Father Joe's Villages thanks to a thoughtful 12-year-old girl.
Lilly Thompson is a fortunate kid who gets presents for Christmas, so she went on a heartfelt mission to make sure other kids would too. In just 12 days, she raised $1,765 through Facebook.
"Lots of people donated," she said with a big smile and a little laugh. "This is about giving generally to all the people who don't have as much as they should have."
The gifts went into a store. Then, moms at the shelter were able to buy them using "baby bucks" they earned by doing chores.
"It's really cool, and I'm actually realizing my mom was here," Lilly said.
She did not pick just any shelter. It is the one that took her mom in when she was homeless.
"You look just like your mom," one of the staff members said as she rushed up to hug Lilly.
Four women were there who welcomed Lynette to the shelter when she was pregnant with Lilly 12 years ago.
They gave the two of them a home for two and a half years. They helped Lynette turn things around and get an apartment.
"Life was good," Lilly said. "Then she got diagnosed with stage four breast cancer and passed away after a little while," she added.
Before she did, Lynette made sure Lilly had a loving home where she has learned about her birth mom.
"She was always giving things to other people," Lilly explained. "Like one time she gave a stroller to a lady who was trying to get all of her kids into the store, so so she just gave her her stroller. She ran to the car and gave it to her."
Like Lynette, Lilly does not want a mom to go without a stroller, or a baby to go without a blanket.
"With what your story is you're making another kid who maybe doesn't think their story has a chance of ending well, that it can and we're really, really grateful," one of the staff members said.
"You're such a good girl," one of the women said as she hugged Lilly. "Keep up all the good work."
They gave Lilly something money cannot buy, and this was Lilly's chance to give them that gift of love in return.Image copyright AP
Turkish voters on Sunday will elect a new government.
Politically, Turkey has been dominated by the Justice and Development Party of the President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for more than a decade.
The party, often known by its Turkish language acronym, the AKP, is likely to put in a strong performance again this time, but it faces significant challenges to its dominance.
One factor, among several, is the flagging performance of the country's economy.
So how has Turkey's economic performance been under the AKP?
Since the party came to power, following an election in late 2002, the economy has expanded by 68%, equivalent to an average annual growth rate of 4.5%, despite two bad years (2008-09) at the height of the global financial crisis.
That's well short of China's growth performance, but as Turkey is a more advanced emerging economy you wouldn't expect it to grow as fast.
Perhaps a more appropriate comparison would be that Turkey's growth was stronger than South Africa or Brazil managed in the same period. It's about the same as Chile, often seen as something of a poster child for managing an emerging economy.
It's worth recalling the circumstances in which the AKP came to power. It was in the aftermath of Turkey's own financial crisis, which led to an IMF bailout.
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Inflation in Turkey is high compared to western levels, but is much lower than it was 20 years ago
Inflation has also been a very different story when set against Turkey's previous history. For most of the AKP's time it has been in high single figures. Any western central bank today presiding over that sort of performance would be considered a failure. But in the case of Turkey the contrast with the immediate past is stark. There were years in the 1990s when it was over 100% - that is to say, prices doubled |
all have stopped. Those that exist are either not making money or are inconsequential. In this scenario, talking about a 24-hour channel seems ridiculous.
ML: Isn’t there plenty of content that can be shown and is untouched by television today? For instance, product reviews?
SK: Absolutely. There is plenty of content possible. I am not worried about how to have plenty of interesting content. The problem is getting others to believe in it. I am now looking at doing it on my own.
ML: Is distribution a constraint?
SK: Distribution is also not an issue. Of course, a new channel would cost anywhere between Rs15-20 crore a year only on distribution. But I don’t want to go to all homes; I want to reach relevant ones. We’ll go digital. Anyone who wants to see it will pay, others won’t watch it. There are service providers like Dish TV and Tata SKY and then Reliance, Bharti and IPTV are planning to be launched and they all want something different. So we are exploring possibilities and, fortunately, we are not threatened that anyone else will do it. They can certainly try.So there’s a new The Little Prince trailer that dropped today, and it’s gorgeous. It easily tops the list of movies I am excited for – even more than The Avengers: Age of Ultron – and it helps that the movie looks so beautiful. So very, very, very beautiful.
In case you missed it, though, here’s the trailer:
I’m out of words. As in really, really, out of words. So here’s what I’m going to do – I’ll just compile a few reaction gifs to express how I felt after watching this trailer.
In case somebody asks, no, no, I’m not crying. I’m just chopping onions. Lots of nostalgia-induced onions.
What about you? How did you find the new trailer for The Little Prince? Share your thoughts and leave a comment!A six-metre rock python was caught on camera in Junagadh district of India's western Gujarat state with a swollen stomach after it consumed an antelope on Tuesday.
Residents informed authorities at Girnar Wildlife Sanctuary after they spotted the reptile lying in discomfort in a field.
In view of the massive swelling of the python's stomach, the forest authorities suspect that it gobbled up a full-grown "nilgai" or blue bull.
The python — rendered unable to move — was rescued by the forest personnel.
"We will keep it under observation. We will release it back in the wild once it digests the antelope and the swelling subsides," S.D. Tilala, assistant conservator of forest, said.
A blue bull is far larger than an ideal prey for pythons and digesting the mammal could prove to be a great struggle for the reptile.
When unable to digest an unusually large prey, pythons are known to regurgitate them.CLOSE Charlotte police shooting; NY terror suspect charged; Federal Reserve rate remains unchanged APP Newsbreak
Tyrone Statham (right) and his cousin, Wayne Statham, ride the Drop Zone ride at Bowcraft in Scotch Plains. (Photo: ~File)
SCOTCH PLAINS - The reports of Bowcraft's death are greatly exaggerated — at least for now.
The landmark Route 22 family entertainment center has denied rumors that its closure is imminent, but the township planning board will be holding a hearing on Monday evening on a proposal by ATA Developers to build a 200-unit residential property on the 10-acre lot.
Even if the planning board approves the application — a process that could take months — construction may not begin until 2018 or later because of the lengthy permitting process.
READ: Retired Scotch Plains police chief charged with DUI
READ: Scotch Plains boys soccer tops Elizabeth in overtime
Earlier this week, Bowcraft issued a statement on its Facebook page that recent Internet reports that it was closing for good in a few weeks were not true.
Bowcraft also said that it will remain open for the remainder of the 2016 season and will re-open for the 2017 season in April.
"We look forward to creating more childhood memories to come," the post stated.
When the report received wide readership on the Internet, Central Jersey residents reacted with memories of going there as a child, going on dates in their adolescence and then taking their own children there.
Representatives of Bowcraft were not available for comment on Wednesday.
The application before the township includes low- and moderate-income units that would help to meet the township's affordable housing quota.
Bowcraft Park was opened shortly after World War II by Ted Miller, who initially operated it as an archery range and a small ski slope on the side of the Watchung ridge.
Over the years, however, Bowcraft evolved in to a small amusement park, catering to families with small children and birthday parties.
The Marke family bought it in 1996 and modernized the facility, adding more rides.
For the remainder of this season, Bowcraft will be partnering with pantophobia.com on a number of Halloween attractions, including a Pumpkin Express Train Ride and a Zombiescape Haunted Attraction.
"Navigate through the abandoned Bowcraft Amusement Park, trying to find items for survival," the pantophobia.com website states.
Staff Writer Mike Deak: 908-243-6607; mdeak@mycentraljersey.com
Read or Share this story: http://mycj.co/2cW3EG5A Must for Your Gaming Rig
Turn your PC into a true gaming machine with the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti graphics card. It's based on the state-of-the-art Pascal architecture manufactured with the ultra-fast FinFET, and comes with 768 CUDA Cores and 4GB 128-bit GDDR5 memory. Thus you get impressive performance and capability to experience the latest titles in their full glory. The GeForce GTX 1050 Ti is also loaded with a rich array of gaming-enhancing technologies to improve your gaming experience, like Ansel technology that captures 360-degree game scenes, G-Sync for smooth, tear-free images, and more.
This ASUS DUAL-GTX1050TI-O4G operates at 1341 MHz/1455 MHz Base/Boost clock in OC mode (1290 MHz/1392 MHz for reference card) for higher FPS in your favorite games. Its dual-fan design provides twice the airflow for better cooling. The exclusive Auto-Extreme Technology with Super Alloy Power II components guarantees superior stability. And the GPU Tweak II with XSplit Gamecaster offers intuitive performance tweaking and real-time streaming.
Optimized Style and Performance
Perfectly matched with ASUS Z170 motherboards
ASUS Dual series of GeForce GTX 1050 TI graphics card and ASUS Z170 motherboards share perfectly matching color themes and are ready for Windows 10. Dual series of GeForce GTX 1050 TI is equipped with DirectX 12 to squeeze more graphics performance from the CPU and prevent GPU bottlenecks.
Dual Fan Cooling
2X greater airflow.
Twin optimized fans carefully selected by engineers drive 2X greater airflow performance, combining enhanced cooling with a more pleasant gaming and computing environment.
Auto-Extreme Technology with Super Alloy Power II
Premium quality and the best reliability
ASUS graphics cards are produced using Auto-Extreme technology, an industry-first 100% automated production process, and feature premium Super Alloy Power II components that enhance efficiency, reduce power loss, decrease component buzzing under load, and lower thermal temperatures for unsurpassed quality and reliability.
*This pic is for demonstration only.
GPU Tweak II
Tweak Till Your Heart's Content
Redesigned with an intuitive, all-new UI, GPU Tweak II makes overclocking easier and more visual than ever, while still retaining advanced options for seasoned overclockers. With one click, the new Gaming Booster function maximizes graphics performance by removing redundant processes and allocating all available resources automatically.
XSplit Gamecaster*
Stream and Record Your Gameplay Instantly
Now, you can also launch XSplit Gamecaster to bring up the in-game overlay and start streaming or recording your gameplay with the click of a button. You can also try the in-game annotations and video editor features to enhance your game stream experience.
* Trial for limited period of time.
GPU FeaturesSTOCKHOLM/CHICAGO (Reuters) - Three scientists won the Nobel medicine prize on Monday for plotting how cells transfer vital materials such as hormones and brain chemicals to other cells, giving insight into diseases such as Alzheimer’s, autism and diabetes.
Americans James Rothman, 62, Randy Schekman, 64, and German-born Thomas Suedhof, 57, separately mapped out one of the body’s critical networks in which tiny bubbles known as vesicles enable cells to secrete chemicals such as insulin into the surrounding environment.
This cellular machinery, which has evolved over a billion years, is so sensitive that slight malfunctions in the mechanism can cause serious illness or death.
“Through their discoveries, Rothman, Schekman and Suedhof have revealed the exquisitely precise control system for the transport and delivery of cellular cargo,” the Nobel Assembly at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute said in a statement when awarding the prize of 8 million crowns ($1.2 million).
Their research on how cells transport material around sheds light on how insulin, which controls blood sugar levels, is made and released into the blood at the right place at the right time. Diabetes and some brain disorders have been attributed at least in part to defects in the vesicle transport systems.
Related Coverage Factbox: A look at the 2013 Nobel Medicine Prize
The scientists’ work explains an “absolutely essential” component of cell biology that helps scientists understand how the brain or hormone secretion works, said Dr. Jeremy Berg, who for years worked as director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, a part of the National Institutes of Health, which underwrote much of the research.
“It’s one of the prizes for which there is not a treatment that came out of it directly, but there are probably literally thousands of laboratories around the world whose work would not be taking place the way it is without their work,” said Berg, who is director of the Institute for Personalized Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh.
The Nobel committee said the work could help in understanding immuno-deficiency and brain disorders such as autism.
“HOW CELLS WORK”
“Their discoveries could perhaps have clinical implications in psychiatric diseases, but my guess is that they will be more useful for the understanding of how cells work,” said Professor Patrik Rorsman of Oxford University.
Yale University Professor James Rothman, 62, the co-awardee of the 2013 Nobel Prize for Medicine, arrives to a standing ovation before attending a press conference at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, October 7, 2013. REUTERS/Adrees Latif
Schekman, a geneticist, first became interested in how proteins move within cells in 1974. At the University of California, Berkeley, he began working on yeast, a single cell microorganism. Research showed his findings applied equally to human cells.
Among Schekman’s research aims is to study whether the accumulation of the protein amyloid in the brains of Alzheimer’s disease patients is due to disruption of the vesicle system.
Suedhof, a neuroscientist, has focused particularly on the brain and questions of human thought and perception, emotions and actions determined by signaling between neurons, cells which constitute the foundation of the nervous system.
“My major interest is in trying to understand how neurons in the brain communicate - how these processes get established during development, and how they become impaired in autism and schizophrenia,” Suedhof said in an interview.
Suedhof said the work was really about “cell traffic,” the ability of cells to move material around.
Medicine is the first of the Nobel prizes awarded each year. Prizes for achievements in science, literature and peace were first awarded in 1901 in accordance with the will of dynamite inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel.
Slideshow (9 Images)
“My first reaction was, `Oh, my god!`” said Schekman, who was woken with the good news. “That was also my second reaction,” he added, according to a University of California, Berkeley, statement.
Schekman said in an interview that his work was born out of a desire to understand how it was possible for one cell to talk to the other. He said figuring that out would help deepen understanding of how the brain works, “one of the most important questions in biology today.”
Suedhof said while he and his fellow prize winners had worked separately they had met each other “many, many times.” They had “argued and sometimes agreed and sometimes disagreed,” he said with a laugh.
(This story is refiled to amend sixteenth paragraph to read University of California, Berkeley instead of Berkeley University)My Thoughts on Undertale
I have a lot of things to say about Undertale, and I figure this is the best space to do it since I can conveniently hide everything behind a Read More so that you don’t get spoiled.
As a disclaimer, I’m not going to hold back on discussing things from both major ending paths, since they are integral to my opinions on the game. You will be spoiled if you read this without already knowing them.
I think the last time I played a game that made me cry, it was when I was about 5 years old. After a lot of toiling about on my own, before the internet existed, I had managed to beat Super Mario Brothers 3 with nothing but my own skill and perseverance. I was so excited about this that I wanted to show my mom, and some time while I was out of the room, the cartridge glitched so the screen was illegible and crashed. I was so sad! But then I beat it again and felt better.
What is it about this game in particular that can actually incite emotion in someone such as myself, twenty-two years after I had thought myself better than to cry at a video game? I hope to explore that with a write-up of my various opinions and thoughts, as someone who has played through both the nice boy route and the Literally Satan route.
I think the best way to tackle this would be to list my thoughts on the major characters in the game, since their interactions are integral to the experience. Just for fun, and perhaps to endear or infuriate some people who read this, I’ll order them from least to most favorite. However, please note that I like all of them. I just have some very clear preferences as to who is better for me. First off…
Asgore: Sure, he had reasons to do what he did, but it’s difficult to find him sympathetic. His demeanor is one of the scariest in the game to me, since it mixes genuine gentleness with a reluctant, but still fueled desire to kill. I feel that even in the happiest ending, he has a lot more to answer for than he really has to. Those experiments that basically melted a bunch of monsters together were his idea. As Toriel mentions, he prefers lying in wait like a coward for humans to approach him before taking their souls, as opposed to entering the surface and actively taking them. Something about him is severely damaged, though that is understandable given what happened to his family. I like him as a character, but I think some of the other characters are too nice to him.
Alphys: She has a lot to answer for too. However, she’s aware of this the entire time, which puts her far above Asgore for me. Everything she did was either an accident or she was mandated to do it, so I can actually consider her sympathetic. She’s absolutely terrified that she did it, and she subtly admits at one point that it almost drove her to suicide. That you get a chance to pull her back around and help her atone for this is a very welcome story development to me. Aside from that serious stuff, her general demeanor is very easy to relate to as someone who used to/still does go through some of the anxiety-fueled behavior she exhibits (i.e. phonecall anxiety, I used to have it so I completely understood this). Also, she is one of the major source of anime jokes for this game, and I can’t get enough. As an aside, I find it interesting that she is the only major character who cannot be killed.
Sans. A crowd favorite, and for good reason. He’s the first person you meet after your encounter with Toriel, and he does a good job of lightening the mood. He’s also one of the most enigmatic characters, and it’s very likely we still don’t know everything about him. He may not even be a monster! Regardless, I think he’s great. He’s a good comic relief, but at the same time, some of his comic relief is actually part of why he’s so enigmatic. He can walk off screen and appear in completely different places, which seems like a funny joke by the game at first, but knowing more about him completely changes the nature of what he does. He’s one of the two characters who actually stands up to you (and how) in a genocide run, and his dialog during this fight suggests that he’s involved in some sort of knowledge of time travel. It’s pretty vague, but the secret room in his house more or less confirms that he has the ability to do this, somehow. He made me laugh a fair number of times throughout the game, and he also righteously made me have a bad time when I chose to be mean to everyone in the game. I can’t say it wasn’t also the best and most fun fight in the game, though.
Undyne. Undyne is a bit of a sleeper hit. She doesn’t really show you much of her personality unless you properly spare and befriend her, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I was not disappointed when it came time to have friendship scenes with her. She was probably the second best comic relief in the game for me, given that she both believes anime is real, and is… well, extreme in everything she does. What really sold me on her was playing a genocide run, though. Even if you feel you have to fight and kill her in a normal run, she fights you as-is to the death. When you go through the game heartlessly killing everyone, she gives her own life to keep you from murdering a kid, and it’s that situation that causes her to show that she has the ability to resist death and become some sort of avatar of heroism to stop you. What I like about this is it’s not the need to preserve her own life that causes her to do this, but an overwhelming desire to save the world from you. It’s a genuine show that she really is selfless when it comes down to it, and I think that was one of the best ways to get that point across. Both hilarious, and a powerful character emotionally and physically. She’s great.
Asriel/Flowey: The tragic character of the game, if I ever saw one. Flowey is almost enigmatic like Sans, except that going through both routes, you do get to understand what he’s doing, how he’s doing it, and why he’s doing it. While one of the most complex characters, he’s also almost thoroughly explained, and it’s all very interesting. Putting both routes together, he has a clear unhealthy relationship with the fallen child. I consider it a very big deal that you clear him of this in the pacifist run, helping him realize what a good person actually does and that his foster brother actually sucked. Conversely, experiencing his continued obsession with the fallen child in the genocide run is uncomfortable.
I know a lot of people desire a happier ending where you completely save him, but as a person who has written stuff before, I can understand how his fate as it is has a positive impact on the story. His sacrifice wouldn’t really mean much if everything was just okay afterwards. He is at peace when you last leave him, and he doesn’t die or anything, he just reverts back to a flower. I consider this a huge deal, because he had been living without emotions, reversing time and killing people for fun at his leisure for who knows how long before you showed up. You helped him overcome that and be himself again. But, even if he were able to, he would have to face people he’s murdered for fun repeatedly and live with himself. It may be best to let him choose solitude, if that’s what he wants. That’s my thought, anyway.
Papyrus: My favorite thing about the silly dumb skeleton is that he is much deeper as a character than you’d ever guess by just playing through on pacifist. He’s absolutely hilarious and I loved him from the get-go, but something that puts him this far up my list goes beyond his outstanding comic relief.
When you’re committing genocide in the Snowdin area, you’re also constantly screwing up all of his puzzles. The main character doesn’t play along at all, and simply walks through them before Papyrus can even finish talking about them. You repeatedly crush his fun and make him unhappy, while also murdering everyone you possibly can. When you finally confront him in that foggy area, he says that you’re a weirdo… and then proceeds to try to be your friend, and that he believes you can veer off of the path you’ve put yourself on. Of course, he continues doing all of this in his usual silly way, but that’s what makes it powerful. He knows you’re a killer, but he still stands there and tries. He doesn’t hate you a single bit, even if you do choose to kill him.
He’s absolutely the nicest character in the game. There’s not a single thing you can do to make him think you aren’t worth the effort, even when he doesn’t like what you’re doing. He is so close to my #1 that I would almost consider them tied.
Toriel: I know what you’re thinking. “Ooh, big surprise, everybody likes her!” Well, I have my reasons, which is part of why I assembled the list this way. I have the most to say about her above the rest, because she was central to my experience with the game.
I hadn’t played the demo for this game. I had no idea what to expect from the first moment. I’d heard of Toriel, of course, but not seen her in-game or known anything about what she does. I was not prepared for it at all, and from very early in the game, I found her extremely endearing due to how motherly she is to the kid. While she might overdo it slightly, I had no problem with that whatsoever.
It starts to get a bit personal here.
People who know me probably know that my parents are no longer with me. I like to say that I’m over it, and that’s true in most respects, but things like this open up the bottle, so to speak. This part of the game hooked me heavily. I even tried to avoid asking her about leaving the Ruins, since it seemed obvious that it’d upset her and I had no idea if that was avoidable or not.
I tend to tell people that I figured out how to spare her due to the hints from the frogs earlier on, but that’s a partial truth. I put that together halfway through the fight. In truth, I just didn’t have the heart to hit her, after all that. I wanted to believe that I didn’t have to do it, and I was rewarded for that. It felt pretty nice!
Even then, the sequence after that slayed me, to be told that I just couldn’t come back, ever. I spent the rest of the game with that hanging a raincloud over my head. Was she just gone from the story? Was there no good way that could have gone? I became filled with some glimmers of hope here and there when Sans mentioned her, because until then it seemed like nobody else in the game even knew she existed.
You can imagine my absolute relief when I managed to trudge through to the full ending sequence, and man was that all great. She was there, and so was everyone else who was cool. I don’t feel I need to sing the praises of the last boss to anyone reading this, though. You already know.
So you also probably know where this is headed. I remained fairly stoic (though uplifted) about the ending past the parts that usually get people, i.e. Asriel’s fate, and then it came around to the pre-credits sequence at the sunset. It was already a very happy ending, and then everyone left Toriel and the kid to talk on their own. I guess at that moment I felt overjoyed, like the story knew how I’d been feeling all throughout the game. Then the choice came up, and I did finally lose it. The good sort of lose it, like the ‘this is everything I wanted and thought I wouldn’t get’ lose it. The exact closure to the story that I wanted, yet somehow it took me by surprise.
I guess I’d become so used to modern storywriting that always feels the need to search for what the reader wants most and dangle it in front of them like some kind of sadist, but never give it to them without some sort of heavy compromise. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it is becoming the norm. To have a story break that mold on me despite numerous tense and uncomfortable moments (Flowey, the lab, Asgore’s death, etc.) was an experience that I don’t feel I’ll get from any other media for a long time.
Then I was convinced to play a genocide run. I was told that it would make me love the characters more, and I thought about it. My inner storywriter went “I can totally see that” and I was on board. I streamed it, since I didn’t have the heart to do it alone after the aforementioned experience. From the first “But nobody came” I really stopped feeling too good about doing it, but I pushed onward. Obviously, I felt like trash after killing Toriel, and every subsequent major character as well. It really wasn’t a nice thing to do, and I would almost completely regret it.
However, it is true. You’ve probably read my gushing about Papyrus and other characters up there if you’ve gotten this far in this block of text. I saw sides of some characters that were very important toward appreciating them more, and very important toward being able to make a write-up like this. I got to play the game a bit longer, rather than feeling like I had to never touch it again or I’d ruin the happiness.
This is just me looking at the positives, though. It’s horrible to do a run like that after becoming so attached to the first ending. I can’t say whether I’d do it again if given the chance, but I tend to heavily encourage others not to do it. It really doesn’t feel very good to do after you’ve actually gotten attached to the game’s nice-person aesthetic. However, that’s just my view, and I can’t stop other people from having their reasons for being curious enough to try it. It happened to me, after all.
The worst part about it… or at least I used to think so, is that when you do a genocide run, your further pacifist runs change into horrible endings. With but a small addition at the very end, your nice journey becomes a giant ruse for the fallen human to exit the barrier and begin a worldwide murder spree. The game has your number, and won’t let you get away with thinking you can be both a good guy and a bad guy.
At first, this felt almost traumatizing. “I want a good ending again!” I thought. But then I thought about it more. Why? I’ve already gotten it. This is something different, and gives me a new motivation. I don’t know if it’s one that can currently be accomplished in the game, but I would love it if it were.
I want to be able to confront the fallen human. Even if it is supposed to be the embodiment of bad things I’ve done, I want to be able to fight it, talk to it, mercy it, whatever. I want to interact with it beyond letting it run amok and have no repercussions for all of the bad things its done in the game’s story. I don’t feel that messing with some values on my PC to get rid of it is enough for me.
Is it possible? I don’t know. It’s probably not, in all honesty. However, it’s the one loose end that bugs me the most, more than the weird Gaster stuff everyone is looking into. I can’t accept that the “demon” just gets away with everything, and I want there to be some way to deal with it in the game itself.
Anyway, I think those are all of my thoughts that I can bring forth at the moment. I’m very happy with this game, and very passionate about the story! On that note, I hope that anyone who read this far actually got something out of it, and I want to thank you for reading through that many paragraphs of me gushing about a video game. You’re a peach!The Premiership academy system is rightly lauded for its success in promoting domestic talent – last season England Qualified Players made up more than 70 per cent of Premiership squads – but an unintended consequence has been to narrow the pathway available for late developers to get a foot on the ladder.
Matt Symons is one such player to have slipped the net. At 17, the second row was, by his own admission, “a lanky rake”. He was let go by Saracens and after a short spell in British Rowing’s talent identification programme, which added plenty of muscle to his 6ft 8in frame, was picked up by Esher. With seemingly little prospect of earning a Premiership contract, Symons took a punt by joining his brother playing amateur club rugby in New Zealand.
That was three years ago. Last weekend, Symons captained a Chiefs side featuring Sonny Bill Williams and others in a 23-18 victory against the Blues in the opening round of Super Rugby matches. In New Zealand where foreigners are rarely promoted at the expense of domestic talent, that is a huge mark of respect.
“Obviously I am really stoked,” Symons told The Telegraph. “I guess it doesn’t feel like I am an Englishman because I am part of the team. It is kind of weird when you think about it from the outside where I was and where I am now.”
In May, Symons becomes eligible to play for New Zealand. It is a decision he is still mulling. “I am in the process of thinking about it at the moment but no decisions have been made at the moment.”
He shared a coffee with Graham Rowntree, the England forwards coach, during last summer’s tour but says the conversation revolved mainly around lineouts. To make matters more complicated, Tom Coventry, the Chiefs forwards coach who has been appointed London Irish’s director of rugby, wants to bring Symons with him to the Exiles.
It is clear the debt of gratitude that Symons feels he owes New Zealand. From playing for High School Old Boys RFC, the 25-year-old was picked up by Canterbury to play in the ITM Cup, which in turn led to him being spotted by the Chiefs.
“I am a big supporter of the late developers,” Symons said. “There are a lot of kids out there who are in a similar situation to me. English clubs put a lot of money and time into their academy players and many of them come through very well but there has to be opportunities for guys who do develop later.
“I think New Zealand caters well for both: they find talent early through their age-group and their schools programmes but there are opportunities for guys who take the hard road who were maybe studying or doing something else but want to give it another crack.”
He is also thankful for his experience in the British Rowing’s World Class Start programme for providing him with staggering fitness levels. It is no coincidence, Symons says, that while some of his contemporaries such as Alex Gregory, a gold medallist in the coxless fours at the 2012 Olympics, kicked on in rowing, others prospered in other sports.
“It is a bloody tough sport. Brutal would only just cover it. Those guys don’t get enough credit for what they have to go through. That rowing background gave us all a good base in how hard those Olympic athletes train. The amount of dedication you need to succeed in rowing, if you can have that mindset and transfer it to other sports it gives you a really good work ethic.”
There have been a few pinch-yourself moments along the way, but Symons says that the down-to-earth nature of his team-mates means that he has never been starstruck by training alongside Williams or partnering Brodie Retallick, the World Rugby Player of the Year, in the second row.
The All Blacks’ 'no d------- rule' also applies to the franchises. “What people would be amazed by is the humility of top rugby players over here,” Symons said. “I know it is often spoken about the New Zealand players being really humble and hard working, but that really is the case.
“Sonny is there first and leaves last pretty much every day. He is very studious. All the All Black boys are really down to earth, work really hard and no hint of an ego. I find that really inspiring.”Bitcoin Transaction Fees Hit All-Time High
It’s getting more and more outrageously expensive to transfer Bitcoin. According to BitInfoCharts, the mean cost of a Bitcoin transaction just hit more than $40.
Word of Bitcoin’s pricey transaction fees has been spreading for months, and appears to be reaching critical mass.
Recently, the powerhouse gaming platform Steam dropped its support for Bitcoin, blaming both high fees and slow transaction times for its decision.
Bitcoin supporters and detractors alike are now calling the grandfather of cryptocurrency “digital gold” instead of a truly functioning peer-to-peer currency. This has helped trigger the rise of Bitcoin Cash, which currently has an average transaction fee of about $1.
For cheaper fees and faster transfers, many in the crypto space are switching to Ethereum, Litecoin, Dash, Bitcoin Cash and Ripple to move their crypto assets.
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed at The Daily Hodl are not investment advice. Investors should do their due diligence before making any high-risk investments in Bitcoin, cryptocurrency or digital assets. Please be advised that your transfers and trades are at your own risk, and any loses you may incur are your responsibility. The Daily Hodl does not recommend the buying or selling of any cryptocurrencies or digital assets, nor is The Daily Hodl an investment advisor. Please note that The Daily Hodl participates in affiliate marketing.South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson listens during proceedings in the South Carolina Supreme Court Tuesday, June 24, 2014, in Columbia, S.C. Wilson is appealing a judge's ruling that a legislative panel must first sign off before he pursues charges against Speaker Bobby Harrell. (AP Photo/ Richard Shiro)
South Carolina's anti-gay Attorney General may have to pay tens of thousands of dollars to gay rights groups. New research shows why marriage equality has been so successful so fast. And Hillary Clinton gets thanks for supporting the freedom to marry from an unlikely source.
Marriage is here to stay in South Carolina, but Attorney General Alan Wilson seems to be having a hard time accepting it. Even though South Carolina couples have been getting married since last month, Wilson has continued his losing battle to stop the weddings. But the longer he drags out his appeal, the more money he may wind up having to give to a coalition of gay rights groups.
That's because the coalition has filed a petition seeking to recoup the money that they've had to spend to keep marriage legal. If the court grants their request, Wilson will have to give over $150,000 to organizations fighting for equality. Wilson really has no chance of stopping marriage at this point. He's appealing to the Fourth Circuit, which has repeatedly allowed marriages to go forward. So all he's doing now is running up a huge tab.
And the same thing's happening Arkansas. Outgoing Governor Mike Beebe and incoming Governor Asa Hutchinson both say they oppose marriage equality. Last week Beebe went even further, telling supporters that he might be willing to consider limited civil unions. That might've been an okay position twenty years ago. But civil unions are a compromise, and at this point we're so close to winning we don't have to compromise anymore.
In fact, there's a new study this week that shows why we're so close to winning. And no surprise, it's what Harvey Milk said back in the '70s: You have to come out. The new study in the journal Science shows that when door-to-door canvassers come out, and talk about wanting to get married, voters' minds change -- and stay changed. If we don't come out, their minds change back after less than a week. So that's why coming out as queer is so important, and why those anti-gay politicians are going to lose.Chinese relations with Norway have been frosty since Oslo-based Nobel committee announced that dissident Liu Xiaobo would be peace laureate
Norway could shut China out of the Arctic Council if Beijing does not stop a campaign of diplomatic snubs imposed after the Nobel peace prize was awarded to Liu Xiaobo, a Norwegian newspaper has reported.
If confirmed, Oslo's move would mark a bold confrontation with the world's fastest rising economic power and highlight the growing importance of the Arctic, which is opening up for navigation and mineral exploitation as it melts due to global warming.
China's relations with Norway have been frosty since October 2010, when the Oslo-based Nobel committee announced that Liu, an imprisoned Chinese democracy activist, would be the next peace laureate.
Although the Norwegian government has stressed that the Nobel committee is independent, Beijing has punished its host nation by cutting political and human rights dialogues.
Until now, Norway has tried to use quiet diplomacy to ease the situation but, with little sign of progress, the Aftenposten, Norway's best selling newspaper, claims the government is preparing to up the stakes.
Citing an unnamed high-level diplomatic source, the paper said Norway would find it difficult to agree to China's application to be a permanent observer on the Arctic Council while the current situation persisted.
The Arctic Council is a forum for political discussions on the far north. It was established in 1989, originally to discuss measures to protect the Arctic environment, but has since expanded to work on scientific research, sustainable development and responses to emergencies.
Officially, the two governments have yet to comment on the issue.
"I can neither confirm nor deny this story, but I can say bilateral contacts between Norway and China are at a low level," Karsten Klepsvik, the senior Arctic official at the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said.
He said no decision had been reached about Norway's position on applications from several nations to join the Arctic Council, adding: "As of today, we have not had inter-agency consultation on applications, but we will have to do that in the near future."
China makes no secret of its interests in the Arctic. The country has had a permanent research base in Norway since 2004 and conducted four expeditions of the region, according to |
East End (Lifetime) Panel with stars Jenna Dewan Tatum, Julia Ormond, Madchen Amick, Rachel Boston, Eric Winter and Daniel DiTomasso. 5:45-6:45 p.m., Room 6DE.
• Legends of TV Land (TV Land) Betty White and other notable stars will be on the panel, which will include a screening of her series Hot in Cleveland. 10:30-11:30 a.m., Indigo Ballroom at the Hilton Bayfront.
• Key & Peele/Moonbeam City (Comedy Central) Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele offer a behind-the-scenes look at the show in a panel moderated by Tom Lennon. The session will also feature a first look at Comedy Central's new animated series Moonbeam City, featuring Scott Gairdner and Rob Lowe with moderator/head writer Tommy Blacha. 1:30-3 p.m., Indigo Ballroom at the Hilton Bayfront.
• Star Wars Rebels (Disney XD) 6-7 p.m., Room 6BCF.
• The Legacy and Return of Battlestar Galactica. Richard Hatch,Jamie Bamber, Kevin Grazier Alec Peters, Luciana Carro provide an update on the movie. 10:30-11:30 a.m., Room 6BCF.
• The Walking Dead (Skybound) Comics creator Robert Kirkman gets into the thick of the comic series. 4:15-5:15, Room 6A.
• Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog sing-along. 8:30-10 p.m., Room 6BCF.
PHOTOS Hollywood Stars Show Off Their Geeky Side
FRIDAY, JULY 25
• The Walking Dead (AMC) The cast — Andrew Lincoln, Norman Reedus, Steven Yeun, Lauren Cohan, Danai Gurira, Melissa McBride, Chad Coleman, Michael Cudlitz — and exec producers Scott Gimple, Gale Anne Hurd, Robert Kirkman, Greg Nicotero and David Alpert — will preview season five in a panel moderated by Talking Dead's Chris Hardwick. 12:20-1:20, Hall H.
• Game of Thrones (HBO) Cast and creators will be in attendance; details yet to be announced. 1:40-2:40 p.m., Hall H.
• Orphan Black (BBC America) Stars Tatiana Maslany, Jordan Gavaris, Dylan Bruce, Maria Doyle Kennedy, Evelyne Brochu, Ari Millen join producers Graeme Manson and John Fawcett. 6-7 p.m., Room 6A.
• Resurrection (ABC) EPs Aaron Zelman, Michele Fazekas, Tara Butters and stars Omar Epps, Kurtwood Smith, Frances Fisher and Devin Kelley panel and offer an exclusive look at season two. 12:30-1:30 p.m., Room 6DE.
• Agents of SHIELD (ABC) EPs Jed Whedon, Maurissa Tancharoen and Jeff Bell join stars Clark Gregg, Ming-Na Wen, Brett Dalton, Chloe Bennet, Ian de Caestecker and Elizabeth Henstridge along with Agent Carter producers Tara Butters, Michele Fazekas, Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeeley and Louis D'Esposito along with star Hayley Atwell for a Q&A panel that goes behind the scenes of Marvel's live-action TV series. 3-4 p.m., Ballroom 20.
• The Blacklist (NBC) James Spader joins EPs Jon Bokenkamp, John Eisendrath to discuss season two. 1:45-2:45, Room 6A.
• Dominion (Syfy) Stars Chris Egan, Tom Wisdom, Roxanne McKee, Alan Dale, Anthony Stewart Head and EP Vaun Wilmott preview the new series. 5:30-6:30 p.m., Room 6DE.
• Banshee (Cinemax) Panel to include stars Antony Starr, Ivana Milicevic, Ulrich Thomsen, Geno Segers and EP Jonathan Tropper. 7:15-8:15 p.m., Room 6A.
• Intruders (BBC America) The new drama from EP Glen Morgan will have its world premeire followed by a panel with the cast including Mira Sorvino. 8-9 p.m., Room 7AB.
• Bones (Fox) David Boreanaz, Emily Deschanel and EP Stephen Nathan share secrets from the set and preview season 10. 12:30-1:30 p.m., Ballroom 20.
• Bob's Burgers (Fox) New footage will be screened, followed by a Q&A with Loren Bouchard, Jim Dauterive, H. Jon Benjamin, Dan Mintz, John Roberts, Kristen Schaal and Larry Murphy. 4-5 p.m., Indigo Ballroom at the Hilton Bayfront.
• Brickleberry (Comedy Central) Watch a live table read with the cast, followed by a new episode and panel with the cast and creators Waco O'Guin, Roger Black, David Herman, Tom Kenny, Jerry Minor and Natasha Leggero. 5:30-6:30 p.m., Room 25ABC.
• Sleepy Hollow (Fox) Get an exclusive look at season two followed by a Q&A with Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, Len Wiseman, Mark Goffman, Heather Kadin, Tom Mison, Nicole Beharie, John Noble, Orlando Jones, Lyndie Greenwood and Katia Winter. 5:45-6:45 p.m., Room 6BCF.
• Archer (FX) Original exclusive animation piece w ill be screened along with the season six premiere, followed by a Q&A with H. Jon Benjamin, Aisha Tyler, Chris Parnell, Judy Greer, Amber Nash, Lucky Yates, Adam Reed and Casey Willis. 5-6 p.m., Indigo Ballroom at the Hilton Bayfront.
• Outlander (Starz) EP Ron Moore, author Diana Gabaldon and stars Caitriona Balfe, Sam Heughan, Tobias Menzies, Graham McTavis and Lotte Verbeek will be in attendance. 2:15-3:15 p.m., Room 6A.
• Vikings (History) Stars Travis Fimmel, Katheryn Winnick,Clive Standen, Alexander Ludwig and showrunner Michael Hirst as well as History exec Julian Jobbs will attend. 4:45-5:45 p.m., Room 6A.
• Bates Motel (A&E) Showrunners Carlton Cuse and Kerry Ehrin will debut a new video with the cast before a Q&A with stars Vera Farmiga, Freddie Highmore, Olivia Cooke and Nestor Carbonell. 3:30-4:30 p.m., Room 6A.
• The Big Bang Theory (CBS) For the second year in a row, the writers will take center stage for a Q&A. 10-11 a.m., Ballroom 20.
• iZombie (CW) The midseason drama from Rob Thomas will screen the pilot, with a short Q&A to follow featuring cast Rose McIver, Malcolm Goodwin, Rahul Kohli, Robert Buckley and EPs Thomas and Diane Ruggiero-Wright. 11:30-12:30 p.m., Room 6BCF.
• Mike Tyson Mysteries (Adult Swim) Mike Tyson will preview his new animated comedy series on a panel that also features Rachel Ramras, Jim Rash and producer Hugh Davidson. 2:30-3:15 p.m., Indigo Ballroom.
• The 100 (CW) Video presentation and Q&A with the cast and EP Jason Rothenberg. 3:15-4:15, Room 6BCF.
• The Originals (CW) EP Julie Plec and co-EP Michael Narducci will be joined by stars Joseph Morgan, Daniel Gillies, Phoebe Tonkin, Charles Michael Davis, Leah Pipes and Danielle Campbell for a video presentation followed by Q&A. 4:15-5:15 p.m., Ballroom 20.
• Arrow (CW) Stars Stephen Amell, Katie Cassidy, David Ramsey, Emily Bett Rickards, Colton Haynes, Willa Holland, Paul Blackthorne and John Barrowman — with EPs Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim and Andrew Kreisberg — will unspool a video presentation and panel discussion previewing season three. 5:30-6:30 p.m., Ballroom 20.
• Legend of Korra: Book Three (Nickelodeon) Creator Mike Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, voice actors Janet Varney, David Faustino, Seychelle Gabriel, Mindy Sterling and John Michael Higgins discuss season three and preview an exclusive sneak peek of a new episode.11:15 a.m.-12:15 p.m., Ballroom 20.
• Game Your Brain to Superhero Status (Nat Geo) National Geographic Channel’s Eric LeClerc, David Rees, Tony Gonzalez and Armand Dorian for a series of interactive experiments that will mess with your mind and show you that what may seem superhuman is actually within your reach.
• @Midnight live show (Comedy Central) 10:30 p.m., Balboa Theatre. RSVP required.
• Uncle Grandpa & Clarence (Cartoon Network) 10-11 a.m., Indigo Ballroom, Hilton Bayfront.
• Adventure Time (Cartoon Network) 11-noon, Indigo Ballroom, Hilton Bayfront.
• The Venture Bros. (Adult Swim) 12:15-1 p.m., Indigo Ballroom, Hilton Bayfront.
• Triumph/McBrayer panel (Adult Swim) Robert Smigel, Michael Koman and Jack McBrayer preview their new series. 1-1:45 p.m., Indigo Ballroom, Hilton Bayfront.
• Gravity Falls (Disney Channel) 1-2 p.m., Room 6A.
• Wayward Pines (Fox) Matt Dillon, Melissa Leo, Toby Jones, Carla Gugino, Terrence Howard, Reed Diamond, Shannyn Sossamon, Tim Griffin and Charlie Tahan join EP M. Night Shyamalan, Donald DeLine, Chad Hodge and Ashwin Rajan on the panel. 1:30-1:30 p.m, Room 5A.
• Rick and Morty (Adult Swim) Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland return for a preview of season two with cast members including Spencer Grammer and Chris Parnell. 1:45-2:30 p.m., Indigo Ballroom, Hilton Bayfront.
• Robot Chicken (Adult Swim) EPs Seth Green and Matthew Senreich are joined by Tom Root, Zeb Wells, Breckin Meyer. 3:15 p.m.-4 p.m., Indigo Ballroom, Hilton Bayfront.
• Showrunners the Movie. Get a behind the scenes look at the feature documentary with J.J. Abrams, Joss Whedon, Ron Moore, Damon Lindelof, Bill Prady, Hart Hanson, Jane Espenson, Jonathan Nolan and more. Followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers and guests. 3:30-5:30 p.m., Horton Grand Theatre.
• Falling Skies (TNT) Stars and EPs will offer a preview of season four. 4:30-5:30 p.m., Room 6BCF.
SATURDAY, JULY 26
• Once Upon a Time (ABC) Yvette Nicole Brown moderates a panel featuring EPs Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz along with stars Jennifer Morrison, Robert Carlyle, Lana Parrilla, Josh Dallas, Emilie de Ravin, Colin O'Donoghue and Jared Gilmore. 11-11:45 a.m., Ballroom 20.
• True Blood (HBO) The vampire drama makes its final appearance at Comic-Con. Panelists to be determined. 5-6:15, Ballroom 20.
• The Simpsons (Fox) Celebrate the show's 25th anniversary with Matt Groening, Al Jean, MIke Anderson and David Silverman. Panel will include a visit from Homer Simpson. 10-10:45 a.m., Ballroom 20.
• Helix (Syfy) Stars Kyra Zagorsky, Mark Ghanime, Jordan Hayes, Neil Napier and EPs Ron Moore and Steven Maeda preview season two. Noon-1 p.m., Indigo Ballroom at the Hilton Bayfront Hotel.
• Defiance (Syfy) Stars Grant Bowler, Julie Benz, Stephanie Leonidas, Tony Curran, Jaime Murray, Jesse Rath and EP Kevin Murphy preview the new season. 1-2 p.m., Indigo Ballroom at the HIlton Bayfront Hotel.
• Ascension (Fyfy) Stars Tricia Helfer, Brian Van Holt and Andrea Roth join EP Philip Levens for an exclusive look at the new event series. 2:15-4:15 p.m., Room 6DE.
• Family Guy (Fox) Watch a sneak peek of the Family Guy/Simpsons crossover, followed by a panel with Seth Green, Mike Henry, Rich Appel, Steve Callaghan, Danny Smith and Peter Shin and other surprise guests. 1-1:45 p.m., Ballroom 20.
• American Dad (TBS) Screening and Q&A with Dee Bradley Baker, Matt Weitzman and Bryan Boyle and more. 2-2:45, Ballroom 20.
• Salem (WGN America) Screening and Q&A with Shane West, Janet Montgomery, Seth Gabel, Ashley Madekwe, Iddo Goldberg, Elise Eberle, Brannon Braga, Adam Simon and Josh Barry. 5:45-6:45 p.m., Room 6DE.
• American Horror Story: Coven (FX) Get an inside look at the recently concluded season of the anthology series with cast members Angela Bassett, Kathy Bates, Michael Chiklis, Sarah Paulson, Evan Peters, Emma Roberts and EP Tim Minear. Panel will look back at Coven and preview the new season, AHS: Freak Show. 7-8 p.m., Room 6DE.
• The Vampire Diaries (CW) Stars Nina Dobrev, Paul Wesley, Ian Somerhalder and Kat Graham join EP Julie Plec for a video screening and Q&A. 4-4:45 p.m., Ballroom 20.
• Constantine (NBC) Pilot screening followed by Q&A with stars Matt Ryan, Harold Perrineau and Charles Halford join EPs Daniel Cerone and David S. Goyer. 5:15-6:15 p.m., Room 6BCF.
• Person of Interest (CBS) EP Greg Plageman joins series stars for a special video presentation and Q&A. 6:15-7 p.m., Room 6BCF.
• Warner Bros. Television & DC Entertainment Present: The Flash, Constantine, Arrow and the world premiere of Gotham (Fox) with appearances by casts and producers. The Flash pilot will also be screened, with video presentations of Arrow and Constantine. Cast and producers from all four shows will also appear throughout the night. 8-11 p.m., Hall H.
• Grimm (NBC) Q&A with EPs and stars including David Guintoli. 3-3:45 p.m., Ballroom 20.
• Skybound Entertainment. Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman is joined by star Norman Reedus to preview the duo's upcoming feature film 3-4 p.m., Room 6A.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Nickelodeon) EPs Ciro Nieli and Brandon Auman join voice stars Sean Astin, Rob Paulsen, Greg Cipes, Seth Green, Mae Whitman, Josh Peck and Kelly Hu. 11:15 a.m.-12:15 p.m., Room 6A.
• Seven Universe (Cartoon Network) 10-11 a.m., Indigo Ballroom at the Hilton Bayfront.
• Phineas and Ferb (Disney Channel) Creators Dan Povenmire and Jeff "Swampy" Marsh join voice talent and the stars for a behind the scenes look of what's coming as well as at its Phineas and Ferb: Star Wars cross-over. 10-11 a.m., Room 6A.
• Marvel Animation. Join executives for the latest on the studio's animated series. 10:30-11:30 a.m., Room 6BCF.
• Nerdist. Chris Hardwick is joined by special guests from across the growing Nerdist Empire to preview what's to come. 3-4 p.m., Indigo Ballroom at the Hilton Bayfront.
• Regular Show (Cartoon Network) 11 a.m.-noon, Indigo Ballroom, Hilton Bayfront.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Nickelodeon) Join EPs Ciro Nieli and Brandon Auman and voice cast Sean Astin, Seth Green, Rob Paulsen, Greg Cipes, Mae Whitman, Josh Peck and Kelly Hu. 11:15 a.m.-12:15 p.m., Room 6A.
• Inside the Writers' Room. Join writers Michael Narducci (The Vampire Diaries), Steve Holland (The Big Bang Theory), Sarah Watson (Parenthood), Ashley E. Miller (Fringe), Steve Melching (Star Wars: The Clone Wars) and more for a panel discussion. 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m., Room 24ABC.
• TV Guide Magazine's annual Fan Favorites. Mischa Collins, Sam Heughan, Colin O'Donoghue and Aisha Tyler, among others. noon-12:45, Ballroom 20.
• The Awesomes (Hulu) Seth Meyers and Mike Shoemaker as well as cast members Taran Killam, Josh Meyers and writer/EP Dan Mintz for a Q&A and footage from season two. 2-3 p.m., Indigo Ballroom, Hilton Bayfront.
• John Barrowman. The Doctor Who, Torchwood, Arrow actor talks about his past, present and future projects. 4-5 p.m., Indigo Ballroom at the Hilton Bayfront.
• EW's Women Who Kick Ass. Panel includes Maisie Williams, Katey Sagal, Tatiana Maslany and Natalie Dormer, among others. 4:10-5:10 p.m., Hall H.
SUNDAY, JULY 27
• Sons of Anarchy (FX) Get an inside look at the final season with a panel including Kurt Sutter, Paris Barclay, Charlie Hunnam, Katey Sagal, Kim Coates, Mark Boone Jr., Tommy Flanagan, Theo Rossi, Dayton Callie and Jimmy Smits. 12:30-1:30 p.m., Hall H.
• The Strain (FX) Screening of episode three and Q&A with Guillermo del Toro, Carlton Cuse, Chuck Hogan, Corey Stoll, David Bradley, Mia Maestro, Sean Astin, Kevin Durand, Jonathan Hyde, Richard Sammel, Miguel Gomez, Ben yland and Jack Kesey. 1:45-3:45 p.m., Hall H.
• Supernatural (CW) Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles, Misha Collins and Mark A. Sheppard, along with EP Jeremy Carver preview season 10. The panel will feature an exclusive video presentation with series highlights and special features from the season nine DVD set. 10-11 a.m., Hall H.
• The Following (Fox) Stars Kevin Bacon, Shawn Ashmore, Sam Underwood and Jessica Stroup join EPs Kevin Williamson, Marcos Siega and Jennifer Johnson for a Q&A and special video presentation. 11:15-12:15 p.m., Hall H.
• Teen Titans Go! (Cartoon Network) Q&A with producers Michael Jelenic and Aaron Horvath and members of the voice cast. Panel will include a special appearance by Puffy AmiYumi, the Japanese pop duo responsible for the theme song from the original Teen Titans series. 11:45-12:45 p.m., Room 6BCF.
• Sanjay and Craig (Nickelodeon) The stars will perform an episode live, accompanied by clips and storyboard panels from the series. Creators Jay Howell and Jim Dirschberger will appear with voice stars Chris Hardwick, Maulik Pancholy, Tony Hale, Matt Jones, John DiMaggio, Nika Futterman and other special guests. 1-2 p.m., Room 6A.
• Nickelodeon's New Animated Comedies (Nickelodeon) A preview of Breadwinners, Bad Seeds (working title) and Pig Goat Banana Cricket. 10-11 a.m., Room 7AB.
• Skybound (comics) The Walking Dead's Robert Kirkman offers the latest scoop on the Image Comics imprint's latest titles. 11 a.m.-noon, Room 7AB.
• Nickelodeon comedy preview. Get a look at Breadwinners, Pig Goat Banana Cricket and Chowder. 10-11 a.m., Room 7AB.
• Sanjay and Craig (Nickelodeon) The cast performs a live episode, followed by a Q&A and preview. 1-2 p.m., Room 6A.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer's annual Once More, With Feeling annual sing-along. 3:30-5 p.m., Room 6BCF.
Compiled by Lesley.Goldberg@THR.comLONDON — The head of Britain’s MI5 domestic intelligence service told the Thatcher government that a pedophile MP was operating in the House of Commons but suggested a plot to cover up his “penchant for small boys” in order to avoid political embarrassment.
It was a plan the government was only too happy to accept.
Proof of the extraordinary cover-up in the 1980s was kept hidden in the Cabinet Office vaults for more than a quarter of a century despite an official inquiry last year that was supposed to uncover government documents that included any evidence of pedophiles in Westminster.
Details of a written warning from Sir Antony Duff, the director general of MI5, to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s Cabinet Secretary emerged on Wednesday night after the government slipped it online as parliament closed for the summer. (PDF) The letter dated 11/4/86 explained that two sources had identified an MP as a practicing pedophile. The MP was questioned about the allegations, but the case was dropped when he denied it.
The head of MI5 wrote: “At the present stage… the risks of political embarrassment to the Government is rather greater than the security danger.”
Peter Wanless and Richard Whittam, who led last year’s inquiry into “lost” documents, seemed stunned by the callous nature of the note. “The risk to children is not considered at all,” they wrote. They have passed the note to police and the official child sex abuse inquiry along with a further collection of documents, which were also missed when they asked government departments to disclose any information in their archives related to allegations of a VIP pedophile ring operating at the heart of the British establishment.
One of the crucial files in question, which relates to the activities of former Conservative minister William van Straubenzee, had been marked for destruction by the government before officials at the National Archives pointed out its importance.
Other documents which were missed from the original inquiry included papers that named the former diplomat and intelligence operative Sir Peter Hayman, Thatcher’s former parliamentary secretary Sir Peter Morrison, and her protégée Leon Brittan, whom she appointed to run Britain’s law enforcement and security services.
The content of these documents has not yet been disclosed. In the addendum to their original report, released last night, Wanless and Whittam explained their importance.
“There were a number of references across the papers we saw that reinforced the observation… that issues of crimes against children, particularly the rights of the complainant, were given considerably less serious consideration than would be expected today,” they wrote. “To give one striking example, in response to claims from two sources that a named Member of Parliament ‘has a penchant for small boys’ matters conclude with acceptance of his word that he does not.”
Amid growing public outrage that crimes against children were committed and then covered up by senior politicians, Wanless and Whittam expressed their frustration at what looked like ongoing attempts by government officials to stifle the investigation: “It is essential that the public have confidence in the searches that were undertaken, not least because we had to rely on the efficiency and integrity of those who sought material on our behalf. The emergence of these papers only after our Review had completed is not helpful in that regard.”
The Cabinet Office insists that none of these documents were deliberately hidden from the inquiry.
One of the new documents includes mention of the Kincora Boys’ Home, an orphanage in Northern Ireland, where it is alleged that boys were abused with the knowledge of Britain’s security services. At least 29 boys were abused at the home between the late 1950s and the early 1980s. In 1981, three senior care staff were jailed for their part in the abuse. It is, however, alleged that MI6 knew about ongoing systemic abuse at the institution but chose to allow it to continue because it gave them leverage against Northern Irish politicians who were abusing the boys. Victims have alleged that senior figures, including politicians based in London, traveled to the institution to abuse boys, and claimed that they were trafficked to other parts of Britain for VIP pedophile parties.ARKPORT, N.Y. – Were officials in the Arkport Central School District being petty and vindictive in their treatment of children whose parents removed them from Common Core testing?
If so, they went about it in the worst possible way – by giving an ice cream treat to the third through sixth grade students who took the tests, and denying those who didn’t.
Parents of the opt-out kids were simply exercising their legal rights, and they’re angered that their children had to pay the price in such an obviously nasty manner.
After all, The fair and equitable distribution of ice cream is a very serious matter to elementary students.
The school superintendent tried to explain away the controversy, claiming the slight was unintentional.
“Very sorry it was taken in the light that it was taken,” Superintendent Glenn Niles said, according to WLEA News. “We try to do a simple token, as we’ve done every year that we’ve ever tested, and this year was no different. We just had more kids that didn’t take the tests, and therefore, it was a little bigger deal, so we will evaluate what we will do in the future.”
As if he had no idea that small children might be upset when their classmates got ice cream and they didn’t. If Niles was genuinely surprised by the reaction, he has no business working around youngsters because he clearly does not understand them.
Niles and the school principal said they were very upset about the community reaction to the ice cream scandal.
“Some of the things said about me, about Mrs. Dewey (the principal), and about the school are really just plain ugly,” Niles said.
Dewey indicated she had been threatened and was worried about the safety of her family, the news report said.
These folks are public servants, and they should know there are knuckleheads out there who are going to speak and act in a moronic fashion over any type of controversy. It comes with the territory.
But if Niles and Dewey really want citizens to stop saying nasty things, they should try to avoid obviously provocative actions, like giving some kids ice cream and denying others.
That’s just asking for big trouble, and they certainly are getting their share.Google’s Android platform owns a huge portion of the smartphone market in the U.S., accounting for almost 59% of all types of smartphone users according to recent IDC estimates.
This compares well to Apple’s iOS market share, which is somewhere around 23% by those same estimates.
But there are some interesting, if very early, signs that Android growth might be taking a bit of a hit in the U.S.. Asymco’s Horace Dediu has charted platform growth across the four majors — BlackBerry, Windows Phone, iPhone and Android — over the last two years, since January 2010. The chart shows that this is the first time that Android has displayed a consecutive drop in growth for 4 months in a row.
The platform had never more shown a ‘net negative’ in user gains for more than two months consecutively. Note that this is not ‘platform share’, which is a different number, but the amount by which Android is growing overall. The source for the numbers is Comscore.
Now the growth of a platform is an interesting metric. It’s more a matter of momentum than overall power, as a market share number might be. This data about a possible shift in momentum for Android sparks some interesting thoughts, including a couple of standouts.
The iPhone is now available on many more carriers, and has launched on several new ones in the U.S. over the last four months. Launching on more carriers gives more people access to the iPhone, bringing the choice to purchase an Android phone head-to-head against Apple’s devices for the first time ever. The tendency for carriers, like AT&T and Verizon, to sell a majority of iPhones when both Android and iOS devices are available, is telling. Simply put, if people have a choice of an iPhone and an Android phone on their preferred carrier, the majority pick iPhone.
On carriers where Android devices were previously unopposed, this is bound to make a dent in sales and therefore, growth.
The larger portion of the market is untapped. If I had a nickel every time a simpleton said that Android was ‘eroding’ iPhone market share, I’d be a rich man. The above statistic — which displays that many will pick iPhone, given the choice — is one thing. But there’s another factor.
The fact of the matter is that smartphone saturation has yet to hit the 50% point worldwide, something it should do later this year.
This means that half of the people in the world who have shown that they’re interested in owning a cell phone still don’t have smartphones. The potential market is immense, and iOS and Android should both be seen as reaching out into those unclaimed territories far more than they’re ‘converting’ existing users from one platform to another.
Not that this kind of cross-pollination doesn’t happen, but both platforms are growing into the untapped regions far faster than they’re eating away at each other.
The Galaxy S III is launching soon. One possible explanation for Android’s slowdown is the lack of a flagship device with cachet in the quarter. There have been some other launches, like the HTC One X, but they’re new brands, without a current toehold in the buyer consciousness.
The Samsung Galaxy S is the closest thing that Android has to a ‘rockstar’ device with any sort of mainstream name recognition. While I don’t think that the Galaxy S III will have ‘iPhone-level’ success as a single model, it’s probably going to give the overall platform a bump in growth.
The Galaxy S II has sold over 50 million units so far, that’s not shabby for a single Android model.
Don’t panic, but stay alert. It’s really early to think of this as a permanent or long-lasting trend, but it is the biggest downward streak we’ve seen yet for Android. It’s an interesting factoid for now, but will absolutely be a statistic to watch in the future. Even as Android is sure to grow as a platform for a long while yet, the slowing of its pace is an interesting statistic.
Android’s importance to Google is largely based on volume, because its system is completely based on delivering ads to its users. The more Android devices there are out there using Google’s services, the more portals it has to push out ads to eyeballs.
With Android a volume game, total number of units is far more important to Google than it is to Apple, who reaps a huge percentage of the industry’s profits based on selling devices that make it money. Apple has to sell far less devices to make a lot more money than Google does in mobile.
Speed of growth is an important metric for Android, and one we should watch closely.
Read next: Apple rumored to announce 15" MacBook Pro, 2 MacBook Airs with Retina displays, new iMac at WWDCAs a long-retired Foreign Service Officer who served in U.S. embassies both in Taipei and Beijing and on the State Department’s Taiwan desk during the Carter and Reagan administrations, I am pleasantly amused by the media kerfuffle that engulfs Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen’s congratulatory phone call on Friday (December 2) to President-elect Donald J. Trump. The president-elect’s subsequent tweet that it is “interesting how the U.S. sells Taiwan billions of dollars in military equipment but I should not accept a congratulatory call” made eloquent sense of the incoming president’s approach to foreign policy in general and of his disdain for self-imposed sensitivities about U.S. policy toward China in particular.
Indeed, just two months ago, the top Pentagon official dealing with Taiwan noted for the record that “Taiwan is the United States’ largest security cooperation partner in Asia. Since 2010, we have notified Congress of more than $14 billion in arms sales.” Surely, a customer who purchases $14 billion in U.S.-made, high-tech goods deserves at least a polite phone call. On this, the president-elect’s gesture was shrewd and generous.
I recall a similar incident with Governor Ronald Reagan in August 1980, then the Republican nominee for president, who opined that he should reestablish “official relations” with Taiwan after President Carter’s derecognition of Taipei in his opening to Beijing of December 1978. The media were apoplectic with condemnations of Governor Reagan’s recklessness and poor understanding of diplomacy. But Reagan won, and the Reagan administration’s subsequent policies toward both Taiwan and China were America’s most successful and effective before or since.
Mr. Trump is now the butt of similarly ill-informed commentary by both media figures and former U.S. diplomats who should know better. For the record, let me interject that the United States does not now recognize, and never has, a “One China” of which Taiwan is a part.
The December 15, 1978, U.S.-China Normalization Communiqué states that the U.S. side “acknowledges the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China.” It is often forgotten that two months later, on February 22, 1979, President Carter’s deputy secretary of state, Warren Christopher, explained in Senate hearings that the United States has “acknowledged the Chinese position that Taiwan is part of China, but the United States has not [italics in original] itself agreed to this position." This remains the position of the United States today.
On the matter of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, which the Chinese have so strenuously resisted, I recall during my tenure on the Taiwan desk in 1982 that Chinese diplomats demanded that President Reagan honor President Carter’s “pledge” to terminate arms sales to Taiwan after normalization. China demanded that Reagan issue another communiqué promising to cease arms transfers to Taiwan. James Lilley, President Reagan’s top China advisor in the White House, asked President Carter about this pledge, and the former president said, “I never made such a commitment. I can tell you that I wouldn’t have made it.” Reagan then ordered that thenceforth communiqué negotiations with Beijing be grounded in the understanding that no “pledge” was ever issued and that arms sales to Taiwan would be eased off only on the understanding that China pursued a peaceful resolution of its differences with Taiwan.
On July 14, 1982, a month before a watered-down communiqué ultimately was agreed to, President Reagan conveyed six White House commitments to Taiwan’s President Chiang Ching-kuo that did “pledge” that the United States would not agree to set a date for ending arms sales to Taiwan, nor to prior consultations with the Chinese on arms sales to Taiwan, that the United States would not play any mediation role between Taiwan and Beijing, and that neither would it agree to revise the Taiwan Relations Act. Reagan also assured Taiwan that the United States would not alter its position regarding sovereignty over Taiwan. Finally, Reagan pledged the “United States would not formally recognize China’s sovereignty over Taiwan.”
The “Six Assurances” were widely publicized on Taiwan and in the United States at the time, and again were criticized widely in the media for their apparent disregard for China’s hurt feelings. But they shrewdly served notice to Beijing that China could either accept a vague declaration predicated on China’s “peaceful” approach to Taiwan, or no communiqué at all.
Beijing relented and opted for a noncommittal communiqué. On the same day that the “August 17, 1982 communiqué” was published, President Reagan took the unusual step of issuing a short, four-paragraph confidential presidential directive, which he ordered to be initialed personally by both his new secretary of state, George Shultz, and then U.S. secretary of defense Caspar Weinberger. That directive reasoned, “In short, the U.S. willingness to reduce its arms sales to Taiwan is conditioned absolutely upon the continued commitment of China to the peaceful solution of the Taiwan-PRC differences. It should be clearly understood that the linkage between these two matters is a permanent imperative of U.S. foreign policy.”
President Reagan further instructed that “it is essential that the quantity and quality of the arms provided to Taiwan be conditioned entirely on the threat posed by the PRC. Both in quantitative and qualitative terms, Taiwan’s defense capability relative to that of the PRC will be maintained.”
The next day, August 18, Assistant Secretary of State John Holdridge personally appeared before a congressional committee to announce the sale of 250 new F-5E/F fighter jets to Taiwan. Again, it was a firm reminder to Beijing that the Chinese must first demonstrate a peaceful approach to Taiwan before the United States would “reduce” its arms transfers to Taiwan. Alas, since then Beijing’s threat has only increased, as have U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.
The substance of Washington’s so-called “One China Policy,” however, was left vague, with President Reagan’s sixth assurance, “the United States would not formally recognize Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan,” as the last word.
Two decades later, the “One China Policy” morphed into “Our One China Policy.” On April 25, 2004, President George W. Bush’s assistant secretary of state, James Kelly, explained “Our One China” to a Congressional committee: “The definition of one China is something that we could go on for much too long for this event. In my testimony, I made the point of our one China, and I really did not define it. I am not sure that I very easily could define it. [But |
something, and then Tim thought it wasn’t that strong, I didn’t have to waste any time agonizing over whether he was wrong because he was right. He’s like a big comedy safety net.
Collaboration-wise – and this is discounting the part where I’m snuggled safely in the bosom of Tim’s comedy net, which is specifically a Tim Schafer thing – it was a lot like every collaboration I’ve ever had. You sit in a room with someone, and you expend a lot of energy thinking of ways to postpone doing any work. After a while, you start saying the vilest, most offensive things you can think of in a desperate attempt to crack the other guy up. This sort of greases the wheels for eventually writing a line or two of usable dialog.
So what do you think is the hardest thing about writing for games?
At strip clubs, there’s a guy whose job is to talk between the strippers. He tries to do a good job and be entertaining and enthusiastic, but everybody’s just there for the nakedness. That’s a professional writer trick we call called an “analogy”. What I really mean is that game writers are the game equivalent of the guy who talks between the nude girls at strip clubs. Nobody cares about what that guy does, and anybody who does care is probably a little maladjusted. So I’d have to say the hardest part of being a game writer is learning all the writing tricks like “analogy”.
When you moved to Valve – that must have been a strange day – what did you expect to be doing?
I figured I’d be spending most of my time getting fired in a few weeks. Thank God for Portal and Team Fortress and Valve’s decentralized management structure that created an environment where nobody 100% knew who had the authority to fire me until I was able to actually make a meaningful contribution.
The promo movies for TF2. Whose idea were they, how did they come about?
Honestly, I’m not sure whose idea it was. Oh no wait, I remember now: MINE. I’m kidding. Valve talks a lot about “collective design process this” and “collective design process that” to the point where, if I were me before I worked here and stopped swearing so much, I’d be like, this is some fake-ass marketing-ass Bigfoot-ass legendary bullshit. But, honest-to-God, I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Valve is the most collaborative creative environment I’ve ever heard of much less experienced. So the shorts grew out of basically everyone at Valve’s desire to see these awesome TF characters put through their paces outside the constraints of the game. We did the Heavy as a proof of concept, and kind of freaked ourselves out, and then immediately decided to move ahead with the other eight.
Two things stood out to me most when playing Ep 1 and Portal. There was the fluidity of both games, keeping you moving forward while always feeling you were being challenged. And there was the writing. Far more than the series has ever been before, Ep 2 was a narrative experience. And Portal, essentially a puzzle game, was intricately narrative-driven. Why do you think narrative is so important in genres that traditionally leave the story short?
In defense of games, I want to point out that the writing in plays, including everything by August Strindberg and The Lion King, is 100% pure crap. So we’re doing better than they are even though they have the benefit of mostly not being about space marines.
That said, most games shortchange the story because, frankly, they can. Don’t get me wrong, I love a well-written game. But I’m not gonna kid myself: Good game + crappy writing is probably still gonna more or less equal good game. It’s like how the Precious Moments Special Edition Bible is extra good because it has Precious Moments illustrations, but even if you completely subtract the Precious Moments stuff, it’s not a whole lot less good, because it’s still the Bible.
Tell us about GLaDOS.
We wanted an adversary personality that hadn’t been done to death. I mean, GLaDOS does yell a lot and shoot rockets at you, which I guess is fairly traditional, but she’s also kind of supportive and funny and sometimes she’s a little sad and even scared. You get to know GLaDOS over the course of the game and, hopefully, you feel like your actions are really putting her through the wringer emotionally. We give you some quality time to luxuriate in all the emotional pain you’re causing her, which, I think, is a lot more satisfying than simply throwing a bomb into her exhaust port or whatever. That’s not to say she doesn’t get a few zingers in herself, though. She says some very hurtful things and, honestly, by the end, it’s pretty clear that this sick relationship is unhealthy for both of you.
One of the most outstanding features of Portal is the development of that relationship. Could you talk us through her mindset, and the changes she goes through?
We designed the game to have a very clear beginning, middle, and end, and we wanted GLaDOS to go through a personality shift at each of these points. She starts out as the supportive (though increasingly sinister) institutional voice of Aperture Science. Here, she’s mostly delivering exposition about the general Aperture mindset. After you escape, she speaks as herself for the first time. She starts referring to “I” rather than “we”. She begins to sound more desperate here, now that she’s lost some amount of control, and a lot more emotion creeps into her voice. Finally, in the last room, you destroy the morality core and, as she becomes more unhinged, she switches to an almost human-sounding voice. When we were still fishing around for the turret voice, Ellen did a “sultry” version. It didn’t work for the turrets, but we liked it a lot, and so a slightly modified version of that became the model for GLaDOS’s final incarnation.
Also, there is cake. Why’s that?
Well, there are lots of message games coming out now. Like they’ve got something really important to get off their chest about the war in Iraq or the player is forced to make some dicey underwater moral choices. Really, just a whole heck of a lot of stuff to think about. With that in mind, at the beginning of the Portal development process, we sat down as a group to decide what philosopher or school of philosophy our game would be based on. That was followed by about fifteen minutes of silence and then someone mentioned that a lot of people like cake.
Then there’s the popularity of the Weighted Companion Cube – it’s insane. How do you go about creating a plastic box that everyone falls in love with?
That was all our project lead, Kim Swift. It was her idea to put a heart on it. Boom – instantly likeable.
Not enough games have a song at the end. Especially a dark, threatening song set to happy music. How on earth did you convince Valve bosses it would be a good idea?
It’s true! Not enough games end with a song. God Hand does, and that’s one of the many reasons it’s so great. As a game player, it was always my dream to beat a boss monster so f’ing hard that it starts singing. Last year, Kim sent me some Jonathan Coulton mp3s along with a note saying she’d invited him to visit Valve. I don’t think anyone knew exactly what he might do. Maybe he’d write a Team Fortress jingle or a ballad about something Gabe said about the PS3 or, really, who knows? We just knew he was awesome and we wanted to talk to him.
Once Kim and I met with him, it quickly became apparent that he had the perfect sensibility to write a song for GLaDOS. We talked to the rest of the team, and they were on board. And then we talked to the people who’d have to actually pay for it, and they were – understandably – slightly more skeptical. It’s a testament to them and to the Valve process, though, that they let us give it a shot.
Both Ep 2 and Portal are really very funny. Funny in a way we haven’t seen Valve games try since the original Half-Life. What do you think is the larger role of comedy in games?
Did you see the presentation Valve’s Jason Mitchell made about the process Valve went through to design the TF characters? Amazing. I wish that part of Valve could work on answering this question, because I don’t have a lot of smart theories here. I basically think all games should be funnier. And all movies and books and food. I don’t give a crap about plays, so they can continue to be depressing.
Valve’s design ethos is focused on constant play-testing throughout development. How has this affected how you work?
As I kind of hinted at in a previous answer, it means we can try stuff like having GLaDOS break into song, and everyone at the company is secure in the knowledge that there’s a more or less objective process for determining whether that idea, in practice, sucks. I know for a lot of people the idea of focus testing has a whiff of an anti-creative sort of design-by-committee-ism. But, at least the way it’s practiced at Valve, I’ve found it to be utterly liberating. People are a lot more willing to try risky ideas when implementing and testing risky ideas is a fundamental part of the design process.
With Valve’s notoriously long development cycles, and no other games currently announced (beyond the assumption of Episode 3), what are you set to be doing next? What are the duties of the Valve writing staff between games?
Hold on, I never finished answering the earlier question about what’s really hard about writing for games. Say you’re writing a play; the pressure’s totally off because nobody expects it to be anything but 100% pure crap. So writing for games is definitely harder than writing a play. Writing your own name is another thing that’s harder than writing a play, though, so that wasn’t too great a comparison. Luckily, I was just getting warmed up. If you think reading a book is hard, you should try writing one. Because it’s even harder. It’s still not as hard as writing a game, though. If you discount the purely visual pop-up parts, a book is made almost entirely of words. As a novelist, you just need to think of a few decent strings of words and then fill the other 98% of the book with more or less random descriptions of things and exclamation points. In a game, the 98% garbage section is filled with the actual game. Even worse for game writers, the 98% garbage part of a game isn’t even usually garbage because instead of reading something boring about the history of Belgium, the “reader” probably gets to jump a Camaro over a dinosaur. That means the pressure’s on to make the two percent wordy part that you’re responsible for really, really spectacular. It’s a tough job.The Australian government will be able to strip the children of extremists fighting overseas of Australian citizenship under controversial legislation introduced into parliament on Wednesday.
Details of the so-called Allegiance to Australia bill were unveiled as the mother-in-law of one man believed killed in Iraq while fighting for ISIS pleaded for his wife and children to be allowed to return home.
Karen Nettleton, the mother of Khaled Sharrouf's wife Tara, said her daughter had made the “mistake of a lifetime.”
“Today she is a parent alone in a foreign and vicious land looking after a widowed 14-year-old and four other young children,” Nettleton said in a statement released by her lawyer.
Sharrouf and his best friend Mohamed Elomar shot to infamy last year after they and Sharrouf's 7-year-old son were pictured holding the severed heads of Syrian soldiers.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the government had a “high degree of confidence” Elomar had been killed but was less sure about the fate of Sharrouf, following reports they both perished in a missile strike last week.
Under the proposed legislation, dual nationals like Sharrouf and Elomar would automatically lose their Australian citizenship on the grounds of fighting for a terrorist organization overseas. A terrorist organization is determined as such by the government as one that is “opposed to Australia, or Australia's values, democratic beliefs, rights and liberties.”
Civil libertarians have objected to the automatic stripping of nationality based on government definitions of what constitutes terrorism and terrorist activity. The government said decisions would be open to a review by the courts, although this avenue of appeal is not stated explicitly in the bill.
The law can also be used retrospectively on people already in jail on terrorism offences. Children of outcast dual nationals can also be banished, although they may claim their Australian nationality via another “responsible” parent.
Nettleton said her daughter and grandchildren, one of whom she says was forced into an arranged marriage with Elomar, were desperate to come home.
Abbott said the children would be “dealt with in the same way that the family of criminals are normally dealt with.” He did not rule out laying charges against minors.
The rights of people holding Australian citizenship only are still under consultation.
Australia is on high alert for attacks by radicalized Muslims or by home-grown militants returning from fighting in the Middle East, having raised its threat level to “high” and unleashed a series of high-profile raids in major cities.
Last Update: Wednesday, 24 June 2015 KSA 09:06 - GMT 06:06In December 2015, a 31-year-old Tennessee woman, Anna Yocca, was charged with attempted first-degree murder for allegedly trying to use a coat hanger to end her pregnancy.
On Tuesday, more than a year later, she was released from the Rutherford County jail on time served. Yocca pled guilty to "attempted procurement of a miscarriage" — an obscure Class E felony that was added to Tennessee's criminal code in the late 1800s, and is still on the books today.
"Today, after more than a year in jail, in order to win immediate release Ms. Yocca pleaded guilty to attempted procurement of a miscarriage despite the fact that it is unconstitutional and a violation of international human rights principles to use this vague statute to punish women and new mothers for their pregnancies and the outcomes of those pregnancies," Lynn Paltrow, executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW), said in a statement Tuesday.
Yocca was arrested in Tennessee in September after she showed up bleeding at a hospital, fearing for her health and safety. She gave birth to a very premature baby boy, who was just 24 weeks along and weighed one and a half pounds.
Yocca's defense attorney, Gerald Melton, managed to get the first-degree murder charge dismissed in February 2016. Then, however, Yocca was re-indicted for aggravated fetal assault, under a 2014 law that penalized women who abused opioids with jail if they gave birth to babies with neonatal abstinence syndrome. This was done despite there being no evidence that Yocca had abused opioids.
That 2014 law, however, was extremely problematic even when it was used as intended — it didn't address any of the health issues surrounding pregnant women and opioid abuse, and it actually threatened to make those issues worse if women refused to seek treatment for fear of jail sentence. The law was written to expire automatically in July 2016 unless it was renewed, and it was not renewed.
But prosecutors weren't done with Yocca after that 2014 law went away. They charged her with three new felonies: aggravated assault with a weapon, attempted criminal abortion, and attempted procurement of a miscarriage. The latter two laws were first enacted in the late 1800s.
Yocca's case was tragic. The baby, who was later adopted, has severe health problems, as most infants born that early do, and will likely require oxygen for the rest of his life. And whatever drove Yocca to try to end her pregnancy herself, it probably involved serious desperation if she was willing to take her chances by sticking a sharp metal object into her cervix.
But this story is about a lot more than one woman and one child. It even goes beyond America's dwindling access to safe, legal abortion. This story has horrifying implications for all pregnant women, even those who don't want an abortion. It shows how any woman can be treated like a criminal if law enforcement decides to take an interest in her pregnancy.
The coat hanger is just the beginning
To be sure, it's shocking to see a new case of a "coat hanger abortion" — the symbol of pre–Roe v. Wade America, when women died or were maimed by the thousands every year because they were that desperate to end their unwanted pregnancies. "I never thought I would hear of a coat hanger abortion in my medical life," wrote OB-GYN Jen Gunter.
Pro-choice advocates fear that more women will try to self-induce abortions at home, since a skyrocketing number of state-level abortion restrictions have made the procedure much harder to access in the past five years.
Tennessee, where Yocca lives, is no exception. Women now have to make two trips to the doctor, spaced 48 hours apart. They may have to pay about $500 to $1,500 out of pocket depending on how far along they are, since Tennessee is one of the many states that have outlawed abortion coverage in their Affordable Care Act health plans.
Abortion is still legal in America, but Yocca was being prosecuted as if it weren't
We don't know what motivated Yocca's decision, but these restrictions definitely make it harder for women to access abortion. Research suggests that the more restricted abortion is, the more often women take matters into their own hands.
But here's the most alarming part of Yocca's case: Abortion is still legal in America. Yocca was being prosecuted as if it weren't.
She was charged with attempted first-degree murder. Then, when that didn't work, she was re-indicted with seemingly every felony prosecutors could think of until something finally stuck. That's an incredibly dangerous legal precedent for all pregnant women.
It's not clear what injuries Yocca's child sustained from the coat hanger itself, but his reported health problems are consistent with the health problems you'd expect in any baby born that prematurely. Only about half of infants born at 24 weeks survive at all. And self-abortion attempts with sharp objects are more likely to result in very early labor, as was the case here, than to kill the fetus directly.
"If first-degree murder charges apply in this case, then any woman who has a 24-week premature delivery could find herself subject to police interrogation, investigation, and arrest, if it is believed anything she did might have contributed to that premature birth," Paltrow told Vox in an interview.
And Yocca isn't the first, nor is she likely to be the last, to be harshly prosecuted for how her pregnancy turned out.
What happens when the criminal justice system takes on pregnancy
Reproductive rights advocates say it's a terrible idea to charge women like Yocca with anything at all, much less attempted murder. And even pro-life advocates who want to outlaw abortion don't usually argue that women should be thrown in jail for seeking one.
For one thing, the threat of criminal charges can discourage women from seeking medical help in a dire situation. "Bleeding to death or facing prison is a choice no woman should ever be forced to make," writes Robin Marty at Cosmopolitan.
The other problem, advocates say, is that pregnancy is complicated. A woman can have a miscarriage or a premature birth for any reason, often due to factors out of her control. And doctors can't really tell the difference between a self-induced abortion and a natural miscarriage or pre-term labor, unless there's an obvious injury. So if police start investigating self-abortion as a crime, women who have miscarriages are also subject to interrogation, arrest, and even incarceration.
Women in the US have been jailed after miscarriage and charged with murder for attempting suicide while pregnant
This isn't just a theoretical possibility, and it doesn't just happen in countries like El Salvador where abortion is outlawed. Research from NAPW found 413 cases of US women whose pregnancies caused their arrest, detainment, or forced medical intervention from 1973 to 2005 — probably a drastic undercount, and not including 250 other cases NAPW knows about since 2005. The rate of these kinds of cases seems to be going up, Paltrow said.
NAPW documents all kinds of likely human rights violations: women being arrested or jailed after a miscarriage, women being charged with murder after attempting suicide while pregnant, women being strapped down and forced to have unwanted C-sections, women being stripped of their parental rights for mild drug problems or even taking a single Valium pill while pregnant.
"If we live in a country where it is acceptable to view pregnant women as criminals, there is a limitless number of criminal laws from which prosecutors have to choose," Paltrow said. That is, if prosecutors are really determined to punish a pregnant woman for doing something they dislike, they can find a way. If a murder or fetal homicide charge won't stick, there are always charges like practicing medicine without a license or improperly disposing of fetal remains.
If making poor choices during pregnancy is child abuse, poverty and bad nutrition can become criminal acts
Drug laws are a particularly common tool prosecutors use to throw pregnant women in jail. Pregnant women who use drugs are charged with chemical endangerment, child abuse, even assault — even though we now know that illicit drug use doesn't do the kind of long-term harm to a child that people think it does.
Drug use on its own is also hard to separate from other factors that we know impact fetal health like poverty, poor nutrition, and lack of prenatal care. If a drug-addicted woman happens to have a premature birth or a child with health problems, you can't really prove it was caused by the drug use.
And prosecuting pregnant women for drug use is likely to discourage them from seeking the medical care or addiction help they need to have a healthy pregnancy.
Poor pregnancy outcomes can happen for any number of reasons. If the courts equate poor choices during pregnancy with child abuse, then poverty and bad nutrition can become criminal acts. Realistically speaking, nobody's going to throw a wealthy white woman in jail for eating sushi during her pregnancy if she happens to have a miscarriage afterward. They could try, of course.
But NAPW found that black women and economically disadvantaged women are more likely to be arrested and charged for pregnancy-related issues. Prosecutors are more likely to succeed if the woman they're charging is marginalized and has fewer resources to fight back, or if she has done something stigmatized like using drugs or attempting self-harm.
The legal issues at stake in the Tennessee coat hanger case
Like many states, Tennessee does restrict abortion after a fetus is viable, which is usually around 24 to 26 weeks but varies with every pregnancy. Depending on her medical circumstances, Yocca probably couldn't have gotten a legal abortion in Tennessee at 24 weeks, when she allegedly tried to self-induce.
Of course, attempted first-degree murder is something else entirely. Prosecutors probably brought this charge in the first place because they thought Yocca's actions were horrific and deserved to be harshly punished. They saw a child who will be disabled for the rest of his life because of his mother's actions, and they saw those actions as the definition of attempted murder.
"Fetal homicide" laws are supposed to protect pregnant women, not prosecute them
Except that's not what Tennessee law says — which is why the attempted murder charge was later dismissed. Like 37 other states, Tennessee has a "fetal homicide" law. It basically defines an embryo or fetus as a person in order to beef up penalties for crimes against a pregnant woman. But a pregnant woman can't be prosecuted under these laws for actions against her own fetus, because abortion is legal. Fetal homicide laws are supposed to protect pregnant women, not prosecute them.
But pro-choice advocates warn that when laws like Tennessee's define a fetus as a person, prosecutors can and will use the law against pregnant women. This can even happen if the law has an explicit exception for pregnant women. That's already happened to many women in Texas who have taken drugs while pregnant, as Andrea Grimes reported for Rewire.
Again, anti-abortion advocates don't typically argue that we should throw women in jail for getting an abortion. States that have passed new abortion restrictions usually include criminal penalties for the doctors providing the procedure, not the women seeking it. And the vast majority of states don't even have specific laws against self-inducing an abortion on the books.
But when pregnancy becomes a law enforcement issue, sometimes social norms and ideology matter more than the letter of the law.
"In a country where more and more leaders talk about abortion as killing, as murder, as like a holocaust," Paltrow said, "it was only a matter of time until prosecutors started viewing women who have abortions as criminals.""Well done, not medium. You want to get rid of all the evil juices."
But what if, in some surprising turn of events, it turned out that witches were not only real, but that everything said about them was true*? That they do in fact have dark magical powers they use to torture and murder people en masse, including spreading diseases and starvation? And that, since they're magical, the only way to stop them is to kill them? I mean, you cheered when Voldemort died, right?
Continue Reading Below Advertisement
This, then, is where you realize that you're not necessarily more tolerant than the witch hunters -- you just don't share their belief in witches. Your moral code may in fact be exactly the same as theirs -- you just disagree on that particular fact. And facts can be right or wrong, but they can't be moral or immoral.
*The above example was stolen wholesale from C.S. Lewis, though he was making an entirely different point.
Now look at pretty much every single political debate. Both liberals and conservatives agree on the moral principle that government tyranny is bad. They simply disagree on the factual issue of whether or not Obamacare is an example of government tyranny. Which means that in most cases, it's not that your side is moral and theirs is immoral, but that you are simply working from different factual conclusions. It really does ruin the whole good vs. evil narrative that gets us out of bed in the morning.
Now, in order to preserve the good vs. evil narrative, here is where we say that the other side is simply lying about what they believe. The witch hunters didn't really believe in witches; they just wanted an excuse to mutilate women. Conservatives don't really think Obamacare is tyranny; they just want an excuse to keep poor people sick. Liberals don't really think sexism and racism are rampant; they just like to throw out accusations to shut down debate.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images News/Getty Images
Continue Reading Below Advertisement
"You don't care about babies; you hate women!"
"You don't care about women; you hate babies!"
This is no doubt true in some cases, but what both sides want to believe is that their enemy, behind closed doors, admits they're evil. Yet, studies to find out whether red or blue is the most moral always show a tie. Ask the subjects to list the moral values they consider important, and you get roughly the same list -- minimizing harm, ensuring fairness, being loyal, respecting authority, preserving purity of body and mind. If they differ, it's only in that the two groups prioritize them differently, but just barely. As we mentioned in No. 4, we don't actually disagree on whether feminism is good or bad -- we are each using totally different definitions of the word.
If you want an everyday example of this, just think of that one friend of yours who seems to have no filter or tact at all -- he's overly blunt with his opinions, ruining moods wherever he goes. It's not that he's immoral; it's that he's prioritizing one moral value (honesty) over another (minimizing emotional harm). And it becomes even harder to hate him when you realize that he's actually making brave moral choices every day -- he may have made a gut-wrenching decision to say your shirt looks like something a bear would shit after eating a clown, specifically because he saw it as the "right" thing to do.- The man in charge of helping find a new city manager for Villa Rica is himself out of a job after allegations surfaced he was systematically trashing applications of candidates because they were black or had a military background.
This all came to light after an Open Records request from the FOX 5 I-Team.
Michael Jackson was hired in early March as interim Villa Rica city manager. He was not a candidate for the permanent job. One of his duties was to screen applications as they came in for the open city manager position.
"We will give the final group to the council for their interview process and their decisions," Jackson explained to council members at a March 7 meeting.
But that same day, according to documents obtained by the FOX 5 I-Team, Jackson told Villa Rica human resources director Stephanie Rooks that "Villa Rica was not ready for a black city manager and did not want to get their hopes up by interviewing them."
The documents are handwritten notes Ms. Rooks took that she says summarizes her conversations with Jackson.
March 21st - Jackson "handed an application back to me, with a yellow sticky note w/ No! Written on it, when it was handed back, he made the comment that he was black."
She says he also wanted to screen out all "military applicants due to the fact that, in his experience they were all abrupt and too stringent."
The Human Resources director noted that Jackson was "conducting internet research or scanning resumes to determine race or veteran status through professional experience or affiliations."
"I remember chills going down my back thinking how could this happen?" admitted Villa Rica mayor Jeff Reese.
Mayor Reese presides over a town of 14,000. More than a third of the population is black.
"Is Villa Rica ready for a black city manager?" I asked him.
"Absolutely."
After learning about our Open Records request, Mayor Reese called Jackson into his office concerned about the black city manager comments.
"I said, did you say it?" Reese recounted. "And he said, well, I answered a question but yes, I said it."
"Where in the world would he get the idea that Villa Rica is not ready for a black city manager?" I asked the mayor.
"I'm not really sure," he replied. "I wish, in hindsight, I wished I'd asked the question. He said, well Mr. Mayor. I think I'm going to just go ahead and resign and go play golf."
And that's what he did. When we tried reaching Mike Jackson, he emailed back saying he'd been at the golf course.
He denied dismissing anyone with a military background and said the idea of Villa Rica not being ready for a black city manager came not from him, but from Human Resources director Stephanie Rooks. Jackson claims the mayor even told him as he was leaving city hall on his final day, "Mike, it is clear to me that you have been set up by Stephanie." The mayor told me that quote is not true because that is not what he thinks.
Stephanie Rooks said she was "appalled" by Jackson's allegations against her. She said Jackson asked her whether the city was ready for a black city manager and she declined to answer, thinking the question itself was inappropriate. She said three qualified city manager candidates were excluded by Jackson because they were black.
"They were thrown in a pile over there just like dirty rags," criticized Shirley Marchman, the only African-American on the Villa Rica city council. "Just throw them away. We don't need them."
Mike Jackson came to Villa Rica highly recommended by city attorney David Mecklin, teaching for years at the Carl Vinson Institute of Government at the University of Georgia.
"Sometimes it's best to get some outside help in doing things like this," explained Marchman.
"But he was from the outside," I pointed out.
"I know but he was the wrong outside," she replied. "I'm not one of those that say hire black because they're black. Just because. But if they are qualified, I think they should be given the chance of everybody else."
The search continues. Last week council members received 14 applications that met all their criteria for a city manager. Race is not on that list.
"Quite frankly, if they're from Mars I really don't care," Mayor Reese stressed. "I just want a qualified candidate to come to us and help us lead this city forward."
Human resources notes regarding Villa Rica City Manager hiring:
Mike Jackson's response to allegations:15 November 2016, 19:53
England will name their side to face Fiji on Thursday
25 retained players include Charlie Ewels and Semesa Rokoduguni
England have retained 25 players to prepare for Saturday’s Old Mutual Wealth Series game against Fiji at Twickenham Stadium (live on Sky Sports 2, 2.30pm).
Forwards Ellis Genge (Leicester Tigers), Ben Morgan (Gloucester Rugby), Tommy Taylor (Wasps) and Tom Wood (Northampton Saints) return to their clubs ahead of the weekend’s Premiership fixtures as does the injured Dave Attwood (Bath).
Likewise backs Mike Haley (Sale Sharks), Alex Lozowski (Saracens) and Marland Yarde (Harlequins) also return to their clubs.
The group of retained players include uncapped Charlie Ewels, while Semesa Rokoduguni and Henry Slade also stay in camp.
England won their opening Old Mutual Wealth Series fixture on Saturday beating South Africa for the first time in 10 years.
Head coach Eddie Jones will name his side to face Fiji on Thursday at 10am on englandrugby.com.
Forwards (13)
Dan Cole (Leicester Tigers), Charlie Ewels (Bath Rugby), Jamie George (Saracens), Teimana Harrison (Northampton Saints), Dylan Hartley (Northampton Saints), Nathan Hughes (Wasps), Joe Launchbury (Wasps), Courtney Lawes (Northampton Saints), Joe Marler (Harlequins), Chris Robshaw (Harlequins), Kyle Sinckler (Harlequins), Billy Vunipola (Saracens), Mako Vunipola (Saracens).
Backs (12)
Mike Brown (Harlequins), Danny Care (Harlequins), Elliot Daly (Wasps), Owen Farrell (Saracens), George Ford (Bath Rugby), Alex Goode (Saracens), Jonathan Joseph (Bath Rugby), Jonny May (Gloucester Rugby), Semesa Rokoduguni (Bath Rugby), Henry Slade (Exeter Chiefs), Ben Te’o (Worcester Warriors), Ben Youngs (Leicester Tigers).- Speaking from the Rose Garden of the White House, Vice President Joe Biden announced Wednesday that he would not be running for president of the United States in 2016. The vice president was flanked by his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, and President Barack Obama.
"Unfortunately, I believe we've run out of time to launch a winning campaign for president," said Biden, 72, who ran for the White House in 1987 and 2007.
There had been heavy speculation that the former U.S. senator from Delaware would run for the Democratic nomination. It was unclear, however, if he would be willing to endure the campaign trail following the death of his son Beau Biden to cancer earlier this year. In the last few weeks of his life, the younger Biden reportedly urged his father to run for president.
"I know there is no timetable for this process, but my family has suffered loss and I hope there will come a time that sooner rather than later, when you think of your loved one, it brings a smile to your lips rather than a tear to your eyes," Biden said. "That's where the Bidens now are. Thank God."
Calls within the party for Biden to run have been fueled by concerns over Hillary Rodham Clinton's email controversy and declining popularity. Her strong debate performance last week dampened some of that talk.
Biden's remarks as released by the White House:
As my family and I have worked through the grieving process, I've said all along what I've said time and again to others, that it may very well be that that process, by the time we get through it, closes the window on mounting a realistic campaign for President, that it might close. I've concluded it has closed.
I know from previous experience that there is no timetable for this process. The process doesn't respect or much care about things like filing deadlines or debates and primaries and caucuses. But I also know that I could do this if -- I couldn't do this if the family wasn't ready. The good news is the family has reached that point. But as I've said many times, my family has suffered a loss and I hope there would come a time -- and I've said this to many other families -- that sooner rather than later, when you think of your loved one it brings a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eyes. Well, that's where the Bidens are today -- thank God. Beau is our inspiration.
Unfortunately, I believe we're out of time -- the time necessary to mount a winning campaign for the nomination. But while I will not be a candidate, I will not be silent. I intend to speak out clearly and forcefully, to influence as much as I can where we stand as a party and where we need to go as a nation.
And this is what I believe. I believe that President Obama has led this nation from crisis to recovery, and we're now on the cusp of resurgence. I'm proud to have played a part in that. This party, our nation will be making a tragic mistake if we walk away or attempt to undo the Obama legacy. The American people have worked too hard and we've come too far for that. Democrats should not only defend this record and protect this record, they should run on the record.
We've got a lot of work to get done over the next 15 months, and there's a lot that the President will have to get done. But let me be clear that we'll be building on a really solid foundation. But it all starts with giving the middle class a fighting chance.
I know you in the press love to call me "Middle-Class Joe" and I know in Washington that's not usually meant as a compliment -- it means you're not that sophisticated. But it is about the middle class. It isn't just a matter of fairness or economic growth. It's a matter of social stability for this nation. We cannot sustain the current levels of inequality that exist in this country.
I believe the huge sums of unlimited and often secret money pouring into our politics is a fundamental threat to our democracy. And I really mean that. |
. This tool that enables the commander to make an angular measurement of a reference object on the ship, such as a funnel or mast, from the waterline. Using the actual height of this reference object, this angular measurement can then be transformed via the magic of geometry to distance (soh-cah-toa anyone?), which is then plotted or fed into the TDC as part of your target solution. One of the major issues with the default install of Silent Hunter 4 is that the mast heights in the recognition book are often incorrect, sometimes by a great deal. Beyond frustrating, this makes manual targeting impossible for some of the ships on the seas. One of the two mods I’ve made to my install corrects this issue. An alternative is to have a externally available list of ship mast heights, but I like the convenience of the in-game reference.
Torpedoes Away!
Unfortunately, in my zeal to make the kill, I make a significant speed/distance calculation error and have driven my submarine too close to the targets’ path. If I continue my forward rate, I’ll come within a hundred yards of the target at optimum firing angle (0 degree torpedo gyro) – way too close for a safe shot, but it’s also too late to save it by going to emergency reverse. Instead, I decide to take a somewhat risky high-gyro-angle shot on the first target and hope for the best.
In real life, torpedoes had some interesting failure mechanisms. In one of them, the gyro-based steering mechanism that pointed the torpedo along it’s desired course could fail, resulting in the weapon making a nice neat circle that would sometimes intersect with the launching platform, i.e., you. This is why you’ll often hear the report “torpedo running straight and normal!” in World War II sub movies. The sonar operator would be the first to be able to detect a circular run and alert the captain to make any evasive maneuvers. In all my torpedo shots in all my Silent Hunter attacks, I’ve never encountered a circular run, even with full realism, but I have had my fair share of duds and premature explosions. I watch the ship on the periscope closely with one eye on the chronometer, counting down the seconds to predicted impact.
Both torpedoes hit the target and detonate, surely crippling it but not breaking its back for an insta-kill like I had hoped. Satisfied that it won’t be able to run away from me, however, I now turn my attention to the second ship.
Spooked by the explosion, the target begins weaving maneuvers that are intended to defeat a torpedo attack. At this close range, however, large lumbering merchant ships just don’t have the maneuverability to out turn even a Mark 10 torpedo. He’s defeated, he just doesn’t know it yet.
The first target has mostly stopped and is burning. In real life, I’d wait it out, hoping for a massive explosion or the unstoppable flooding to eventually drop it beneath the waves, but vanilla Silent Hunter 4 doesn’t model this sort of advanced details. I’ll need to come back and pull its plug later.
I had originally planned on surfacing after sinking the first target and taking out the second with the deck gun, but have reconsidered – the course to my new patrol grounds brings us right by Manila, so I’ll be able to refit with new torpedoes, anyways, and a submerged torpedo attack is always safer than any surface attack. I press onto the second target underwater, updating my TDC solution as the range closes.
I continually monitor my first victim as well, to make sure she doesn’t make a suddenly speedy recovery and try to motor away.
The second target’s zig zags and short range make for very difficult plotting, but at this range and target speed, an accurate solution isn’t as critical.
I underestimate the amount of weave the frightened skipper will use and we end up putting our two ships on a collision course with each other. Although submarines have pretty strong hulls compared to their surface-dwelling cousins so I’m not concerned about getting sunk by the impact, a ramming is not a very fitting end to my first attack of the war. Determined to avoid the paperwork associated with extensive hull-repairs, I spread two fish into the water instead of the one I had originally planned, which turns out to be a good call – the first torpedo misses while the second hits the target dead-center with a satisfying ker-sploosh. As with the first target, the torpedo stops the target in its tracks, but doesn’t send it to the bottom.
With two targets crippled, it’s now time to deliver the coup de grâce. In stock Silent Hunter 4, ships have hit points instead of an advanced flooding/damage model, so if the target doesn’t go down soon after a shot hits it, it won’t go down until a few more have landed. Instead of spending even more torpedoes on this mess, I finally decide to surface and engage with the deck gun.
Engaging targets with the deck gun is a fun experience. Typically, I’ll start with the range from my TDC solution for my first shot, and then narrow the bracket based on where the shell lands. With such a close range to this target, I land my first shot and it’s then simply a matter of getting the shells to land where I want them – on the waterline to increase flooding (I know I just said Silent Hunter 4 doesn’t model damage like this, but I still like to pretend).
It only takes a handful of shots to set off a thundering explosion – Silent Hunter 4’s way of saying “enough, enough, it’s dead.” The ship sinks so quickly I don’t get a chance to grab any screenshots of it going down and turn my attention back to the first ship, which is still trying to limp away.
Although this target is a bit further out, 1700 yards is still an easy shot, especially for a near-stationary target on calm seas, so it goes down after a half-dozen or so high-explosive rounds impact it. Although deck gun kills are nowhere near as satisfying as single-shot torpedo kills, the tonnage racks up on the ship’s log just the same.
Pleased with the start of our tour, we steam back to Manila to get refitted before we head on to our station off the north end of Luzon.
After refueling and rearming, I’ll take the boat back up the western coast of the Philippines towards our objective, but that’ll be for another AAR.The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a multilateral trade deal involving the United States and many countries on the Pacific Rim, has become something of a bugaboo for those both on the left and the right.
Republican nominee Donald Trump has denounced the TPP, declaring it a sop to China, even though China isn't included in the agreement. Mr Bernie Sanders is against it as well. President Barack Obama and Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Kaine are for it, while Mrs Hillary Clinton, who helped negotiate the deal, has now turned against it.
It's not clear what Americans in general actually think about the treaty - polls indicate lukewarm support, and Americans tend to view foreign trade as an opportunity rather than a threat. But it's obvious that there are very vocal, committed minorities in both parties who are adamantly opposed to the deal, and both nominees appear to be giving them what they want.
That's odd, because the TPP is pretty innocuous and incremental stuff. Since trade barriers in the countries that are parties to the treaty aren't that high to begin with, there are only small gains to be made from dropping them. By the same token, it also means that few American jobs are in danger of being lost. Most importantly, the main TPP countries are all rich, developed nations, which means that the deal has essentially no chance of producing the kind of industrial hollowing-out in rich nations that happened after China joined the World Trade Organisation in 2001.
The most problematic part of the deal concerns intellectual property, but I doubt that any significant fraction of the people opposed to the TPP actually care about IP issues. Instead, I see the TPP as a scapegoat for people who are - justifiably - angry about the China trade explosion that happened a decade ago. Killing the TPP wouldn't bring back any of the jobs that the US lost in the 2000s, but it would be a stinging public rebuke to internationalists like Mrs Clinton and Mr Obama - a message that Americans are fed up with technocratic meddling done in the name of economic efficiency.
That in and of itself isn't too worrying. Killing the TPP won't do much economic harm. And with the countries showing little willingness to do big global trade deals, the free-trade agenda has mostly already ground to a halt all on its own. Also, I agree with the idea that technocrats have been too blase about ignoring the distributional issues that arise from policies like free trade.
However, when we think about economic policy, it's important to realise that there's often more at stake than economic concerns or popular anger. The TPP isn't just a trade pact - in fact, its main purpose probably isn't economic, but geopolitical, and part of the effort to cement US alliances in Asia against growing Chinese power.
Trade agreements aren't just about opening foreign markets or providing cheap imports for domestic consumers. They're also part of the complex, delicate dance of international diplomacy. Political scientists have long studied the link between trade deals and political alliances between nations.
One example I know of is Dr Paul Poast, a political science professor at the University of Chicago, who in a series of papers found that trade deals do in fact make military alliances more durable.
This fits with the conventional wisdom about the post-war era. The US opened its markets to allies in Europe and East Asia - Japan, Germany, France, Taiwan and others - even though these allies didn't always reciprocate. But the resulting trade linkages, we are often told, helped keep those countries in the Western camp during the Cold War.
A similar, if less tense, rivalry exists between the US and China in East Asia today. China's meteoric rise is allowing it to press territorial claims against US allies in the South China Sea and the East China Sea. But its economic might also makes it very hard for countries in the region not to cooperate with China. There is thus a tug-of-war for influence in the region, and trade agreements are part of that contest.
China is pushing its own version of the TPP - the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. That deal, which includes many Asian countries and excludes the US, would cement Chinese influence and help make the US less economically important in the region. The TPP is America's natural counter to that effort.
Mr Obama even talks about China and the TPP in very China-centric terms. In May, he warned: "Increasing trade in this area of the world… gives us a leg up on our economic competitors, including one we hear a lot about on the campaign trail these days: China… China is negotiating a trade deal that would carve up some of the fastest-growing markets in the world at our expense."
Though he doesn't explicitly mention the military angle, everyone in the international relations world knows that this is a big part of what's going on.
So while it might be tempting to sacrifice the TPP to appease trade opponents on the right and left, the geopolitical and strategic dimensions of the deal shouldn't be forgotten. As a trade accord, the TPP isn't a game-changer. But it's probably an important way to preserve the strength and unity of the US' democratic allies in Asia. Giving up on that effort would be a step towards isolationism.
BLOOMBERG VIEWSPARTA -- Three Sparta teenagers have filed notice that they may pursue a lawsuit following an incident in which an off-duty state trooper fired shots at their vehicle.
The three teenagers -- Jesse Barkhorn, Jon Baker-Peters and Matthew Mayer -- filed their notice of tort claim in a letter sent by their attorney, Louis Barbone, to Acting Attorney General John Hoffman.
Although none of the teens were injured by the shots that Trooper Kissinger Barreau fired at their vehicle on July 26, the shots hit the vehicle and disabled it, and the teens were held in custody by Sparta police and State Police for about 10 hours after they called 911, Barbone said.
The incident occurred after the teens knocked on the door of Barreau's home in Sparta at 2 a.m., mistakenly believing it was the home of a friend, according to accounts by both sides.
Barreau remains on active duty in good standing, state Police Capt. and spokesman Stephen Jones confirmed Tuesday. Barreau has not been charged with anything, although the incident remains under investigation, authorities have said.
http://www.nj.com/sussex-county/index.ssf/2015/07/teen_off-duty_trooper_fired_at_us_but_we_were_trea.html
The notice says the three teens may pursue claims against the State Police, Barreau and Sparta police.
The notice, sent to Hoffman on Oct. 20, is required under state law if someone is contemplating suing a public agency.
Jones and Peter Aseltine, a spokesman for the state Attorney General's Office, both confirmed that the three young men were all 18 and 19 at the time of the incident.
Jones offered no more details, saying the State Police "can't comment on pending litigation."
The teens' notice points out that neither Barkhorn nor Baker-Peters were charged "with any crime or offense" in connection with the incident, but does not make the same claim for Mayer.
Mayer was charged with possession of marijuana in connection with the incident and the case is being handled in municipal court, Jones said.
Spokesmen for the Attorney General's Office and for the Sparta police said they would have "no comment" on the litigation.
http://www.nj.com/sussex-county/index.ssf/2015/11/state_trooper_who_shot_at_teens_while_off_duty_sti.html
In his notice, Attorney Barbone said the teenagers' "injuries and damages" include violations of their federal and state constitutional rights and civil rights "with regard to the unreasonable search and seizure of their persons," along with their unlawful detention, arrest and imprisonment, and pain and suffering from emotional distress and economic loss.
The actions by State Police and Sparta police "constitute unreasonable and unlawful exertion of police authority," the attorney said.
Outlining the teens' version of events in the notice, Attorney Barbone said the chain of events started when his clients, "mistakenly believing they were at a friend's property," knocked on the door of Barreau's home in Sparta at 2 a.m.
"Ultimately, they heard Trooper Barreau come to the front door yelling obscenities and they knew they were knocking at the wrong property," Barbone said.
The teenagers returned to their car and tried to leave, but Barreau "appeared with weapon drawn pointing at their motor vehicle," while "purportedly" identifying himself as a state trooper, Barbone said.
Barreau then fired "multiple rounds" at the three young men, striking the vehicle in two places while they were "simply attempting to drive out of the housing development," Barbone said. One shot hit a tire, authorities have said.
After the teenagers called 911 to report the incident, they were "seized, arrested and detained" for 10 hours while their vehicle was disabled, according to their attorney.
The teens were ultimately released from the Netcong State Police barracks, Barbone said.
Ben Horowitz may be reached at bhorowitz@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @HorowitzBen. Find NJ.com on Facebook.It was announced today by Rutgers that sophomore wide receiver Dontae Owens has been dismissed from the football program.
Rutgers announces the dismissal of sophomore wide receiver Dontae Owens from the football program, a first in Chris Ash's short tenure. — Brian Fonseca (@briannnnf) September 8, 2016
Owens played in just two games last season and was not anywhere near the two deep on recent depth charts. As reported by Bobby Deren of Rivals here, there was no reason given for Owens’ dismissal. It’s unlikely the removal of Owens will cause any distraction to the team. If anything, it will only reinforce the strong culture and accountability that Ash has developed within the program since his arrival last December.
In terms of depth at the position, Ash and Rutgers received great news last week, when former 4-star receiver Ahmir Mitchell announced he was transferring from Michigan back to his home state school. Mitchell will sit out this season and be eligible starting in the 2017 season. He will have three years of eligibility remaining, with no redshirt available due to Big Ten transfer rules.
Rutgers resumes action on Saturday at noon in their home opener against Howard.Cary Edmondson-USA TODAY Sports
It's quite a trick to put someone seven-feet tall and 270 pounds with an eight-foot wingspan in a box—particularly one not of their choosing—but that's precisely what happened to JaVale Lindy McGee.
"Lazy and crazy," is the tag George Karl, his Denver Nuggets coach, put on him.
"JaVale the Fool," said Brendan Haywood, a Washington Wizards teammate.
"Never took the game serious and never really seemed to care about getting better," a league executive said.
The nicknames tell the story as well: The Great Adventure. The Big Secret. Along with Doctor Strange and Bum Ass McGee, those special delivery from his No. 1 antagonist, Shaquille O'Neal.
Even ahead of an ultimately successful championship round, after a season in which McGee climbed his way from the last man on the roster to part of its most effective lineup, an anonymous Cleveland Cavaliers player was quoted as saying McGee was "too dumb" to play in the Finals.
You get the picture.
Antonio Daniels, another former Wizard who played with McGee his rookie year, shook his head. "Everyone put him in that box," Daniels said. "'He can't think, he's not disciplined, he's lazy, he doesn't care.' Once they put you in there, you can do 99 things to get out of that box, [but] you do that one thing, they'll put you right back in."
Not just put you back in the box, but take that one thing, show it on a continuous loop on national TV along with every misstep from the first eight seasons of your career and turn it into a cage.
But you know what might be an even better trick? Seeing someone seven-feet tall and 270 pounds with an eight-foot wingspan locked inside that box and making it magically disappear.
The cruelest part of the reputation McGee developed over his 3 1/2 seasons in Washington and three-plus seasons in Denver are the circumstances beyond his control that helped create it. There are poor incubators for a young player learning what it means to be a professional and then there is the untethered Wizards organization that selected McGee with the 18th pick of the 2008 draft.
Lawrence Jackson/Associated Press
Click here to subscribe to The B/R Mag Show on iTunes. (Or here for iHeartRADIO, or here for TuneIn.)
The roster consisted of an even mix between disciplined journeyman vets and talented but undisciplined younger players—Nick Young, Javaris Crittenton, Andray Blatche, Dominic McGuire and McGee—most of them struggling to master the Princeton offense coached by Eddie Jordan, who was teaching it without the benefit of the assistant coach and system progenitor who sold him on it, Pete Carril. The Wizards lost 10 of their first 11 games and Jordan was gone, replaced for the remainder of the season by a career front-office executive, Ed Tapscott.
"A lot of your success, or lack of success, is where you're drafted," said Daniels. "Some 10-year veterans couldn't pick up the Princeton offense. JaVale was the third big behind Etan Thomas and Brendan. When you say guys are system guys, they take it as an insult. But the Princeton offense is made for bigs who can step out and shoot it. That's not JaVale."
The Wizards were also without their star point guard, Gilbert Arenas, who would miss all but two games late in the season with a variety of lingering injuries from the previous year. (He'd make his triumphant return the following season for the locker-room gun play incident with Crittenton. McGee had a front-row seat for what stands as the league's most reputation-marring event since the 2004 Pistons-Pacers brawl in The Palace of Auburn Hills.)
Absent a true point guard or a proven head coach, McGee stepped into the breach.
"When he came in he thought he could transcend the game," Haywood said. "He thought he would be the first point-center. He tried to play outside the confines of the offense. When you're a center trying to dribble up the court and go behind your back and lose the ball, that's probably not going to work out that well. When you try to dunk on people from the free-throw line, yeah, you probably earned some of that criticism."
At least one of his former coaches understands why he'd try. Dallas Mavericks assistant coach Melvin Hunt, who grew up in Flint, Michigan, and played in the same AAU program as McGee's mom, worked with McGee during his stints in Denver and Dallas. Other than not having a jump shot, everything else about McGee — quick feet, nimble hands that can catch anything and pass with touch, agility to leap and adjust in midair at the rim—make him a guard trapped in a seven-foot frame.
Nick Wass/Associated Press
"He has a ton of skills that can frustrate you because they're non-value skills at his position," Hunt said. "He's not a basketball savant but he's good enough. Damian Lillard comes down and takes a chance on a play and it doesn't work, it looks one way. When you have a seven-footer who tries the same thing because he has the same basketball skills and it doesn't work, all the levers are longer, so it's going to look a lot worse. In practice he'd make five passes in a week that you'd say, 'Oh my God.' Three would leave you scratching your head that a seven-footer could make them. The other two, when they missed the mark, they'd miss by a lot."
Even worse, McGee would then crash to the floor panting, giving the added impression that he was out of shape. What no one knew when the Wizards drafted him is that he had severe asthma.
"You see him now when he heads to the scorer's table to go in, first thing he does is take two pumps on his inhaler," Haywood said. "Early in his career he'd get tired so easily. They thought he was lazy. No, he couldn't breathe!"
When the Arenas-Crittenton duel forced the Wizards to hit the reset button, McGee was sent to the mile-high Nuggets, not exactly a panacea for his asthmatic lungs. Karl did not show a lot of sympathy, especially after then-Nuggets GM Masai Ujiri signed McGee to a four-year, $44 million extension. Hunt tried to serve as a buffer.
"I've always wanted to help him," Hunt said. "I knew he loved to hoop, and Masai said anytime you got a seven-footer who likes to play you've got something special. There were times it was hard on me. The way he played may not look the way you want it to look, but if it's not challenging your principles of how you want to play, you have to roll with it. George couldn't wrap his brain around that. He got mad at him over the fact ownership paid him all that money."
McGee did what he could to earn it. He spent three weeks during a steamy Houston summer working with Hall of Fame center Hakeem Olajuwon. He did extra conditioning with the Nuggets' coaching staff during the season.
"The things he did for us in Denver he did in spite of his relationship with George," Hunt said. "He worked his ass off. He just couldn't get his wind right."
Garrett Ellwood/Getty Images
All the additional running to improve his stamina may have led to the stress fracture in his lower left leg, eventually requiring a rod to be inserted to support the bone. McGee continued to complain of soreness and was limited to five games in the 2013-14 season, leading to more questions from outside the organization about his commitment.
Once again, it turned out that McGee had an inherent condition undermining that freakishly athletic physique—anemia, which was preventing the bone from healing. By now, that "lazy and crazy" box was ironclad. The 76ers traded for him at the 2015 trade deadline and released him two weeks later with a full year at $12 million still remaining on his deal. The Dallas Mavericks picked him up for a year-long look, but McGee played only 34 games, albeit much of the time missed due to injury.
McGee admits his idea of how he should play and how his first few coaches wanted him to play didn't always mesh. "I just didn't like to play with my back to the basket," he said. "The teams I was rolling with weren't rocking that, so…"
Teams eventually came to believe he was more interested in showing what he could do than winning the game. "As a young man, he didn't want to hold back his own game," Hunt said. "Most folks wouldn't even try some of the things he did."
For all his tremendous physical gifts and still in the prime of his career, McGee suddenly found himself an unwanted man. "You couldn't count on JaVale to make winning plays," Haywood said. "He came to the realization he was one step out of the league."
While the Mavericks became the fourth team to part ways with him, coach Rick Carlisle wanted to see him get another chance.
"Best hands on a big man I have ever seen," said Carlisle. "I thoroughly enjoyed working with him every day. He has a positive and giving vibe. My biggest joy is that we were able to help him get healthy. When (the Warriors) called me about him, I recommended him without reservation."
That wasn't enough for the Warriors to offer McGee anything more than a non-guaranteed one-year deal at the veteran's minimum, a full zero off the last year of his Nuggets deal. McGee jumped at it.
"I just feel all the positive vibes in this organization really just help people grow," he said. "It really wasn't a decision. It was a yes before they even asked the question. I wasn't worried about my role. None of that went through my head. They had two centers already. I said, 'I'm going to work hard and see what happens.' That's all I can do. I had other options, but they weren't prominent to where they were life-changing or where it was going to put me in a more positive light."
While contractually the franchise didn't show much faith in him, in every other way they restored his willingness to trust those around him. A trust that had been shattered a half-dozen different ways, whether it be the locker-room chaos in D.C. or Karl's snark or the league politics he felt cost him the 2011 All-Star dunk contest, in which he appeared to out-do the Clippers' Blake Griffin but wound up finishing second when Griffin dunked over the hood of a Kia that was filmed to be part of a (preordained?) commercial.
It started with Warriors assistant coach Jarron Collins, who spent last summer working out with him even before he officially signed.
"I feel like it's a closer bond with him than any of the other coaches," McGee said. "But there's also Steve Kerr and the way he brings people into the system and keeps it 100. He's going to tell you before the game, 'You're probably not going to play because of the matchups, but be ready, I might throw you out there.' That's a lot better than coaches just saying in the beginning of the season, 'You're going to play this many minutes' and then certain games you don't play and after the game you're sitting at home, like, 'Damn, what did I do' or wondering why they couldn't explain it to you. You go out there with a different mindset, like, 'I'm supposed to be in and I'm not playing. Did I do something? Or did something happen in the locker room? Did something happen off the court?' It just has you thinking about stuff you shouldn't be thinking about when it comes to basketball. You should just be thinking about basketball."
McGee, though, does a lot of thinking outside of basketball, too. If there's any aspect of his clowning by O'Neal via his TNT show "Shaqtin' A Fool" that irks those who know him, it's the inference he's not very smart. Collins says every now and then someone on the team will try to stump everyone else with an obscure Word of the Day. McGee not only came up with one that no one else knew, but he applied it perfectly to the team's uber-cerebral assistant coach, Ron Adams.
"Pleonasm," McGee said, which is defined as "the use of more words than are necessary to convey meaning."
Adams had a different example of the way McGee's mind works. When a player misses an uncontested lay-up, they say he "smoked" one. When an unnamed Warrior did just that in a practice drill, McGee ran by Adams and in his best Smokey the Bear imitation, said, "Only you can prevent blown lay-ups!"
Or there's his explanation why he doesn't try to convince doubters he's smarter than they think. In short, you'd have a hard time not looking dumb doing so.
"When people try to come at me, like, 'Oh, you're dumb,' they never do it to my face," he said. "Ever. It's always online, or on Twitter or on TV, but no one ever says it to my face. So how can I respond to that? I can't respond to a Twitter egg and say, 'Oh my goodness, I'm not dumb! Promise!' You look dumb saying that."
Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press
McGee also had the forethought to wear four different pairs of shoes in the 2011 All-Star dunk contest, changing them out after each dunk. He had his own signature shoe with the Chinese company Peak at the time and made sure to lace up each new pair while standing on the court where the cameras could zoom in, providing him and the company with free advertising for four different models.
Hunt and Haywood both referred to him as "a nerd" because of his deft skills with, and interest in, technology. Whether it was Google glasses or the first Segway, McGee has long been an early adopter.
"He might be the most misunderstood person in the entire NBA," Haywood said. "He became JaVale the Fool and that's not who he is. He's a first-class person. Look at the MVP, Russ Westbrook. He took four steps without dribbling and we know he's no fool. Everybody in the league, I don't care who they are, they've had moments like that."
McGee actually had another one this season when, following a made free throw by teammate Ian Clark against the Phoenix Suns, McGee retrieved the ball and stepped behind the baseline to inbound it before sheepishly jogging back on defense. It did not go unnoticed by the rest of the Warriors—but they treated it as something he did, rather than a reflection of who he is.
"These guys are all about having fun," McGee said. "If something is funny, it's funny and that situation was hilarious, but the next day there was nothing said about it. That day? Oh, all the jokes. But after that it was over like it never happened."
Any lingering doubts about being appreciated and respected despite his history, role off the bench or minimum, make-good contract were erased when he and O'Neal exchanged insults via social media.
"I definitely appreciate the way they had my back," he said. "There was no backing down from anyone on my team. I really hold that dear. Just watching your teammates have your back in public, not just on the court, that was a crazy feeling and definitely a great thing."
Jaime Valdez-USA TODAY Sports
Haywood and Caron Butler, another former McGee teammate in Washington, were in Oracle Arena to watch McGee and the Warriors on their way to winning the 2017 title over the Cleveland Cavaliers. There was a play where McGee swooped in for an offensive rebound, gathered himself as if to go back up with the ball, waited a second, then spotted Klay Thompson open for a corner three and delivered a perfect pass.
As the ball splashed through the net, Haywood and Butler looked at each other and nodded.
"We knew that's not a play he would've made in Washington," Haywood said. "He would've tried a running sky hook and he might've hit the cameraman. He understands winning basketball now. None of us knew what that was when we played in D.C. It wasn't until I got to Dallas and Rick Carlisle said to me, 'Don't you ever pass up an open Dirk Nowitzki for your bulls--t jump hook.' But when Steph Curry is sacrificing shots and Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson are doing the same, it's a trickle-down effect."
McGee took great pride in the fact that the Warriors' four stars—Curry, Durant, Thompson and Draymond Green—were their most effective when he was their fifth. But he expressed just as much satisfaction from how whenever a player comes off the floor, he makes sure to acknowledge every player on the bench.
McGee clearly hopes his time to leave the Warriors has not arrived, but his first eight years in the NBA have prepared him not to count on anything.
Carlisle believes that while the Warriors are particularly suited to take advantage of McGee's unique gifts, they're not the only ones. "Any team with multiple playmakers can," he said. "Ideally, he's best as part of a three-headed center."
Though Carlisle believes the Mavericks qualify, the most obvious team that could benefit from stealing McGee from the Warriors are the Houston Rockets now that they've acquired point guard Chris Paul from the Clippers. Both Paul and James Harden are virtuosos at throwing pick-and-roll lobs to the rim, the Rockets used a center-by-committee approach last year already and, of course, it would weaken the team they're chasing, the Warriors.
"I'm ready for whatever comes my way July 1," he said. "The ultimate goal is to come back here. It's the best time I've had in basketball, period. But I definitely have to weigh my options. If something else can change my life for me and my family I have to consider it."
Whatever happens, he's shifted the conversation from what he does to a team to what he does for a team. He's broken out of the box created for him by his critics—and his early mindset—and built one of his own. It's still an extremely unique box. Just far more attractive.
Ric Bucher covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @RicBucher.Donald Trump’s team is defending attorney general nominee Sen. Jeff Sessions from accusations that he unfairly investigated black activists for voter fraud in the 1980s, citing an article alleging that “black Democrats” really did steal votes.
At day two of the attorney general confirmation for Sessions, a Trump transition staffer stopped by the reporters’ table and dropped off a dossier of stories defending Sessions’s record.
Among the stories cited was an article by Hans von Spakovsky in the Conservative Review titled, “How Black Democrats Stole Votes in Alabama and Jeff Sessions Tried to Stop It.”
Trump team at the Sessions hearing just passed out a dossier citing an article about "how black Democrats stole votes" pic.twitter.com/oOOA3cIJbk — Jeff Stein (@JStein_Vox) January 11, 2017
The key background here is that Democrats and civil rights groups have cried foul over a 1985 investigation Sessions led as US attorney in Alabama of three black civil rights activists for voter fraud. The case, which resulted in no criminal prosecution, derailed Sessions’s nomination to the federal court in 1986.
Von Spakovsky’s story, published January 5, argues that Democrats did collude to deprive black voters of access to the ballot in Perry County, Alabama. The claim is hard to substantiate. As Emily Bazelon documented in an exhaustive piece for the New York Times, the federal investigation into the case — led by 10 FBI agents and involving more than 1,000 interviews — determined that just 27 ballots in the county could be disputed. (Von Spakovsky has a long history of stoking fears of voter fraud at the polls, as this New Yorker profile documents.)
Exactly what the new Trump administration thinks about the existence of voter fraud could have real-world consequences. As Vox’s German Lopez has written, the false belief in widespread voter fraud is often used to justify draconian new voter ID laws that restrict black voters’ access to the polls.
“[Sessions’s] critics are concerned that his DOJ would be uninterested in challenging state and local practices — from gerrymandering to voter ID laws to restrictions on early voting — that have the effect, and sometimes the explicit intent, of reducing minority voting rates,” Vox’s Dara Lind writes.
The Trump team’s decision to defend a voter fraud case that brought down Sessions once before isn’t likely to quell the criticism.The Movie (3/5)
The more things change, the more they stay the same. It applies to many things in our world, but it most definitely applies to movies. Of all genres too – sci-fi movies, action thrillers, musicals. The tools become fancier, the names changes, but they generally come out the exact same way. This saying applies most of all however, to the romantic comedy. The story is always the same; man accidentally meets woman, man sweeps woman off her feet – this can happen lighten fast or slow as molasses, man screws up and spurns woman, man makes everything right. You can take this formula and play mad libs with the genders, but the ultimate goal is the same, and they’ve pretty much stuck to that formula since the 1930s. The Wheeler Dealers, a 1963 MGM production featuring James Garner and Lee Remick, is one of those pictures.
The Wheeler Dealers is the story of Henry Tyroon, a down on his luck Texas deal making business man and Molly Thatcher, a stockbroker for a firm run by a sexist boss who’s decided to challenge her with the impossible or face termination. Their paths meet when Henry, desperate to find funding to make |
activist raised a flag of the pre-Gaddafi Libya at the country's British embassy yesterday.
Libya's former ambassador to the Arab League in Cairo, Abdel-Moneim al-Houni, who resigned his post on Sunday to side with protesters, demanded Gaddafi and his commanders and aides be put on trial for 'the mass killings in Libya'.
'Gaddafi's regime is now in the trash of history because he betrayed his nation and his people,' Mr al-Houni said in a statement.
Libya's ambassador to India, Ali al-Essawi, said he resigned because he could not tolerate the authorities 'killing peaceful people'.
Protesters have been allowed to enter the Libyan Embassy in Stockholm and have raised the flag of the monarchy that was toppled by Gaddafi's military coup in 1969.
About 50 protesters shouting 'Libya, Libya' rallied outside the building on Tuesday and urged embassy staff to join them.
A Libyan diplomat in China, Hussein el-Sadek el-Mesrati, told Al-Jazeera television: 'I resigned from representing the government of Mussolini and Hitler.'
'WE'LL MEET YOUR SLAVES WITH GUNS': PROTESTERS DEFIANT IN EASTERN LIBYA An anti-government protester who crossed into Egypt to escape the media blackout told how demonstrators had taken control of eastern Libya. Suleiman al-Zugeilil said 'everything is calm' in the east and claimed protesters stood firm in the face of attacks by the Khamis Brigade, a special forces unit named after one of Gaddadfi's sons. Mr al-Zugeilil provided The Times with video footage of protesters in al-Baida hanging the almost naked body of one of the Khamis Brigade from a bridge and said Tobruk had meet taken with little resistance by anti-regime demonstrators. 'After the massacres in Benghazi, the armoured brigade, which has tanks, joined the protesters in sypathy with the people,' he claimed. In Tobruk, locals burnt the regime's HQ and chanted: 'Gaddafi you are a coward, send your slaves, we'll meet them with guns', in reference to the dictator's use of foreign mercenaries to quell unrest.
And the Libyan Embassy in Malaysia distanced itself from the regime, issuing a statement strongly condemning 'the barbaric, criminal massacre' of civilians.
However, none of the embassy's diplomats quit.
About 250 protesters stormed into the Libyan Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on Tuesday, chanting and calling for Gaddafi to step down, a counsellor at the embassy told CNN. Osama Ahmed said the majority of the protesters were Libyan students studying in Malaysia. The protests were relatively peaceful, and embassy security let the protesters in for two hours.
And a top Libyan diplomat stationed in China said on Tuesday he had resigned to protest his government's violent crackdown on protesters and called on Gadhafi to step down and leave the country.
Hussein Sadiq al Musrati, who was the second secretary in the Libyan mission to Beijing before he stepped down four days ago, joined about 20 students and protesters in front of the Libyan Embassy in Beijing Tuesday. Demonstrators held signs that read: 'The game is over. Get out... you're finished'.
Senior clerics within Libya issued a fatwa against the Gaddafi regime. And two Libyan air force jets landed in Malta, where their crew sought political asylum.
Widespread anger: Libyan demonstrators wave the old Kingdom of Libya flag during a protest against Muammar Gaddafi in front of the embassy in Stockholm
'Murderer': Palestinian people hold a poster denouncing Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi during a march in Gaza City
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy(Newser) – Christmas has finally arrived for the six space station astronauts. A privately launched supply ship arrived at the International Space Station this morning, three days after blasting off from Virginia. The space station crew used a hefty robot arm to capture the Cygnus capsule as the two craft zoomed side by side at 17,500mph. The Cygnus is carrying 3,000 pounds of equipment and experiments for NASA, including ants for an educational project. Also on board: eagerly awaited Christmas presents from the families of all six spacemen as well as some fresh fruit courtesy of NASA.
Orbital Sciences was supposed to make the delivery last month, but was delayed by a space station breakdown, frigid weather at the Virginia launch site, and a strong solar storm. Launch controllers broke into applause once robot arm operator Michael Hopkins grabbed onto the Cygnus, more than 260 miles above the Indian Ocean. Because of the long day, the astronauts were supposed to wait until tomorrow before opening the hatch to Cygnus. But with presents awaiting them, there was no telling whether they would oblige. This is Orbital Sciences' first official supply run under a $1.9 billion contract with NASA. The Cygnus will be filled with trash and cut loose for a fiery, destructive re-entry by the end of February. (Read more Cygnus stories.)Mydaily via Naver1. [+1,333, -24] Pretty sure your group is in no position to be laughing at the names of others right now?2. [+1,035, -23] Sonamoo or Gu9udan, same thing ㅋㅋㅋㅋ3. [+565, -39] We even have Black Pink now. I'm use to these weird names now, I think it's actually better for them to stand out.4. [+381, -25] Are you dissing them ㅋㅋ there's even Black Pink now5. [+106, -13] I prefer Sonamoo, Gu9udan just sounds like a name even preschoolers would laugh at6. [+77, -3] At least Sonamoo is pretty, Gu9udan, no matter how much you get used to it, is still Gu9udan7. [+85, -15] I really do feel bad for Gu9udan. Ever since they got that name, 40% of Kim Sejung's fans seem to have left if you check their fanpages or comments..8. [+52, -5] Sonamoo sounds better than Gu9udan at least ㅋㅋㅋ9. [+15, -1] So is naming groups stupid things the trend now???10. [+18, -2] I predict the next girl group going to be named 'Post Office'...A loud explosion that shook houses in a semi-rural part of Thunder Bay, Ont., Wednesday evening may have been caused by a meteorite that landed on the outskirts of the northwestern Ontario city, according to local police.
Patrol officers were dispatched to the area of Highway 61 and Mount Forest Boulevard Wednesday around 11 p.m., to investigate, police said in a written release.
They were called by area resident Linda Pohole, who lives near the Mount Forest subdivision. She said she heard an explosion.
"I called it in thinking that something happened in Mount Forest, and maybe a house exploded," she said. "It was that loud, and my son said he felt the house vibrate."
Police searched the area and found a large, round hole in the snow on the side of the Highway 61, in the area of Mount Forest Boulevard. There were no footprints or vehicle tire tracks in the vicinity.
It doesn’t look like much, but this is a supposed meteor hit along Hwy 61 in <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/TBay?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#TBay</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/cbctb?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#cbctb</a> <a href="https://t.co/aJJveKhmI7">pic.twitter.com/aJJveKhmI7</a> —@JeffWaltersCBC
Police said the hole was almost a metre wide with a pile of "rock-like-substance" in the centre.
Police contacted Lakehead University, which in turn dispatched retired geology professor Stephen Kissin to the scene on Thursday morning.
Whereabouts unknown
Kissin said when he arrived, he found the impact site, but no meteorite. He said the hole looked as though it was caused by a meteorite crashing to Earth.
He thought police officers had removed the space object, but Thunder Bay police told CBC News they don't know where the meteorite is, and are looking into it.
Lakehead University told CBC News the geology department hopes whoever picked up the meteorite will contact the university. Police did sign over a small bag of dirt and rock to the school after Kissin visited the site.
Meteor in Thunder Bay 0:07
"This would be the first recorded meteorite fall in northern Ontario, because this is a terrible place to look for meteorites," Kissin said.
The size of the region, its harsh terrain and sparse population makes it rare for anyone to actually see a meteorite landing, he said.
Fragments may remain
"In this business, we talk about finds, where something's been sitting out there for a long time, or falls, which are a lot more interesting because, of course, they're fresher," he said. "And also if you're looking at the whole picture... they give you an idea of the actual flux of what different kinds of meteorites are coming in."
The loud boom could be indicative of a larger object that broke up, Kissin said, meaning there could be other fragments in the area.
There was some speculation from police that the meteorite may have been part of the Geminid meteor shower, which peaked Wednesday night.
However, Kissin said that's likely not the case.
"That's a common misconception," he said. "A meteor shower is actually the tail of a comet, and they don't deliver, as far as anyone knows... anything to the Earth. So this appears to be a coincidence."Since the 1950s, sustainability in northern hardwood forests was achieved by chopping down trees in small clumps to naturally make room for new ones to spring up. Early experiments with single-tree and group selection logging found that desirable species like sugar maples did a great job of regenerating in the sunny, rain-drenched harvest gaps -- theoretically eliminating the need to replant.
But something has changed.
In a sweeping study of a huge swath of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Michigan State University researchers document that in many places, the sugar maple saplings that should be thriving following harvesting are instead ending up as a deer buffet. This means the hardwood forests are not regenerating.
The results of the study, "Gap-, stand- and landscape-scale factors contribute to poor sugar maple regeneration after timber harvest," are published in this month's online edition of the journal Forest Ecology and Management.
"We've found that deer, light availability, and competition from non-tree plant species are affecting sugar maple regeneration in parts of the Upper Peninsula," said Megan Matonis, who recently earned a master's degree in forestry while a member of the Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability at MSU. "No sugar maples are regenerating in the southern area near Escanaba. In the future, this could challenge the sustainability of timber harvesting in this region."
Forest conservation is a persistent push and pull between maintaining crops of hardwoods, especially sugar maple, for the timber industry and herds of deer for hunters. The interplay between these conflicting resource uses can also impact bird habitat. Indeed, when Matonis, joined by Michael Walters, MSU associate professor of forestry, and James Millington, former post-doctoral researcher and now a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at King's College in London, ventured into the U.P. forests for the study, they were peppered with questions by both hunters and loggers -- Team Deer and Team Trees. "It's amazing how differently these two groups generally view the situation," Matonis said, "Some hunters feel there aren't enough deer in the forests whereas'save a tree, kill a deer' is the sentiment of many loggers."
The study area stretches over some 3,000 square miles of public and private land from Crystal Falls to the west, east and south to Escanaba and north of Marquette. For two years, they examined the harvest gaps left in forests when hardwoods are cut down.
Researchers examined several aspects -- the amount of light in gaps of different sizes, competition from other plants on the forest floor, potential seed supply, and the relative richness and wetness of the soil. The goal: Determine what factors are affecting the regeneration of sugar maple. The results of this study fed into the development of a computer model designed to help balance those often-competing uses of the forests.
"Management paradigms for deer and northern hardwood forests have not only resulted in regeneration failure where deer populations are especially high but also in low tree regeneration diversity where they are not," Walters said. "These results and results from other projects by our research group are being communicated to forest managers and have resulted in their beginning to consider alternative management approaches for assuring the sustainability of this important resource."
What they found is that in the north, where heavy snows push deer populations south in search of food during the winter, sugar maple saplings generally are thriving in the harvested areas.
"In some areas, this timber harvesting technique works great," Matonis said. "We were practically swimming through saplings."
Yet in the southern portion of the study area, there were areas where no saplings survive. Saplings are a tasty snack for hungry deer.
Matonis says that although munching by deer seems to be the main cause of low sapling densities in the south, other factors also make it a tough life for saplings. Low light levels in small gaps and competition from other plants also play roles in poor regeneration. A grass-like plant called sedge appears to out-compete tree saplings in many forests following harvests. Previous research conducted by Walters in the U.P. suggest that deer can help sedge take over by removing saplings and other plants that they find more appetizing.
The research is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. Matonis currently is a doctoral student in forest science at Colorado State University and is an intern with the U.S. Forest Service in Washington, D.C.Last night's surprising result left Trump supporters elated, Clinton supporters dejected. Most libertarians have long given up hope that the electoral process can bring substantial improvements to US policies. But there is an important silver lining to this year's election season. Public skepticism of the establishment media, think-tanks, academics, and other members of the intelligentsia is at an all-time high.
The statist bias of the intellectual class is well-known; what surprised many people, courtesy of Wikileaks, is how actively and directly CNN, CNBC, the New York Times, and other outlets coordinated their coverage with the Clinton campaign. Reporters and commentators sent drafts of their stories to the Clinton team for approval, gave Clinton debate questions in advance, and asked for help with interview questions for Trump and other Republicans.
Even beyond these direct attempts to favor one side, the more subtle forms of bias were — well, not so subtle. Even those sympathetic to Clinton’s views were surprised how openly the media expressed its preference for one side. As a Times editor noted, with an admirable lack of self-awareness, “I hope that Mr. Trump’s asymmetric, weirdly brazen dishonesty has broken reporters of the bad habits of false equivalency, euphemism and forced balance.” Yes, no danger of that.
Academics are worried about losing their influence, though they mistakenly conflate anti-intellectualism per se with opposition to intellectuals as a class. As Wellesley sociologist Thomas Cushman put it, "this election outcome... represents a failure of academic social science, the media, pollsters, and just about everyone in the ranks of the 'cognitive elite.' And this includes the left and the right, Democrats and Republicans. Trump has broken a lot of things, and will likely break many more, but he has also broken the intellectual/expert class and this election is a day of reckoning for that class."
Note that while the media and intellectuals typically identify as “left,” and with the Democratic party, their bias is more accurately described as pro-state. Recall that during the Iraq war, mainstream journalists — especially those “embedded” with the military — simply repeated, without question, the Bush administration’s claims about Saddam Hussein, about Iraqis welcoming US soldiers with open arms, about the mobile weapons trailers, and so on. Eventually there were mea culpas, and the worst offenders, such as Judith Miller, were forced to resign. But then, during the financial crisis, the same pattern emerged. Fed Chair Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Paulson said the financial system was about to collapse and that massive government bailouts were needed, and the media solemnly repeated these claims as if they were investigative reports. It didn’t matter that the people in power were Republicans or “right-wingers.” Intellectuals and reporters are attracted to power, and do whatever it takes to earn the favor of those with political authority.
No one explained the symbiotic relationship between intellectuals and the state better than Murray Rothbard. In several books and articles, he pointed out that the state needs intellectuals and the media to give it legitimacy, and the intellectuals and the media need the state to give them resources and influence. Political journalists, for example, depend on access — invitations to news conferences, contact with anonymous sources, copies of leaked documents — and any journalists who are overly critical of persons in power will find that access revoked. Hence the need to curry favor, whichever party happens to be in control at the moment. That is the journalistic version of pay-to-play, the model perfected by Hillary Clinton.
As Rothbard explained:
The ruling elite, whether it be the monarchs of yore or the Communist parties of today, are in desperate need of intellectual elites to weave apologias for state power: the state rules by divine edict; the state insures the common good or the general welfare; the state protects us from the bad guys over the mountain; the state guarantees full employment; the state activates the multiplier effect; the state insures social justice, and on and on.... We can see what the state rulers get out of their alliance with the intellectuals; but what do the intellectuals get out of it? Intellectuals are the sort of people who believe that, in the free market, they are getting paid far less than their wisdom requires. Now the state is willing to pay them salaries, both for apologizing for state power, and in the modern state, for staffing the myriad jobs in the welfare, regulatory-state apparatus. In past centuries, the churches constituted the exclusive opinion-molding classes in the society. Hence the importance to the state and its rulers of an established church, and the importance to libertarians of the concept of separating church and state, which really means not allowing the state to confer upon one group a monopoly of the opinion-molding function. In the 20th century, of course, the church has been replaced in its opinion-molding role, or, in that lovely phrase, the "engineering of consent," by a swarm of intellectuals, academics, social scientists, technocrats, policy scientists, social workers, journalists and the media generally, and on and on.
Fortunately, thanks to the rise of decentralized, internet-based journalism, institutions like Anonymous and Wikileaks, and general public dissatisfaction with “establishment” media, the opinion-molding class is losing its power to mold opinion. Something to be thankful for!
Peter G. Klein is Carl Menger Research Fellow of the Mises Institute and professor of entrepreneurship at Baylor University's Hankamer School of Business. Contact: email, twitter, facebook.About
Thank you all for your fantastic support during our Kickstarter campaign. 300+ backers is an amazing result and although we didn't reach our goal, we gained a significant community of followers which we will be building on over the coming months. It is now clear to us that there is very real interest for an Ant sim/RTS game and this is motivating us to move forward positively.
Keep up with project developments on:
Twitter
Facebook
Blog
Stomt
Find out more about our next steps in this update.
This update aims to answer many questions we have received starting with a massive video explaining just how the game will work:
Also we have added an FAQ section, filled with all sorts of info:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/eotu/empires-of-the-undergrowth#project-faqs
We have also been Greenlit!
This update focuses on the nest building side of the game. It takes a different style and had unbroken continuous game play footage.
Additionally here is an animated GIF of combat taking place in the game, it did very well on Imgur:
Liam demonstrates his inability to multi task as he takes on an opposing colony. This update focuses on the basics of combat and the self-controlled attack waves.
Additionally we have added an article on the subject written by Liam on IndieDB.
http://www.indiedb.com/games/empires-of-the-undergrowth/tutorials/swarming-ant-algorithms-combat
In our final major update in the Kickstarter we have a video showing two of the Titans from the game. These are large insects or arachnids that will require an army of ants to take down.
And here is the Titan Beetle in GIF form:
Developer Chat
"The queen has landed. Wearied from her perilous flight she sheds her wings, burrows into the soft sand and begins to lay."
Formica ereptor colony marching through the rainforest
The Game
Empires of the Undergrowth is a real time strategy game that takes place in the world of ants. It features underground tunnelling, nest construction and fast-paced battles with insects, arachnids and other ant colonies. For much of the game we have drawn heavy inspiration from the well-loved nineties classics Dungeon Keeper and Sim Ant, while the colony versus colony aspect of the game has been particularly inspired by Starcraft 2's popular 'Desert Strike' arcade game.
Underground nest construction
The game’s theme is taken directly from nature and offers a fresh alternative to the usual sci-fi, fantasy and historical settings for this genre. In the single-player campaign, the player takes control of Formica ereptor: a unique colony of DNA-assimilating, nomadic ants embarking on a great journey. They must set up temporary nests, gather food and defeat neighbouring colonies. Their epic story is narrated from the perspective of a documentary filmmaker studying this species of ant.
Game Features
Carve out your nest in the undergrowth, selecting tunnels and chambers for your workers to excavate. Use these as nurseries, food-stores and even farms as part of your strategy towards creating a thriving and powerful colony.
The queen is the heart of the colony, though she is not in control of it.
You will clash frequently with a variety of neighbouring ant species, competing for the same territory and resources. Engage in fast paced tug-of-war combat where strategy and army composition are key to dominating your enemies.
Trap-Jaw and Leaf cutters fighting side by side
Formica ereptor has a fascinating ability to replicate the species of their defeated foes. This allows for a wide variety of ant types to be housed within a single colony. Watch as the acid firing Wood Ant marches alongside the monstrous Driver Ant. Build an army filled with many incredible ant species.
Ants are not the only inhabitants of the undergrowth and you will discover a world filled with large insects, spiders, scorpions and much more. Defeat these Titans of the mini-beast world, butchering and carrying them off to fuel your war machine.
The Titan Beetle is one of the largest insects in existence. It can fly but only if it climbs high enough to launch itself into the air.
Become part of the documentary as the narrator describes your colony’s movements and explains the real-world inspired challenges they face along their journey.
Progress and Status
We currently have in place a working multi-platform engine created specifically for the game. A lot of the game’s core components are already in place, including an adaptive opponent AI framework and complex swarming algorithms for the ant armies.
Many of the art assets are complete including 3 environments, 15 ant species, 3 Titans and some other insects, as well as a scripted full length campaign and story.
Concept art image of Driver ant with caterpillar
Bull ant rendering stages
Although the game engine is ready to go, there are still some integral components, such as spawnable specialist ants, that need to be developed. Level design, unit balance and testing are still ahead of us, as well as a finalised user interface, music and sound effects.
One of our spawnable specialist units, the Carpenter Ant. In certain species the workers can explode spraying those near by in sticky acid.
The first completed track for Empires of the Undergrowth (used in the October teaser trailer):
Why Kickstarter?
We are passionate about our concept, and about creating something that people are truly interested in playing. Getting the final product right will be an iterative process and to be successful we will need to include our player base.
Kickstarter can help us on two fronts, firstly by funding development of Empires of the Undergrowth through to completion and secondly by connecting us with interested gamers.
Cost Breakdown
Before setting up the campaign we did estimates on the cost of the project and where they money will go. Some pledge rewards will cost more than others to fulfil so we've had to make realistic estimates for that slice of the pie.
Stretch Goals
Access to the Game
We are building the game for iPad, Android tablets and Windows PCs. The game will be distributed on the iTunes App Store, Google Play and also Steam. Additionally Windows backers will be given a DRM free version on release. If we reach the stretch goal at £26k we will also release versions for Mac an Linux.
Who are we?
We are 3 friends who met back in school and stayed together through university. It was there that we first started talking about founding our own games studio.
From left to right: Matt, John and Liam
Matt has very recently finished his PhD in computer science and has snubbed all job offers in order to make Empires of the Undergrowth a reality. Matt is strangely passionate about game engine design as well as game art and he is the main programmer and artist on the project. He also has a strong interest in mini-beasts, having willingly slept alongside many over the years, including three tarantulas while a student! He works full time on the game, and then some.
When John isn't developing games he’s playing them; you name it, he’s got some experience with it. This puts him in a good position for being the lead game designer for Empires of the Undergrowth. He is also heavily involved in programming the artificial intelligence, and as you can imagine, with the ants each exhibiting a level of autonomy, this is no simple task! He works part time at the University of Liverpool to fund the development, working on websites and educational applications.
Liam, like John, has a job at the University of Liverpool but makes time to work on the game. He is the music composer, audio guy and video editor for the project, but is also involved in programming the colony-versus-colony combat algorithms. His PhD was in risk and uncertainty which involved a lot of signal processing, and is a surprisingly useful research topic if you’re programming huge ant battles! Talking of research - Liam has surpassed even Matt’s ant-knowledge to become the resident ant expert! You’ll be hard pressed to find an ant documentary he hasn't seen!
You can find out more about us and our game by looking at our sites and social media pages.
Game Website
www.eotugame.com
Company Blog
www.slugdisco.com
Twitter Account
www.twitter.com/slugdisco
Facebook Page
www.facebook.com/slugdisco
Community Forum
www.stomt.com/empires-of-the-undergrowth
Formica ererpor queen chamber concept art
Rewards Reference Sheet
Jenny has been kind enough to make us an example soft toy ant larva:
The eyes are optional.
Extras
Whilst Liam was working on game music he got distracted and the following was the result:
There were many out-takes during our little group chat, so we thought we would include them here (long):The winking stars of the Pleiades are easy targets for backyard observers. They’re also frequent targets for professional ground-based telescopes, polarimeters, and interferometers. So it’s ironic that they’re some of the most difficult targets for sophisticated space-based telescopes.
Nowhere is that more true than for Kepler. The exoplanet-hunting satellite has monitored thousands of stars, but the brightest ones have largely remained out of its reach. Now, astronomers have come up with a new technique to change that.
Engineers designed Kepler’s sensitive CCD cameras to catch minute changes in faint stars, in order to detect the tiny blips in light that indicate a planet transiting its sun. But that exquisite sensitivity means that Kepler has difficulty measuring brilliant stars such as Alcyone, Atlas, Electra, Maia, Merope, Taygeta, and Pleione — the “seven sisters” of the Pleiades.
CCD cameras work by capturing photons in “wells,” with each well corresponding to a single pixel in the resulting image. If a plethora of photons come in, the well may overflow, “bleeding” into neighboring wells.
Such bleed trails make it difficult to measure the brightness of a star, because the recorded photons aren’t all in one place. Matters are complicated by the fact that Kepler is in space, so it has a limited amount of time to downlink data via ground stations. To minimize the data it has to send to Earth, the spacecraft only sends information in a “postage stamp” around each star it’s monitoring. There simply isn’t the bandwidth to send down information from a full bleed trail.
Halo Photometry
In the November issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Timothy White (Aarhus University, Denmark; Georg-August University Gottingen, Germany; and Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Germany) and colleagues have come up with a way around Kepler’s limitations: an innovative method called halo photometry.
Rather than looking at the saturated pixel that represents the star itself, the method measures brightness using the scattered light around this central pixel. From this “halo,” the astronomers could reliably measure how bright stars varied over time.
“The halo method will be a definite asset for observing bright stars,” says Austin Gulliver (Brandon University, Canada), who was not involved in the study.
The brilliant stars we see in the Pleiades cluster are blue giant stars — they’re all brighter and more massive than the Sun, and nearing the end of their short lives. And the Kepler observations reveal that they all pulsate, slowly varying in brightness by less than 1%.
Weird and Wonderful Maia
But one of these stars is not like the others.
Maia was already known as a mercury-manganese star: its slow rotation and calm atmosphere allow unusual concentrations of heavy elements to circulate near its surface. The Kepler observations revealed that Maia varies on an unusually long period, brightening and fading over a period of 10 days. Combined with ground-based spectroscopy and interferometry, the Kepler data also show that we likely see Maia equator-on. White and colleagues determined that the variability must come from large spots enriched with chemicals on the star’s surface.
“If the spot is fixed on the stellar surface, then it probably has some relation to the magnetic field present,” Gulliver remarks, adding that more data is needed to learn why and how these chemical spots would exist. “Maia should be further investigated using Doppler imaging techniques over several years to better characterize the spots.”
Witnessing these small surface changes is crucial to understanding stars, especially the interiors that are otherwise out of observational reach, Gulliver adds. The sloshing plasma that leads to the brightness pulsations that Kepler detects can tell astronomers what’s happening inside stars. “There is much that we have yet to understand about the physics of stellar cores.”(Afp)
Il Napoli cala il tris contro il Sassuolo al San Paolo, si impone 3-1, e riconquista la vetta solitaria della classifica di Serie A con 31 punti, staccando Juve e Lazio a 28. La squadra di Sarri domina la prima frazione sul piano del gioco anche se rischia di andare al riposo in parità, ma poi nella ripresa riprende le redini della gara allungando nel punteggio contro un buon Sassuolo.
Il tecnico dei partenopei, anche in vista della sfida di Champions con il City di mercoledì, attua un po' di rotazione. Quindi nel consueto 4-3-3, con Reina fra i pali, in difesa la coppia centrale è formata da Albiol e Chiriches, per dare un po' di respiro a Koulibaly, con sugli esterni Maggio a destra e Ghoulam a sinistra, mentre a centrocampo tornano Jorginho e Allan che a Marassi hanno riposato all'inizio, a sostegno di Hamsik, con il tridente d'attacco Callejon-Mertens-Insigne.
Napoli subito pericoloso al 4' con Insigne che entra in area a sinistra, crossa ma davanti alla porta Peluso manca il pallone mandando fuori tempo Callejon alle sue spalle, e il Sassuolo se la cava. All'11° Sassuolo pericolosissimo: Sensi si incarica di una punizione dalla sinistra appena fuori dall'area, destro a giro che si stampa sulla traversa. La gara è aperta e al 17' guizzo di Insigne, che si libera di due avversari al vertice sinistro dell'area rientrando verso il centro, poi arriva in corsa Hamsik, che calcia di sinistro ma alto. Passano due minuti e Consigli salva su Hamsik. Servito da Insigne il capitano del Napoli fa partire un sinistro sul quale il portiere dei neroverdi si supera.
Al 22' Napoli in vantaggio. Dopo un fallo di Acerbi su Mertens al limite non ravvisato, la sfera arriva sui piedi di Sensi che in area si addormenta e si fa rubare palla da Allan in pressing che solo davanti a Consigli lo batte di destro. I padroni di casa continuano a spingere e sugli sviluppi di un corner, conclusione al volo dal limite di Ghoulam che si stampa sul palo. Al 41' il Sassuolo pareggia: Politano servito da Mazzitelli, lavora un buon pallone e crossa per Falcinelli che a centro area ruba il tempo ad Albiol e di testa non lascia scampo a Reina. Ma passano tre minuti e il Napoli torna in vantaggio. Callejon calcia dalla bandierina tagliato verso il primo palo, Insigne disturba Falcinelli e Cannavaro ma non tocca e la sfera sbatte su Consigli e si infila in porta per il 2-1.
Nella ripresa la musica non cambia. Al 3' è ancora Consigli a salvare il Sassuolo: passaggio no look di Insigne per Hamsik, sinistro secco sul quale si oppone Consigli chiudendo il primo palo. Poco dopo altra occasione per i padroni di casa con Hamsik che allarga a destra per Callejon, cross teso che attraversa tutto lo specchio e all'altezza del secondo palo arriva in scivolata Insigne che non trova l'impatto con la sfera. All'8' ancora Consigli protagonista, salva sulla conclusione di Insigne.
Al 9' arriva il tris del Napoli: angolo battuto corto, cross di Insigne prolungato di testa da Mazzitelli, dall'altra parte Callejon rimette in mezzo e tutto solo al centro Mertens tocca in rete da due passi per il suo decimo gol personale in campionato. Il Sassuolo prova comunque a reagire e al 20' Falcinelli va via di potenza e viene agganciato da Chiriches, Pairetto assegna il rigore ma poi il Var lo corregge, il fallo è fuori area, quindi solo punizione dal limite. Passa un minuto e sulla punizione di Politano si accende una mischia, poi sullo spiovente di Gazzola svetta di testa in area Cassata che colpisce in pieno il palo. Il Napoli però continua a spingere e colpisce al 41' un doppio palo con Zielinski con un sinistro in diagonale dal limite, prima di festeggiare l'ennesimo successo.Defra is under fire after choosing to withhold a report on the food prices changes it expects as a result of the UK leaving the European Union.
It follows a freedom of information request by the union Unite, which represents food, drink and agriculture workers.
Unite asked Defra to publish details of any assessment or estimate made of the increase in food prices in the run-up to Brexit and the first five years afterwards.
The union said any price increases were likely to have a major effect on consumers – as well as on the UK’s food industry, which employs more than three million workers.
See also: UK is sleepwalking into Brexit food crisis, say experts
But Defra said the requested information was being withheld because it fell under an exemption in Section 35 of the Freedom of Information Act.
The exemption relates to the formulation and development of government policy.
Appeal
Unite said it would appeal against the decision to withhold the information, arguing that release of the report was in the public interest.
If an internal review was rejected, Unite said it would appeal further to the information commissioner’s office.
Unite national officer Julia Long said: “If the government knows that Brexit is going to affect food prices, then it needs to tell the general public and not pretend that there isn’t a problem.
She added: “The type of Brexit that the UK chooses will clearly have major implications on the nations shopping basket and we need to know what those factors will be.
“Unite will do everything it can to ensure that this report is published.
Public interest
Defra said the department had to balance the public interest in withholding the information against the public interest |
several hundred degrees. Then an icy voice, a perfect crystal of cutting edges and disdain, rang out across the suddenly silent room.
"And who are you to pass judgement on honoured guests of the Hyūga Clan, commoner?"
The man almost literally froze, not moving a muscle, his face white as a sheet.
Naruto felt a wave of panic crash over him. Discovered by an angry Hyūga elder at their first date? He wasn't ready. He hadn't thought through possible diplomatic approaches or prepared anti-Byakugan combat tactics. What was he going to do? Where was the voice even coming from?
The unseen speaker continued, in tones of purest imperious contempt. "Now take us to your finest private room at once, and I may consider not telling my father of the insult you've dealt to our clan."
Wait, what?
The waiter, his movements shaky and erratic, stammered something incomprehensible by way of apology, and half-led half-fled them to a second-floor private room. After muttering something about menus, he ran away, leaving Naruto and Hinata alone with a table and a great open-balcony view of the village.
For a while, no one said anything. Naruto, for his part, simply did not know what to say. While his manga did in fact cover contingencies for if one's date became demonically possessed upon reaching the restaurant, he didn't have any sealing tags and he wasn't entirely sure how to wield the Power of Love.
Eventually, Hinata spoke first, her voice shaking so badly it was impossible to imagine her as the same person who had just excoriated a grown man.
"Oh, I'm—I'm so sorry! Please forgive me! I know this was supposed to be a fun date, and now I've gone and ruined everything, and if you want to call it off right now I'll understand, and you don't have to—"
"What are you talking about?!" Naruto exclaimed. "That was awesome! Scary, but awesome. I've never had anyone stand up for me like that before. So is that what you're like when you're angry?"
A bewildered Hinata wiped her eyes with her kimono sleeve. "You... mean that? You're OK?"
"Sure!" Having got over the initial shock, Naruto was now mentally replaying the image of the waiter's smug face turning ashen, and savouring every second.
"Oh." Hinata seemed to relax a bit. "That's... that's good. I'm sorry. I've never done that before. I mean, as the heir I was trained in how to use the Voice, but I've never been able to do it properly. Except then I saw how he was treating you and... and I felt like I had to do something... and... are you really sure that was OK?"
"It was awesome," Naruto repeated firmly. "And you know, if you went around being that assertive more of the time, I think—"
Naruto was interrupted as the door swung open and what appeared to be the entire staff of the restaurant, several dozen people, all poured in. A man in a luxurious black suit that made Naruto's outfit look like kitchen rags slid unctuously to the front.
Before anyone could say anything, he fell to his knees and pressed his forehead on the ground. The rest of the staff did not hesitate to follow his lead.
"Lady Hinata, on behalf of the Dreaming Dragon, I most humbly beg your forgiveness for the unconscionable behaviour displayed towards you. Please, in your infinite generosity, overlook this unworthy act and find it in your heart to forgive us. Needless to say, we will not be charging you for this room or for your meal, and the lowly scum who dared insult your honour will be fired at once."
Hinata opened her mouth, then hesitated. She looked to Naruto, as if to say, "You're the victim, you decide."
But Naruto didn't know what to say. The right thing to do, the fair thing to do, would be to let him get fired. You shouldn't be allowed to get away with treating people like that, pure and simple. At the same time, the merciful thing to do, and the kind of thing he imagined Hinata would do on her own, was to forgive the man. Any of the villagers would have done the same in his place—this one wasn't worse than the rest just because he'd seized the obvious opportunity. Besides, what would Hinata think of him if he chose revenge instead of mercy?
Then again, they were dating (unless tonight went really badly). Whatever his true self was, she'd find it out sooner or later. Did he want her to find out then that he'd been faking piety, or did he want to bet on her accepting what she would think of as his flaws?
So the ball was back in his court. What did he want to do? Did he believe he could change this man's rotten ways with one decision or the other? Frankly, no. The only lesson to be learned from this experience was "hide your prejudices if you risk offending someone powerful", and that would be the waiter's conclusion whether he was fired or not. Even if Naruto decided to spare him, there was no guarantee that the man would change, not with Hinata available as a much easier target of gratitude that wouldn't require him to rethink his beliefs.
Damn it. How did you go about changing the world when it was so hard to believe that it could be changed in the first place?
And then, before Naruto could decide, it was too late. The restaurant staff filed out, shuffling backwards as if Hinata were an empress, and the pair were alone again.
-o-
One order of "one of everything, except two of this, this, this and this" and another, more restrained order from Hinata later...
"So I have to ask, what was up with that? I mean, I know the Hyūga Clan's important, but seriously..."
"It's been like that since Leaf was founded," Hinata said. "How much do you remember from our history lessons at the Academy?"
Naruto wondered if he was supposed to give a concise or a detailed answer to an open-ended question like that. Back at the Academy, giving any answer that so much as showed he'd been listening would have been an act of appalling carelessness. But dates were for impressing your partner, right?
"If you mean going back to the very beginning... Well, you had the Warring Clans period, when all the ninja clans spent their time constantly fighting each other, partly in the process of hiring themselves out as mercenaries and spies, and partly because that's what they'd always done. Then one day Hashirama of the Senju got fed up with that. He said he wanted to prove that different clans could live peacefully alongside one another, and alongside common people (who basically thought ninja were like demons—huge magic powers, know all the secrets of the world, be very, very respectful if you see one, but generally keep your distance if you want to live). And since the Senju were the strongest clan in this part of the world, he thought he had a good shot at pulling it off. Although personally, I think he was crazy to go to the Uchiha, and to Madara of all people, with his plan. I mean, his worst enemy? The leader of the other strongest clan, who'd had a bitter rivalry with the Senju for generations? Really?"
Naruto glanced at Hinata as if to ask if that was what she'd meant, but she appeared to be listening curiously to his take on Leaf history (and also wrestling with a particularly recalcitrant grilled eel). So he continued.
"But by some miracle he did manage to bring Madara round to his way of thinking, and they signed the First Waterfall Accords at the Valley of the End. Obviously, it wasn't called that back then. Anyway, everyone knows the Accords—one village, one family. No battles, no spying, no theft. All that stuff. Then they brought in all the other clans, and went to the daimyo of the Fire Country and they signed the Second Waterfall Accords. It was a pretty sweet deal for both sides—the clans got a huge area of uninhabited forest to rule as a semi-autonomous region, while the daimyo got all the Fire Country clans that mattered officially recognising his legitimacy, swearing never to take up arms against the Fire Country or interfere with its politics, and committing to defend it against all other ninja in times of war. And frankly, what else was the daimyo going to do? Say no and alienate an alliance of all the most powerful ninja in his territory? Who would then either take his territory anyway or offer the same deal to one of his neighbours? I don't think so.
"Because back then everyone was still thinking of the village almost as a clan of clans, they decided it needed a single leader. There was a lot of politicking and trickery and blackmail, and the knives nearly came out a few times, and in the end they decided that the only way to get a leader every clan accepted was a straightforward vote. Only pretty much everyone, including most of the Uchiha, voted for Hashirama. Which unsurprisingly made Madara furious. He declared he'd been betrayed, made his big speech about the blind leading the blind, and left the village for good. So Hashirama became the world's first Kage and Madara became the world's first missing-nin. And, well, we all know how that played out in the end."
Hinata nodded. "You really are very skilled, Naruto. I was watching closely, and I was so sure you were asleep for most of those lessons. Well, apart from the bits where you were, um, being conspicuous. But would you mind going back to the part where the Founders were gathering the clans? How did they do it?"
Naruto couldn't help thinking that Hinata was mirroring his own didactic approach from many of their training sessions. He wondered how he should feel about that. "Promises, concessions, and dark hints about what would happen if they were the only clan to be left outside this huge alliance, mainly. I guess they went for the hardest first, because they had to promise the Hyūga the moon before they'd join. Then they sought out a bunch of existing alliances, like the Ino-Shika-Chō guys, and I think the Aburame Clan actually volunteered—they were big on unity, but not strong enough to lead an alliance themselves. I could list a bunch of others, but..."
"Do you know why they started with the Hyūga?"
Naruto shook his head. "I've always wondered. I know you guys have the Byakugan, but... well, no offense, but it doesn't really seem like it's in the same league as the Wood Element or the Sharingan."
"Um, please make sure you don't say that when you meet my family," Hinata said.
Her hands froze over her salad. "I mean if you meet my family! I mean, not that I don't want you to—"
She blushed and looked down at her chopsticks. It took a few seconds before she looked up again.
"Just please be careful, Naruto. It's a sore spot with the older generation, especially the Sharingan."
She paused. "People don't realise it because it's not something you can see easily, but the Hyūga are amazing at intelligence gathering. It's the Byakugan's greatest strength, and my clan was working to make the most of it long before we developed the Gentle Fist. This is a huge generalisation, but if the Senju were the best warriors and the Uchiha were the best ninjutsu users, then the Hyūga were the best spies. It's how we survived even though we were always a fairly small clan surrounded by combat heavyweights. It's also why Leaf's founders went to such lengths to bring us in even though we've always been a little... well, standoffish.
"Sorry," she stopped. "I'm not boring you?"
"No way," Naruto grinned. "This is good stuff."
"I know this is a bit, um, arrogant coming from a Hyūga, but Leaf history makes much more sense when you see it in terms of three founding clans rather than two. The Hyūga balanced what could have been a constant power struggle between the Senju and the Uchiha, who had generations of enmity to work through. That's why in the history books, you sometimes see references to Leaf's Three Noble Clans."
"When you say Leaf history makes much more sense..." Naruto trailed off questioningly.
"For example, think about what happened to the Senju."
"Hashirama encouraged them all to intermarry with other clans to strengthen ties. Except the Uchiha, obviously. The bloodline got so diluted they pretty much don't exist as a clan anymore. The First Hokage was the last Senju who could even use the Wood Element."
"Right. So why didn't the Uchiha take over when that happened?"
"Huh," Naruto frowned. "I never thought of it like that."
"This isn't all my own thinking," Hinata admitted a little sheepishly. "I had tutors once."
Naruto shrugged. "Once you know something, it's yours to keep."
Hinata didn't argue the point. "The Second could see the big conflict coming, so he chose someone who wasn't from any important clan to be the Third. The Uchiha didn't like the Third because they associated him with the Senju, and the Hyūga didn't like him because the clan seniors felt he wasn't giving them enough respect (although they feel like that about everybody, including other Hyūga). But he had legitimacy from being the chosen heir of the Senju, and was, I mean is, a great Hokage, so they accepted him eventually."
"Right. And I guess you're saying he chose the Fourth on the same principle? Because the last Namikaze," Naruto's voice trembled a little as he said that, "was a neutral party everybody could accept?"
"Yes. Obviously, at the time the Hyūga and the Uchiha were both putting pressure on the Third to choose a successor from their clan, so I guess having someone as amazing as the Fourth turn up was an unbelievable stroke of luck. The Fourth was talented and charismatic and a war hero, so it wasn't as hard to get him accepted."
"Only it didn't work." Because of you, Naruto added silently, thinking at the Fox.
"No," Hinata agreed. "And after the Fourth died and the old village got destroyed, the balance started to fall apart. For a while, people stopped believing in the Hokage, so the Third couldn't control the clans as well. And at the same time, both the Hyūga and the Uchiha believed they deserved a bigger share of power, so they tried to make that happen during the reconstruction. Apparently, things got really bad."
"Hang on," Naruto reached the inevitable conclusion. "So if the Hyūga and the Uchiha were fighting for dominance all that time, what happened after the Uchiha Massacre?"
"Um." Hinata hesitated. "I don't think I can really talk about that so much. Everything I've said is history, that's fine, but there are things about Hyūga politics that I've only been taught because I'm the heir, and I'm not supposed to discuss them with outsiders."
Naruto took a bite of something unidentifiably exotic as he considered.
"No, don't worry, I think I can put the pieces together on my own. The Uchiha are gone. But the Hyūga aren't in power. So someone's holding them back. I guess the Hokage, though it could be a secret alliance of other clans. Probably the Hokage, though, because you can't fight a political battle without a public face, and there's no one else publically facing the Hyūga. That means when he retires, there's going to be a lot more pressure than before to choose a Hyūga successor, with nothing to counter it.
"Man, this doesn't look good. If he picks a neutral successor, the Hyūga will go on the warpath, because they've been waiting forever to get into power, and now they're supposed to be the only option. But if he picks a Hyūga, that's practically a dictatorship, because for the first time there won't be anyone to balance their power. I can't see any of the other clans being happy with that. And he has to pick a successor himself, because if he doesn't, there'll be a legitimacy crisis, like at the start of War of the Tengu, and then it's civil war for sure. Hang on..." a horrific thought occurred to Naruto, "what about Sasuke? He's an Uchiha, in fact, the Uchiha. How does he fit into all this?"
"Well," Hinata said after a moment's thought, notably not denying Naruto's chain of logic, "I think if the Third chose him as his successor, and he had the legitimacy of being an Uchiha, and he was as amazing as the Fourth, and he had enough popular support, the Hyūga could accept him as Hokage. But it's a moot point. Sasuke is very talented, but he's not going to be Kage-level by the time the Third finally retires."
"At which point," Naruto concluded, "all the cold hells are going to break loose."
"I'm sorry," Naruto broke the gloomy silence. "I know dates are supposed to be, uh, romantic and stuff, and I realise talking about village politics is way on the other end of the spectrum."
Hinata shook her head. "I don't mind. I've... um... missed having someone to talk to about these things. And... I think..."
Hinata trailed off and started fidgeting, her body language somehow suggesting that she was trying to hide without moving in any way.
Naruto waited—part curiosity, part revenge for being forced to finish his faux pas sentence earlier.
"I think... this is romantic enough," Hinata finally said very quietly, looking at Naruto across the table.
For once, the silence Naruto found himself in wasn't uncomfortable. He looked into Hinata's eyes, returning her gaze.
Clichés from the girly romance manga he definitely never read ran through his mind, and suddenly he realised how none of them fit. Hinata's eyes weren't windows to her soul. He could not stare into their dark abyss to try and glimpse her true self, or watch her pupils widen to convey the depth of her interest. In fact, he doubted she even had pupils behind the uniform almost-white surfaces that marked Byakugan-adapted eyes.
What was it like, he wondered, to look at the world from the other side of those barriers? What was it like to see without anyone else knowing what you were looking at, to remain opaque even as everyone else became transparent? Was it the Byakugan itself that made Hinata fade into the background, always watching, never seen?
Yet here and now he could feel it, Hinata's completely focused attention, as if it were a ray of light shining directly at him. Why him? Why would someone who could see the whole world just by spending a little chakra choose to forgo all that, and look only at someone like him?
And suddenly it clicked. He knew this, Naruto realised, this hunger for knowledge that shut everything else out. He'd felt it often enough, though never directed at a person like this. And even if he couldn't understand why, he couldn't deny the purity and intensity of those feelings any more than he could deny the warmth he felt standing in a sunbeam.
And then it clicked again. Naruto felt a desire he had never before put together out of the stray pieces of thought and emotion drifting around inside him. He wanted to know her, to see past the impenetrable wall of her eyes, to reach through all the layers of fear and shyness and fragility and fully comprehend the complex inner world he had only glimpsed up until now. To know her, so fully and deeply and completely that the barriers between them broke down and—
With a start, Naruto backed off, looking away from Hinata as he felt himself touch depths of emotion that were somehow beyond his power to handle. What had just happened? This hadn't been in any of the manga.
In his confusion, he felt almost grateful as the spell was broken by the arrival of a waiter.
"Lady Hinata, would you and... your companion... like to see the dessert menu?"
"Yes, please!" Hinata nodded vigorously, much like someone who'd also felt more emotion than they'd been prepared for, and now urgently wanted to restore normality.
Naruto barely glanced at his menu. The "one of everything" policy had served him well so far, and he saw no need to abandon it.
Hinata was unsurprisingly more selective. She did start to say something about spoons to the waiter when Naruto clarified that yes, he wanted the large rather than medium Tower of Trials ice cream, but ultimately went bright red and fell silent.
"So, um, Naruto, did you say earlier that you had A-rank mission pay? I thought you were on a C-rank mission. Did something happen?"
"Well, I discovered that I'm possibly gay, in which case I guess you and me dating doesn't have a future, and I also now have unresolved feelings for another boy. Plus it turns out that there's a terrifying monster living inside me which can take over my body and go on murderous rampages. But other than that, no, nothing special."
Naruto emphatically did not say this, but it certainly ran through his head. What was he supposed to tell Hinata? On the one hand, any one of those revelations was a humongous bundle of explosive tags which you did not drop on someone on a first date, while the full set would probably be the Kyubey to the Leaf Village of his romantic prospects.
On the other hand, Naruto knew his classics, and was thus aware that dishonesty and miscommunication accounted for ninety percent of relationship disasters (with the remainder mainly involving alien or supernatural intervention), and there was no possible scenario in which lying to Hinata about stuff this important right off the bat was likely to end well. It was, after all, a law of nature that terrible secrets always came out at the worst possible time (see "finding out someone is your mortal enemy right after you and he fall in love").
Fortunately, in the specific case of Hinata, a pre-existing solution presented itself.
"Uh, can we put that on the 'for another time' list? Sorry."
Hinata looked surprised, but nodded.
"Instead," Naruto sought a safer conversation topic, "how about you tell me about all the village stuff I missed. Anything interesting happen?"
"Well," Hinata smiled, "there was the incident where Kiba somehow got the idea that when a girl beats you up, it means she, um, likes you. And then he met Ino on a bad day..."
"...and now we know that trying to build a suspension bridge off the Second Hokage's head carving is a very bad idea," Hinata concluded as they headed out of the restaurant.
"Oh, man! I wish I could've seen his face!" Naruto laughed.
Hinata laughed too. Then she and Naruto looked at each other. It was time to part ways.
But just having a restaurant meal for a first date somehow felt too tame for an event organised by Uzumaki Naruto himself. And Hinata's story had given him an idea….
"Hey, Hinata, come with me. There's something I want to show you," he said.
"Um... OK."
"This way! Also, Multiple Shadow Clone Technique!"
The clones scattered into the darkness, their purpose a mystery to a visibly confused Hinata.
Naruto led Hinata to the edge of the village, the side opposite the Hokage Monument. It was an unremarkable place, with only a few fields filling the emptiness before the near-vertical crater wall. There was nothing apparent to commend it for dating purposes except perhaps the degree of privacy granted by its remoteness.
"Here we are. Could you close your eyes? And keep your Byakugan off?"
Hinata hesitated, a look of discomfort on her face. At first Naruto wondered if she wasn't willing to trust him, but then a more charitable explanation occurred to him. Hinata was a Hyūga, with the ability to see perfectly even in the dark or through closed eyelids. Actual blindness would be much more alien to her than to most people.
Realising this, Naruto was grateful when she finally closed her eyes, though he wasn't sure why she flinched as he took her hand and started to lead her onwards.
-o-
"OK, you can open your eyes now."
Hinata did. To her surprise, she could see the entire village in front of her, a sea of multicoloured lights, almost like a starlit sky seen from above. But she could also see the Hokage Monument, with its carved faces gazing at her from across the crater. Where were they? They weren't on the edge of the crater, an area of hostile terrain and countless booby-traps set to deter intruders. They were within the village boundaries, yet somewhere very high up—the only view like this she knew was from the tops of the Hokage head carvings, a normally off-limits area where they'd been taken once as Academy students.
She let herself take in the view. She was also keenly aware that Naruto was still holding her hand, in a warm, solid grip that made part of her melt. He relaxed it after a few seconds, as if trying to let go. But although Hinata doubted she'd have the courage to take his hand on her own initiative, she did at least manage to hold on to it when it was already there. After a second's hesitation his hand tightened around hers again.
"Where are we?" she finally asked.
"You can use your Byakugan now. Take a look."
She did. But the first thing she focused on was his chakra. It was more faint than normal, divided among all those shadow clones somewhere out in the darkness, and unusually concentrated in the hand with which he was holding hers. Chakra followed attention, so did that mean...? Hinata giggled on the inside. All that time holding her hand as he led her here, and he'd only just realised that they were holding hands, like a couple? Naruto was special, wonderful, unique, but in just a few ways he could be a little bit dense.
Even so, she envied his composure. Here they were, on their first date, alone in mysterious yet definitely romantic surroundings, and somehow he wasn't feeling pulled in every direction by a dozen different emotions. He didn't have to keep stopping to remind himself that this wasn't yet another of those dreams that felt joyful to experience and agonising to wake up from. He didn't have to keep asking himself whether he really deserved to be here, when his partner was worthy of so much more.
Finally, she turned her conscious attention to the terrain around them—and laughed out loud in surprise. They were standing not on rock, but on a complex interlocking assembly of transformed shadow clones. The exact shape was too complicated for her to grasp, but it was attached to the near-vertical crater wall, and it fit together into a giant faux-archaic carving of Naruto's head, Hokage-style. It was just so... so Naruto to do something like that. She wondered if he'd leave it there until he went to sleep and his clones vanished, just to provoke outrage in anyone who happened to spot it in the dark.
"Glad you like it," Naruto commented. "I wanted you to be the first to know—well, outside Team Seven and the entire Country of the Wave, anyway."
"Know what?" Hinata asked.
"I've decided. I'm going to become Hokage. I will surpass all the Hokage who came before me, and I will change the world."
It should have sounded silly, just another instance of Naruto pretending to be a manga protagonist for his own amusement. But this time Hinata couldn't hear the traces of irony that normally accompanied Naruto's grand declarations. Nor was he striking one of his many dramatic poses. The one thing she did see was the way his chakra burned just a little more brightly as he spoke. We name it "resolve", Daughter. It is a light that shines through the endless human weakness that surrounds us, and reminds us that there is a sun waiting somewhere beyond the clouds.
Hinata smiled. "I think you can do it, Naruto. I really do."
Naruto beamed. "Thank you."
Then he stepped forward a little, pulling her towards the edge of the "carving".
"It's not the main reason I brought you here, though. I had to kind of guess the range of your Byakugan, but... well... try and pick out my clones down in the village. They'll be flaring their chakra as much as they can to make it easier."
Hinata tried. It was harder than Naruto probably realised, with the sheer number of people she could see when she extended her range, but between the flaring, the high vantage point that meant she didn't have to filter out as many obstacles, her intimate familiarity with Naruto's chakra, and the fact that at this time of night people who weren't Naruto tended to be in predictable locations (mostly home and asleep), she finally managed it.
It stunned her how many there were, yet another reminder of Naruto's incredible chakra control. Once she thought she'd found the last one, she broadened her focus again, letting herself see them all at once. The result took her breath away.
The entire surface of the village, as far as she could see, was illuminated by two traditional characters written in shadow clone formation. They were the first ones she'd learned to read as a child: "The Sun Beyond", read as "Hyūga" since time immemorial.
But they also had another, gentler, reading, one of which Naruto was doubtless aware: "Hinata", "Where the Sun Shines", the reading once favoured by her mother. As much as anything else, it had been a wish, and Hinata had spent most of her life afraid that she would never fulfil it. She remembered feeling a guilty sort of relief when she learned that everyone else in her age group was already writing their names in the simpler modern script, meaning that she could too, that she could treat her name as just a set of syllables.
Now, those same two characters blazed before her eyes, written for Hinata and not for Hyūga, written by someone who had promised to help her become the person she wanted to be. Written by someone who thought nothing of writing her a message several miles in size on the spur of the moment, just to make her happy. Honestly, the fact that the whole thing looked so beautiful was almost an afterthought.
After some time, Naruto stepped around in front of her, his image now overlapping the vista below, and took her other hand.
"It's right there in front of everyone in the village, and you're the only one who can see it. Just like you did with me." He smiled. "Thank you, Hinata. Thank you for being the one person to see me as I really am, and for accepting what you see."
He took a deep breath. "I know I don't always get people as well as I think I do, and I know sometimes I can barely see past the end of my own nose, but I'd like to see you for who you are too. I want to learn to see and understand and accept all of you, every last bit without exception. If... if that's OK with you, I mean."
Hinata didn't answer. In fact, she couldn't. Instead, in a gesture of unthinking boldness that would mortify her when she recalled it the next day, she stepped forward and threw her arms around Naruto's neck, holding him in a tight hug. This... this was even better than it was in her daydreams.
After a few seconds, Naruto tentatively put his arms around her waist.
They stood like that for a long time.There are no projects in right now!
Hint: If you include the secret password this is an experiment we will send our troops immediately.
After flipping through all the bits and pixels, the Microryza-bot returned with nothing that matched what you are searching for. We should fire the robots, right?You may be thinking you know that these particular experiments are running somewhere in the universe!Feeling inspired to nominate a researcher or a topic?We are currently busy tracking down the most daring and inspiring scientists in time and space, but we love interruptions! Take time to email us at hello@experiment.com--we will drop everything we are doing to read every letter you pen.Sometimes we can track down a researcher within milliseconds. Occasionally it can take eons to chase down the researcher, especially if you are nominating someone from the past or the future.We will do everything in our power to track down the scientist or the research project matching your topic, even if that requires time travel.That is our promise to you.Yours truly,Jalal Morchidi/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images A woman protests in Marrakesh, Morocco, near the COP22 climate conference on Nov. 13.
In the wake of last week’s election, the gulf between liberals and conservatives has never felt bigger.
The diverging moral values of liberals and conservatives offer an important window into why the two groups differ in their willingness to take action to protect the environment, according to new Cornell University research.
But it’s not as simple as liberal versus conservative or Democrat versus Republican. The study, which was conducted on over 1,000 volunteers and published in the online journal PLOS One on Oct. 19, found that the moral values of compassion and fairness ― and, to a lesser extent, purity ― influenced an individual’s willingness to take personal action to mitigate the effects of climate change.
“As we learn what’s important to different kinds of people with respect to climate change, that information can help us communicate in ways where the problem can be heard,” Dr. Janis Dickinson, a professor of natural resources at Cornell and the study’s lead author, told The Huffington Post. “And I think we may be missing arguments that are important to people if we ignore moral diversity.”
Morality, Neither Liberal Nor Conservative
The researchers found, unsurprisingly, that those who believed in climate change, regardless of party affiliation, were much more willing to act. On the other hand, people who described themselves as conservative, as well as those who were older and male, were less inclined to act.
The study’s investigation of moral values was based on a theory developed by prominent social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, which identifies five “axes” around which we formulate moral reasoning: compassion/harming, fairness/cheating, in-group loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion and purity/degradation.
Previous research has found that liberals value compassion and fairness more highly ― values that are clearly at play in the climate change debate ― while conservatives tend to value purity, in-group loyalty and authority most.
It’s easy to see how compassion and fairness play into other social causes championed by liberals, such as marriage equality and racial justice. On the other hand, a drive toward purity and in-group loyalty seem to play a role in conservative stances opposing abortion and immigration.
Most moral arguments around climate change may inadvertently appeal more to liberals by focusing on its effects on animals, vulnerable populations and future generations.
“Climate change will have its earliest and greatest impacts on nations and people with fewer resources, so it is clearly about both equity and suffering,” Dickinson said. “Inequity aversion and compassion or caring are really what drive us, in the immediate sense, to give up some of what we are attached to for the sake of others.”
““We shouldn’t rule out anyone and we cannot afford to be polarized on this issue, which is going to have a huge impact on current and future generations.””
The values of compassion and fairness are ultimately about relationships, added environmental psychologist Dr. Renee Lertzman, who reviewed the study for The Huffington Post.
“It is relationship here that is at stake — relationships with diverse populations and communities, as well as with the nonhuman lives we share the planet with,” she said.
But it’s important to note that even strong moral values can easily conflict with other values a person might hold, limiting that person’s willingness to make personal choices that benefit the environment. Those conflicts need to be considered, Lertzman added.
“We may value compassion and fairness, but also value being a good provider, which can involves high carbon behaviors,” she said. “We need to find ways to address how values can be in conflict for many — and how we can help people move through those conflicts into action.”
So people profiting from fossil fuel industries, for example, might override their compassionate feelings in favor of preserving their financial stability.
Moving The Dial On Climate Change
Appealing to moral values including purity ― for instance, by emphasizing the “impurity” of destroying natural resources ― may be one way to mobilize individuals of both political parties around environmental issues.
There’s some evidence suggesting this strategy may be effective. A 2013 study showed that framing climate change issues in terms of “pollution and contamination” improved environmental attitudes among conservatives, while other types of moral appeals did not have an effect.
“If communicators, and especially religious leaders, can make use of this understanding of moral diversity by including all three of these moral values in their discussions of climate change, this may prove helpful,” Dickinson said. “We shouldn’t rule out anyone and we cannot afford to be polarized on this issue, which is going to have a huge impact on current and future generations.”
With Trump’s presidency looms the potential of enormous, if not catastrophic, setbacks to humans’ attempts to mitigate climate change. Now more than ever, action and progress on environmental issues must continue. For people wondering about how to support the environment in light of the election, donating to reputable environmental organizations is one place to start.WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Democrats plan to fight some of President-elect Donald Trump’s choices for top administration jobs, but history and the party’s minority status in the chamber are not on their side.
A combination photo shows some of President-elect Donald Trump's choices for top administration jobs (L-R) Chairman of the House Budget Committee Tom Price (R-GA) as head of the Department of Health and Human Services, Attorney General of Oklahoma Scott Pruitt as Environmental Protection Agency administrator, former New York investment banker and hedge fund investor Steven Mnuchin as Treasury Secretary and U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions (R |
offering a twist on a favored technique in the media industry. As consumer attention is rapidly diverted and splintered by the whirl of social media and a growing coterie of content, every magazine, TV network and digital outlet is working to impress consumers by serving as a sort of “filter” or “curator” of material. The more relevant the media outlet’s taste and perspective, the deeper the ties it fosters with potential readers, customers or fans. Forming alliances with taste-makers can further those ends.
The idea is at the root of a host of new and emerging ventures. OWN, the cable network owned by Discovery Communications and Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Productions, airs programming tied to the TV host’s sensibilities. Madison Avenue has its own version of the concept: Omnicom’s large DDB agency has its large Spike DDB agency, founded by director Spike Lee, that works with clients including Pepsi and Chevrolet.
MTV is being strategic in its approach. A$AP Rocky’s ideas and efforts won’t constitute the entirely of its content, but represent just one of its offerings. “It seems to me that if the celebrity curator is one ‘channel’ on a network, it can be very successful, especially if that celebrity has cultural, musical or creative heft,” said Brian Sheehan, a professor of advertising at Syracuse University. “If the celebrity is the core curator for a brand, it can be dangerous, because the brand is defaulting its core responsibility to curate its own content.”
A$AP Rocky expressed a strong interest in developing concepts for emerging video formats. “I feel like we live in a day and age where Snapchat, Instagram, the internet and all the 15-to-30-second video clips are running the world, and that’s all that matters,” he said. “It’s time to start exploring the minds of the young, the kids that come from backgrounds like me. If you put your mind to it, you can come up with some unorthodox methods to figure this s—t out.”
The alliance could help MTV stand out as it seeks to turn its fortunes around. The network has suffered ratings declines for several cycles, owing to the fact that the audience it courts – millennial consumers – rapidly flocks to new types of video streaming that do not get counted by traditional measures upon which advertisers rely. MTV’s viewership among people between 12 and 34 has slumped by a double-digit percentages for weeks, according to Michael Nathanson, an independent media-industry analyst. Viacom installed a new president, Sean Atkins, at the unit last year and he has vowed to restore MTV’s connections with music and popular culture. Viacom’s corporate direction, meanwhile, is in flux. After a bruising corporate battle for control of the company’s direction, its controlling shareholder, National Amusements Inc., has directed its board to consider a merger with CBS Corp., which NAI also controls.
Securing A$AP Rocky’s expertise will tie MTV to a rising star who is making waves in popular culture. The musician has won acclaim for a handful of albums released over the last several years and dabbled in the world of fashion, working with marketers including Guess and Christian Dior. He has also tapped into the world of film and content, often creating his own videos. “It’s cool to be fashionably wise today and have your own style,” the rapper said. But a product or institution “has to have cultural value to me, nostalgic value to me” to win his interest.
MTV executives had taken notice of the musician’s work, and admired his ability to bridge the worlds of music, video and fashion, said Schuurmans, the Viacom executive. After following Rocky on Instagram, Schuurmans noticed he had made multiple references to legacy MTV properties, such as “House of Style” and “Yo! MTV Raps.” A decision was made to reach out. “We want to give him this open canvas to create,” he said, and identify possibilities. MTV might consult with A$AP Rocky after an advertiser describes a particular type of content it’s seeking, or work with the celebrity to turn an idea into a programming concept.
“He won’t be put into any box,” said Schuurmans. “He’s a disruptor.” MTV will count on his talents to help shake things up.Rodney King’s recent death and the twentieth anniversary of the Los Angeles uprising generated a lot of heat, but little light on what caused those historic events.
On April 29, 1992, at the Ventura County courthouse in Simi Valley, home of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, a jury of ten whites, one Asian and one Latino delivered not guilty verdicts in all assault charges but one against four Los Angeles (LA) police officers who beat motorist Rodney King 13 months earlier. The jury forewoman reportedly told the court that it took the panel “barely six hours of deliberations” to acquit the defendants despite exhibit A: an 84-second slice of George Holliday’s video showing the cops brutalizing a drunk and subdued King with 56 baton blows, six kicks and a Taser, leaving him with a skull fractured in 11 places and brain and kidney damage. Already baking in a 90-degree heat wave, Los Angeles exploded. By 9 PM, Mayor Tom Bradley declared a state of emergency; Gov. Pete Wilson mobilized 2,000 National Guard troops; the California Highway Patrol closed sections of the freeway in the city; and the Federal Aviation Administration began altering airplane traffic around LAX. The unrest lasted six days, marking the deadliest riot in modern US history with 54 killed, 2,383 injuries, 12,111 arrests, 7,000 fires and nearly $1 billion in damages.
Rodney King’s recent demise prompted laments over his “sad life and death” that recounted his brushes with the law, addiction demons, parole status that convinced him to flee the cops that fateful night, the subsequent notoriety that made him unemployable and the squandering of millions of dollars from a civil lawsuit that reduced him to poverty.
But the news cycled on without providing any real understanding of King’s life or why unrest broke out in Los Angeles and spread across the nation. The LA riots occurred because of “the economy, stupid” – Bill Clinton’s winning campaign slogan in 1992, but were also the result of years of systematic police abuses, particularly damn-the-civil-liberties assaults on black neighborhoods that were justified as the only way to vanquish crack kings and gangbangers. These police raids were the logical outcome to how society addressed the urban unrest of the 1960s. Rather than lift up millions trapped in slums with jobs, education and housing, America decided to lock them up in super-max prisons and keep them down with militarized policing. In this light, there is a direct line from the ultra-violent beating of Rodney King to the killing of Trayvon Martin. Both are examples of a grotesque system that has turned black and brown bodies into sites of profit for the prison economy and a source of middle-class anxiety about dark enemies who lurk among us and deserve whatever punishment is meted out to them. In short, police abuses are not the result of a few bad apples, but our systemic solution to reoccurring economic crises, whether in the sixties, the nineties or today.
King’s story is sad indeed. His alcoholic father dragged a fourth-grade Rodney to clean office buildings late into the night, which “really whacked” his ability to learn, then a high-school-aged Rodney discovered the corpse of his 42-year-old father in the bathtub. More significant than the tale of personal woe, King’s life was a product of historical circumstance. He was born four months before the Watts riot, as the civil rights movement and black power movement were reshaping America. By the time he reached adulthood, his world was eroded by the collapse of manufacturing, a receding welfare system and a thriving prison and police economy. King was unwillingly cast as a central historical figure, buffeted by forces he could barely understand, however, any one of millions of other Americans could have starred in his role.
One of those bit players was Latasha Harlins. Two weeks after King’s beating, 51-year-old Soon Ja Du, a Korean-American grocer, pumped a bullet into the back of the head of Harlins, a 15-year-old school girl, after scuffling over a $1.79 bottle of orange juice. Then, a week before the cops who beat King beat the criminal charges against them, Du’s sentence of probation, community service and a $500 fine was upheld despite the security video showing Harlins walking away after leaving the juice on the counter.
The unwillingness of the courts to redress these crimes lit the fuse, but LA police supplied the fuel. Mike Davis wrote in “City of Quartz” that, since the 1950s, “the LAPD has been regarded by L.A.’s black community as a redneck army of occupation.” Police contempt for the black community peaked during the 14-year reign of Chief Daryl Gates, whose incompetence worsened the 1992 unrest, starting when he ditched his post on April 29 to attend a political fundraiser opposed to police reforms. After Gates died in 2010, Joe Domanick, author of a book on the LAPD, told a reporter that Gates defended “each and every” shooting of “dozens and dozens of unarmed people.” Gates explained away police chokehold killings of black men as due to their anatomical differences with “normal people.” He concocted military-style raids like “Operation Hammer” where hundreds of police would assault “South Los Angeles and arrest every black male on the street,” said Domanick. Justified by the war on drugs, up to 50,000 suspects were grabbed by 1990, which Davis calls an “astonishing figure considering there are only 100,000 Black youths in Los Angeles.” (Gates also personally ran a vast spying, infiltration and provocateur apparatus, but that’s another story.)
If the police were the fuel, then the tinder was bone-dry anger resulting from 12 years of right-wing policies. America’s once great cities were treated like rats in the lab of neoliberalism that began with the 1979 “Volcker Shock” of soaring interest rates. Airplane factories, chemical plants, metal works and automotive facilities needed and created the labor pools and sprawling infrastructure of cities. Jacking interest rates pushed thousands of factories into bankruptcy, thereby robbing cities of stable, decent-paying jobs and much of their tax base. President Reagan rubbed salt in the wound by slashing federal aid to cities by nearly 75 percent and defunding antipoverty, public transit and housing programs and community-based organizations. Rounding out the neoliberal program were two wars: one on organized labor and the other on drugs.
King poignantly drew the connection between economic and physical control shortly before his death. Reporter Kurt Streeter wrote, “King explained how, as boots and batons fell, as electricity from Tasers ripped through his body, he thought of what it was like for African slaves to withstand whippings. The thought of what they went through helped him stay alive.” But the weight of that event may have been too much to bear. The recording of what appears to be Trayvon Martin’s last moments closed the circle for King. Before his own death, King said, “The horrifying sound of a young black male screaming for his life on a 911 call reminded me of my horrifying scream on a videotape 20 years ago.”
It’s Still the Economy
The LA uprising burned through the fog to reveal police brutality as the handmaiden of inner city misery. Contrary to pontificating that King’s beating ushered in more professional policing, not much has changed. Policing the poor is about keeping the profitable machinery of deprivation and cruelty running smoothly.
For example, stop and frisks have soared 600 percent under New York Mayor Bloomberg, topping 684,000 in 2011. A few statistics say it all: There were more stops of young black men last year than there are young black men in New York City. Blacks and Latinos are more likely to be frisked than whites and less likely to be found with a weapon, which is the main rationale for stop and frisk. Finally – and this is why stop and frisk is an economic issue – one control study found blacks without a criminal record are less likely to receive a callback from a potential employer than whites with a criminal record. Given the 50,000 New Yorkers slapped with marijuana possession in 2011, thousands of black and Latino youth are effectively tossed out of the workforce. With limited job prospects, many turn to the drug economy and wind up trapped in the prison system. (In terms of immigrants, laws and rulings like the Supreme Court approval of Arizona’s SB1070’s racial profiling strips the undocumented of most civil and workplace rights, rendering them extremely vulnerable to economic exploitation.)
Economic issues were also central to the “Rodney King riots,” the halfway mark between the present and the urban revolts of the 1960s. The Kerner Commission on civil disorders warned in 1968 that America was “moving toward two societies, one black, one white – separate and unequal.” (The only thing they didn’t foresee is desperation as diverse as the LA riots, in which the majority of those arrested were Latino.) The unrest in 1992 revived sixties-era soul searching because the shockwave of protest radiated out from LA to Seattle, New York, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Atlanta, and many other cities. But the national discussion over the debt owed to people confined and abandoned in slums petered out because there was no political incentive in the mainstream to address the crisis.
Nonetheless, there were clear policy choices twenty years ago. And the decisions made then lead directly to the present of routinized stop and frisk and racial profiling.
Neoliberal Screws
By the early ’90s, working-class sections of cities were tortured by neoliberalism and battered by the Bush recession. During the Reagan years, Los Angeles lost 124,000 manufacturing jobs. In February 1992, after 18 months of recession, California had hemorrhaged another 523,000 jobs, almost one-quarter of the nationwide total. In January 1992, big-city mayors pleaded with Congress – without effect – for a $35 billion aid package to salve the painful cuts in state and federal spending.
South Central’s 800,000 inhabitants suffered unemployment rates of up to 21 percent, fertilizing resentment over harsh policing. Author Erin Aubry Kaplan wrote that after hearing the verdicts, she headed to the rally at the First A.M.E. church, but her car was “stopped by scores of people, mostly black men, milling about in the streets; the air was thick with a gathering anger.” She wrote that “what struck me … was the sight of all those men who had been able to turn out so readily at three in the afternoon. Their presence made dramatically visible what had been ignored for too long: the high rate of black unemployment.”
As fires, shootings and looting lit up TV news, many Americans were dumbfounded to discover Poor! Angry! Blacks! still roiling decaying inner cities, imagining they winked out of existence somewhere between the shotgun-toting Black Panthers and the Nike-endorsing Michael Jordan. (Others steeled their minds shut, balancing the assault of trucker Reginald Denny by random South Central sadists – and subsequently saved by random South Central good Samaritans – against the state-sanctioned pummeling of King.)
When the storm broke, Koreatown was in the eye with hundreds of business looted and burned. As it was an election year, Koreatown’s glowing embers proved an irresistible lure for candidates Bill Clinton and Patrick Buchanan. Clinton was gunning for President George H. W. Bush’s seat with the potent slogan, “It’s the economy, stupid.” He could have been voicing the grievances of the black and Latino underclass in LA and the many other American cities. Washington and the media were forced to acknowledge the crisis was an economic one.
Bush took just a week to roll out a $2 billion urban aid plan. It was jerry-rigged from flimsy right-wing solutions, however, consisting of urban enterprise zones, vouchers, welfare reform, home ownership of downtrodden public housing and counterinsurgency doctrine that linked drug war funding to social services in a program known as “Weed and Seed.”
The New Democrat Solution
Clinton seized the political opening by blaming the disorder on 12 years of “denial and neglect.” But swooping into LA’s cauldron on May 3, Clinton left talk of recession and job losses at the campaign office and decried “black-on-black” violence as “the scourge of America.” The response foretold Bill and Hillary Clinton’s project of using the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) to squeeze the last vestiges of social justice out of liberals. Alexander Cockburn commented that Clinton’s position after the riots was not to “throw money at problems,” which he termed a DLC strategy “to persuade white folks that the Democratic Party no longer cares for ‘minorities’ and will target no particular money in their direction.”
In February 1993, on the heels of Clinton’s inauguration, the DLC published a white paper, “The Los Angeles Riots: Causes, Myths and Solutions” that typified the “New Democrat” mindset. It pooh-poohed the “traditional liberal approach” of gaining “leverage over the existing corporate power structure to steer resources to the underprivileged” and sneered at conservative policy, “which has largely ignored cities and stressed tax abatements and regulatory rollbacks as a means of luring larger manufacturing firms back to urban areas.” Its brave new policy was “entrepreneurial development, self-help and economic empowerment.” Government’s role was no longer to clean up capitalism’s destructive wake and certainly not to support an alternative to it, but simply to be a more attentive handmaiden in the search for profit. Clintonism was the triumph of Reaganism.
Clinton campaigned on enacting an economic stimulus and rode a wave of concerns over jobs and health care into office. But as president, he orphaned his $30 billion plan for business tax credits and “highway construction, summer jobs, community development, jobless benefits, education programs and projects for treating waste water.” The House did pass a $16.3 billion recovery plan, which proponents said would generate one million jobs, with 80,000 of those in California. But days before the first anniversary of the riots, a Democratic-controlled House, Senate and White House were outwitted by 43 Republican senators who sliced the stimulus down to $4 billion in unemployment crumbs.
Out of the Ashes
While Washington was twiddling its thumbs, two opposing visions rose out of LA’s ashes. The first was “Rebuild LA,” a private-public partnership that would cut red tape and entice industry and commerce to the multihued ghettos. The outfit lobbied for enterprise-zone legislation derided by the new Democrats, but which Clinton passed. When it closed shop a few years later, Rebuild LA claimed to have generated $380 million in investment, but one report listed its most visible achievements as shopping centers and “Burger King, McDonald’s, Taco Bell and other fast-food chains … on practically every other corner.”
Astonishingly, the most detailed plan for rebuilding Los Angeles was courtesy of the Crips and Bloods. Proclaiming “Give us the hammer and the nails, we will rebuild the city,” the gangs outlined a $3.728 billion reconstruction that covered economic development, community-controlled policing, school refurbishment, textbooks, tutoring, computers, teacher competency, three new hospitals, 40 health care centers, dental clinics, removing blighted and abandoned buildings, sanitation, lighting, pavements and an AIDS research and awareness center.
It recalled similar demands made by LA gang leaders 20 years earlier. Mike Davis wrote that, in 1972, “The Human Relations Conference, against the advice of the police, gave a platform to 60 Black gang leaders to present their grievances. To the astonishment of officials present, the ‘mad dogs’ outlined an eloquent and coherent set of demands: jobs, housing, better schools, recreation facilities and community control of local institutions. It was a bravura demonstration that gang youth, however trapped in their own delusionary spirals of vendetta and self-destruction, clearly understood that they were the children of deferred dreams and defeated equality.”
In a cold-eyed assessment, Susan Anderson wrote in a 1996 essay entitled, “A City Called Heaven: Black Enchantment and Despair in Los Angeles,” that the “Crips/Blood document reveals a faith, amounting to apotheosis, in the virtues of capitalism, the responsiveness of the government and the goodwill of the community.” The plan’s fatal flaw was “there is no leadership prepared to meet it.” Furthermore Anderson argued, “The children of the black working class face extraordinary challenges that a generation ago would have been unthinkable. They face a labor market unable to absorb them, a political system that has abandoned them and a culture unwilling to embrace them – except as criminals.”
That’s what Clinton eagerly offered black and brown youth – starring roles as criminals. To do so, he assumed another right-wing stance: withdrawing a helping hand while extending an iron fist. Unable to find $30 billion to boost the economy in 1993, Clinton managed to find that amount the next year for the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act despite a feeble recovery. The law “provided state and municipal governments with $30 billion to add 100,000 new police officers, to build more prisons and to employ more prison guards.”
While the architecture of the war on drugs was erected during the ’80s, under Clinton, the race to incarcerate was on. During his tenure, the prison population swelled by nearly 50 percent to more than two million; the rate of African-American imprisonment topped 3.5 percent; and funding for the Justice Department increased by 72 percent (in constant dollars). Clinton expanded sentencing, broadened the death penalty, instituted a federal three-strikes law, narrowed judicial review for undocumented immigrants – leading to the deportation boom and the profit-driven detention industry – created sex-offender registries and increased wiretapping. Attracted by federal dollars, state spending on prison construction has quadrupled over the last 20 years. Three decades ago, California spent more than three times the money on higher education as it did on prisons. Now, it spends 50 percent more on prisons.
On the flip side, Clinton fulfilled the right-wing dream of ending welfare. Whereas welfare used to aid 75 percent of those in poverty, it now covers 28 percent. Another decision was to use workfare recipients to replace thousands of public-sector union workers. Clinton’s legacy included “more people working in the criminal justice system than [were] working in community and social service occupations (like employment, vocational, mental health and substance abuse counseling).”
The Clintons and DLC did not invent neoliberalism, but just as with crime and the war on drugs, they turned right-wing radicalism into bipartisan consensus. Prisons, policing and poverty are mere background noise. While the impact of Clinton’s policies was masked by relatively strong growth in the late ’90s, the monstrous effects surfaced when the economy tanked in 2007. Currently, the black and Hispanic poverty rate is nearly 27 percent. Black unemployment in some cities is at “Depression-era levels.” In parts of South Central, joblessness is 23 percent, outstripping 1992 levels. Hispanic unemployment tops 20 percent in some California cities. For black and Latino youth, unemployment rates are 40 and 30 percent, respectively. And blacks and Latinos were preyed on by subprime mortgage fraud, with the resulting foreclosures being concentrated in these communities.
It’s the same story the Kerner Commission identified 44 years ago. It listed “pervasive discrimination and segregation in employment, education and housing” as the immediate causes of civil disorders. Its proposals included creating two million jobs – half of those in public works programs – to “absorb the hard-core unemployed,” “substantial federal aid” to education and a minimum national income.
Instead of jobs, welfare and schools, Democrats and Republicans have fabricated a prison state. For-profit prison corporations like Corrections Corporation of America and Geo are growing wildly in this medium that has mutated into an even more virulent form after the 9/11 attacks. The capitalist law of growing markets, revenues and profits compels them to spend millions lobbying for harsher prison sentences and privatizing and expanding immigration detention. Their product isn’t cars, software or energy drinks, however. It’s the ranks of the poor who have become superfluous to capitalism as workers, but whose bodies are profitable once confined in steel cages. Systematic police abuses like stop and frisk and Arizona’s SB 1070 law and its copycats are thus necessary because they are the conveyor belt, reducing people to commodities.
By all accounts, Rodney King struggled to make sense of the whirlwind in which he was caught. His body was no longer his own, but a site of intense political dispute. He interpreted his ordeal as one step in the African-American journey that led to Barack Obama’s historic election and clung to his infantile though heartfelt maxim, “Can’t we all just get along?” But in the end, he concluded not much had changed. “The American Negro gets no respect when it comes to law enforcement and brutality and his life means nothing.”Yemen conflict: Red Cross, Russia appeal for 24-hour ceasefire to deliver urgent humanitarian aid
Updated
The Red Cross and Russia have called for a ceasefire in Yemen to allow the delivery of urgent humanitarian aid and the evacuation of civilians after 10 days of Saudi-led air strikes and fighting.
Russia distributed a draft resolution at the United Nations pressing for the suspension of coalition air strikes on Houthi forces to allow evacuation of foreign civilians and diplomats, and demanding rapid and unhindered humanitarian access.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) also called for an immediate pause in hostilities to deliver life-saving medical aid, saying three of its shipments remained blocked.
"All air, land and sea routes must be opened without delay for at least 24 hours to enable help to reach people cut off after more than a week of intense air strikes and fierce ground fighting nationwide," the ICRC said.
The United Nations says more than 500 people have been killed in the past two weeks in Yemen and nearly 1,700 wounded.
The president of the UN Security Council, Jordan's UN ambassador Dina Kawar, said the Council needed time to consider Russia's proposal for a pause in airstrikes against the Shiite rebels.
He said the Council was still focused on finding a long-term political solution to the crisis in Yemen.
Coalition spokesman Brigadier General Ahmed Asseri, asked about the calls for a humanitarian pause, said only that the military was ready for any instructions from its political leadership.
Yemen crisis at a glance: Yemen's autocratic leader Ali Abdullah Saleh loses power in the wave of 2011 Arab Spring uprisings.
Nation embarks on political transition based on an agreement brokered by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
The Houthi, or Ansarullah Islamist group, claims the mantle of a national revolution and sweeps southwards, seizing Sana'a.
Sunni Islamist parties loyal to president Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi reject the rebels' takeover.
Al Qaeda militants join forces with some tribal opponents of the Houthis in a series of deadly clashes.
Fighting temporarily displaces about 100,000 people in 2014, according to the United Nations.
Corruption and lack of basic services and infrastructure remain huge problems for the impoverished country. Source: Reuters, AFP, The World Bank Source: Reuters, AFP, The World Bank
He said aid agencies and governments should coordinate aid shipments with officials in Riyadh.
Residents in Aden say parts of the southern port city have been without water or electricity for two days.
There was no sign of a halt in the fighting in Aden, where medical teams fear more civilians will die if they do not get access to the city.
Fighting in the southern port city has intensified in recent days with Saudi-led airstrikes aiming to push back Shiah Houthi rebels.
Aden is a stronghold of those loyal to president president Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi who fled Aden a week ago and has watched from Riyadh as the vestiges of his authority have crumbled.
Jets from the Saudi-led coalition have parachuted weapons into Aden to bolster fighters loyal to Mr Hadi.
A military spokesman for the Saudi coalition said it was providing substantial logistical support for Mr Hadi's fighters. He declined to confirm or deny reports that Saudi special forces were operating in Aden.
Loyalists to him managed to flush out the Houthis and their allies from central Aden's Crater district on Friday, a rare victory after more than a week of gains by the Houthis.
The Houthis are backed by soldiers loyal to ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Algeria evacuates 160 citizens from Yemen
Meanwhile, Algeria has evacuated 160 of its citizens from the war-torn nation as a Saudi-led coalition continued its bombing campaign against Houthi targets.
President Abdelaziz Bouteflika called for the operation after monitoring the deteriorating security situation in Yemen in recent days, foreign minister Ramtane Lamamra said.
Algeria has refused to provide manpower from its powerful armed forces for the coalition carrying out air strikes against the Shiite rebels.
National news agency APS added that 40 Tunisians, 15 Mauritians, eight Libyans, three Moroccans and a Palestinian were also flown out of the capital, Sanaa, to Cairo on a plane provided by Algerian national carrier Air Algerie.
China, Djibouti, Egypt and Sudan, along with two aid groups, were scheduled to carry out evacuations from Sunday while requests from others including Canada, Germany and Iraq were being processed, the Arab coalition has said.
Reuters/AFP
Topics: unrest-conflict-and-war, relief-and-aid-organisations, yemen, saudi-arabia
First postedThe New York Times’ slow-cooked plan to charge some readers for some of its online content will be put into place in January of next year, editor in chief Bill Keller told other journos at a dinner in New York on Thursday night.
The plan, which Times editors have talked about before, but often in vague, uncertain terms, has been solidified. The paper’s “metered model” will charge only heavy online readers — people who depend on Nytimes.com as their newspaper — while letting most Web surfers in free to read a few articles per month.
Subscribers to the Times’ print newspaper will get free online access, Keller said. By contrast, Wall Street Journal subscribers must pay an extra 40 cents per week to add the online Journal to their account.
Media Matters got Keller to talk more about the Times’ plan via email. Keller describes a system much less restrictive than a traditional “paywall” that requires a login to read anything:
“Those who mainly come to the website via search engines or links from blogs, and those who only come sporadically — in short, the bulk of our traffic — may never be asked to pay at all. People who have print subscriptions will get full website access without charge. So we do not anticipate a major impact on overall traffic, which is important to maintain advertising. “We announced this months ago, and I’m all for it. It costs money to do the kind of deeply reported journalism our readers expect, and it’s well worth paying for. We assume there will be some impact on readership, aka traffic, but not as much as with a conventional pay model. Under our metered model, basically people who use Nytimes.com as their newspaper, who read a lot and depend on it, will be asked to pay a small subscription price.”
The Times’ previous attempt to charge for content, TimesSelect, was canceled in 2007 because too few subscribers had signed up for what was basically a premium content package. Most TimesSelect content was what newspaper editors categorize as commentary or opinion, rather than news reporting. People were uninterested in paying an extra $50 per year to read the Times’ columnists.
Keller’s new plan takes a different angle from both TimesSelect and the Journal. It’s a different version of freemium than TimesSelect. The old plan gave away news and charged for analysis. The new plan will give away some of everything, but charge you if you want more of it.
Chances are Keller and company are still trying to calculate exactly how much to give away, and how much to charge for greater access. Without those numbers, the only safe prediction is that they won’t start with a high bar to access. Better to start with a lenient setting that blocks few readers, then ratchet it up to see what the market will bear.
Will it work? Probably. The Wall Street Journal has proven it’s possible to get a large number of people to pay more than $100 a year for online news. WSJ.com reached one million subscribers in 2007, the same year the Times killed TimeSelect. Much like the Journal’s model, the new Times approach won’t split content into two tiers. It’ll give away the Times’ hottest content, then charge you when you crave more.
(Disclosure: Boutin is a regular New York Times contributor.)Earlier this month, we excerpted a section of a panel discussion from an SEC securities enforcement conference. It showed the degree to which former senior SEC officials who’ve gone into private practice openly ridicule the idea that the SEC should do its job, for instance, by deriding enforcement as “gotcha”.
Today, we’ll look at the panelist who was most aggressive in attacking the SEC, Helane Morrison, the general counsel of a fund manager targeting the super-rich, Hall Capital. You’ll see Morrison repeatedly take positions that are hostile not just to the SEC, but to the interest of her firm’s clients. And this was not just my reaction. From a senior member of the investment industry who has had extensive dealings with Hall Capital and has met Ms. Morrison*:
Ms. Morrison’s comments constitute a betrayal of the people whose interests she holds in trust, which are the clients of Hall Capital. These individuals entrust their life savings to Morrison’s firm in the belief that Hall Capital will act as a careful steward of the funds and, implicitly, that Ms. Morrison, as the firm’s general counsel, will act as a vigorous advocate for their financial interests. Instead, we see that she embraces a highly ideological anti-government, anti-enforcement agenda that leaves investors naked and powerless at the hands of those who would cheat them. This attitude is fundamentally incompatible with the role that Ms. Morrison is charged with as the chief counsel at a fiduciary investment adviser, and she should seek work elsewhere that is better aligned with her world-view.
Depicting Morrison as an ideologue who has allowed personal bias to trump her duties as general counsel is an unduly charitable interpretation of what is really going on.
It’s hard not to surmise that Morrison has unwittingly let the cat out of the bag: that Hall, despite positioning itself as being more customer-focused than others players fighting for private bank business, in fact is far more loyal to its own bottom line. Thus the over-the-top attacks appear to stem from Hall defending its private equity and hedge fund products, areas where the SEC has repeatedly found serious violations, including stealing (taking fees to which the managers were not entitled), misvaluation of assets and misleading representation of past performance.
Hall, by putting investor funds in managers that have engaged in serious misconduct, may well be guilty of failing to do adequate due diligence and oversight. Recall that the SEC flagged that more than half of the private equity managers a a minimum had made serious compliance violations, and contrary to its experience in other fields, the scamming was more prevalent at the largest firms. SEC chairman Mary Jo White more recently has made stern statements about a range of misconduct the SEC found at hedge funds. That means it is virtually certain that Hall has put client assets in funds that have at least mislead and may well have cheated investors. No wonder Morrison is so eager to discredit the SEC any way she can.
In addition, any player in the investment management business knows it is held to the standard of being a fiduciary, meaning it duty-bound to place its clients interests above its own. It’s thus troubling to see a senior officer at a fiduciary, even worse, one who clearly knows better, effectively put herself on the side of the perceived right of purveyors to cheat customers who are dumb or inattentive enough to let the investment firm get away with it. In other words, her very act of opposing strong regulatory oversight and investor protection is arguably in and of itself a breach of fiduciary duty.
Background on Hall Capital and Helane Morrison
Hall Capital Partners is a fund management firm that targets the super wealthy. It was founded in 1994 by Kathryn Hall, a former Hellman & Friedman parter whose predecessor venture was staked by Warren Hellman. Its minimum commitment was originally $25 million; it is now believed to be $75 million.
As is typical for firms that serve the high and super-high net worth market, Hall makes its fiduciary role a point of pride:
Transparency. We are a proudly independent firm – employees own the majority of the company and we believe deeply in putting clients’ interests first.
Hall provides a wide range of investment products, including hedge fund and private equity investments. The private equity portfolio does not appear to be run in-house; Hall has sponsored private equity fund of funds that invest in externally managed private equity funds and is ranked 27 on a recent list of fund of fund managers. As we’ve pointed out, private equity fund of fund managers need to play nice with the general partners so to have access to their wares, since virtually all fund of fund managers claim that they have superior access to private equity funds. The same incentives clearly apply to fund of fund managers in other “alternative investment” asset classes: you need to play nicely in the sandbox just to maintain a competitive standing.
Morrison has a stellar resume. She graduated from UC Berkeley’s law school and clerked both for Richard Posner** and for Supreme Court Justice Henry Blackmun. She worked for the SEC as the head of its San Francisco office from 1999 to 2007. She is also a member of the hedge fund subcommittee of the American Bar Association (ABA) But as a lawyer familiar with the landscape points out, “Generally, ABA folks argue for clients while trying to look objective, statesmanlike and policy-oriented. The ABA is a decorative veneer for client arguments.”
In other words, if Morrison makes an argument that does not seem credible, it’s unlikely to be out of ignorance. It is presumably a rhetorical choice.
Morrison at the SEC Compliance Seminar
Both of Morrison’s extended sets of remarks were noteworthy by virtue of staking out the most SEC-hostile position of any of the panelists. Bear in mind that she was the only ex-SEC official on the panel who now works at a fiduciary; the others are at major law firms. It’s one thing to cop an aggressive ‘tude when you are a litigator seeking to impress peers and prospective clients with your |
have. Come back next year - or whenever I decide to write again - and we’ll see if I can muster up more tips and tricks you can use in writing your CakePHP code. Until then, pet your pets and Happy Holidays!By Dr. Becker
According to an article I ran across recently, veterinarians at the highly regarded Colorado State University James L. Voss Veterinary Teaching Hospital do not recommend feeding raw diets to pets. This is disappointing, but not surprising. Many veterinary schools tend to gloss over the entire subject of nutrition, leaving it up to a handful of major pet food industry players to conduct seminars for students that are heavily slanted toward the products they sell. The information (and misinformation) contained in the CSU article is typical and predictable, touching on five common arguments used by the anti-raw movement to discredit raw feeding and scare off pet owners.
Anti-Raw Tactic #1: Marginalize Raw Feeding as a Trend or a Fad
According to a CSU Pet Health column written by veterinarian Dr. Camille Torres-Henderson in June: “We often hear about new trends in diet and exercise for people, so it may not be surprising to encounter dietary trends for pets. One gaining interest is the raw food diet.” I first have to ask, how is it that raw food for pets is a “new dietary trend?” Feeding raw isn’t some new-wave movement; in fact, I call it a return to common sense. It’s about feeding animals food that contains natural ingredients with names you can pronounce, that aren’t rendered, and are minimally processed. Feeding pets a raw diet isn’t some quirky new trend, it’s what animals did before “pet food” came into existence. It’s feeding them in accordance with what medical doctors are now encouraging people to eat: real food. Secondly, raw pet food diets aren’t just “gaining interest.” The natural/fresh/raw pet food market saw the biggest growth rate in the industry last year, posing a notable threat to the dry pet food industry.
Anti-Raw Tactic #2: Discredit Testimonials of Pet Owners, Holistic Vets
Torres-Henderson describes a typical raw pet food diet and says that advocates of raw feeding point to “shinier coats, healthier skin, cleaner teeth, improved immunity and easier weight management” as proof of the value of the food. She says such “impassioned testimonials” often include anecdotal information that “might seem persuasive.” But, she says, there is no scientific evidence to support such claims. It’s true that in today’s world, we are told not to believe our own eyes (especially when corporate profits are at stake), but to demand scientific evidence to prove one thing is better than another thing. I was asked to “prove” wolves were carnivores by a group of veterinarians three years ago… absurd, but true. The good news is that the holistic veterinary community is actively raising the tremendous amount of money it takes to fund unbiased nutrition research. This will ultimately allow us to hand skeptics and naysayers the scientific proof they demand so that they, too, can recommend nutrition for pets that pre-dates the low-quality, biologically inappropriate diets the pet food industry has produced since the 1920s. The vast majority (90 percent) of pet foods on the market today are produced by just five giant pet food companies: Mars, Nestle Purina, Colgate-Palmolive (Hill’s), Proctor & Gamble, and Del Monte (now Big Heart Brands). Those of us who have doubts about the quality of most commercially available pet foods have done our own research on the nutritional needs of the animals in our care. And then there are those people with pets with health issues that require nutritional intervention, who have learned that by switching from processed to real food, they are able to dramatically improve their pet’s health. I have transitioned literally thousands of patients from poor-quality dry food diets to nutritionally balanced raw foods, and their owners can see with their own eyes the positive changes in their pet’s health. This is all the proof they require.
Advertisement
Anti-Raw Tactic #3: Demand Non-Existent Scientific Research on the Benefits of Raw Diets for Pets
Next Torres-Henderson advises pet owners thinking about feeding raw to “look for references to research that has been both published and peer-reviewed,” as “this approach is built on scientific rigor and helps ensure valid data.” This is rather disingenuous, as I’m sure this CSU veterinarian is well aware that almost no research exists on raw diets for pets. The reason is simply lack of funding, as scientific studies are enormously expensive. It’s also not surprising that virtually all the research “proving” the dead, inorganic, over-processed foods studied are the only safe options, is funded by the five richest pet food companies that monopolize the industry and can afford to complete research that validates the “benefits” of what they are selling. The scientific research the major pet food companies and traditional veterinary community rely on is funded by the companies themselves or similarly motivated “independent” sponsors. Since pet food manufacturers are only interested in selling more processed pet food and are certainly not interested in studying the benefits of natural foods for pets, very little research has been conducted.
Anti-Raw Tactic #4: Overplay the Risks of Feeding Raw
Predictably, Dr. Torres-Henderson then moves on to a litany of the “risks” associated with raw feeding. The first item on her list is contamination with harmful bacteria like salmonella, listeria, and E. coli. “These pathogens can cause dangerous illnesses in pets – and the people who handle raw pet food,” she says. What she doesn’t say is that over 50 percent of the commercial raw pet foods on the market are sterile, and in fact, the cleanest foods available are high-pressure pasteurized (HPP) raw foods. There have been countless recalls of dry pet food for potentially pathogenic bacteria, and only a handful for raw foods. And if you choose to feed a non-HPP raw diet to your pet, it carries precisely the same risks as the raw ground beef you buy to prepare hamburgers for your family. In fact, most raw pet food is inspected twice, a higher standard than most human foods. The majority of raw pet food companies that choose not to sterilize, perform batch testing to ensure their products have not been contaminated. Next Torres-Henderson points out that raw food diets have been shown to have nutritional imbalances. It’s absolutely true that poorly prepared homemade raw diets can be unbalanced – which is why pet owners must follow recipes when preparing homemade pet food, raw or cooked. I completely agree that an unbalanced diet (raw, cooked, canned, dehydrated or kibbled) does a complete disservice to our animal companions. However, if Torres-Henderson is referring to commercial raw diets as well, she’s misinformed. All of the raw food diets sold in big box stores, upscale pet boutiques, and vet clinics require the same nutrient analysis testing that any other pet food undergoes in order to be AAFCO compliant. I don’t know of a single widely available raw pet food that doesn’t meet AAFCO standards. If the package of pet food (any type of pet food) you’re about to buy doesn’t state that it is nutritionally balanced, don’t buy it. And if you are preparing your pet’s food at home please, PLEASE don’t just assume the meals are nutritionally complete. Follow a recipe that has been analyzed so you know you’re nourishing your pet correctly. Torres-Henderson also mentions that the bones in raw diets cause damage to a pet’s teeth and “intestinal trauma.” Again, if she’s referring to commercially available raw pet food, she’s misinformed. Commercial raw food diets use finely ground bone or bone meal, so there’s no risk of fractured teeth or an intestinal blockage.
Anti-Raw Tactic #5: Dogs Have Evolved to Eat Grains
Finally, Torres-Henderson makes the increasingly popular but misinformed claim that dogs, due to their close companionship with humans over thousands of years, have evolved with different nutritional needs than wild canines. This argument is usually given in an attempt to justify the heavy use of grains and other carbohydrates in pet food, especially dog food. This argument is, in a word, baloney. Today’s dogs and cats have no more nutritional requirement for grains than their ancestors or wild counterparts, as is evident by the fact that their bodies are not designed to process grains. Dogs may be expressing genetic adaptations for a starch-rich diet after being fed starch-rich diets over many years (and thank goodness their bodies have that capacity), but this is not proof dogs are omnivores or moving towards vegetarianism. And speaking of grains, they are not “harmless” fillers in pet food that provide “energy” (empty calories). One of the first things I do when I have a patient with any sort of digestive or allergic issue is insure the pet is eating (or is transitioned to) a grain-free, moisture rich (this means no dry food) diet. Very often, this one simple but powerful change clears up the problem completely and permanently.
What This Means for You and Your PetEditor's Note: The following is an excerpt from Mara Hvistendahl's book, Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys over Girls and the Consequences of a World Full of Men.
The technology that ultimately became the dominant method of sex selection around the world began as a tool for navigation. The story of ultrasound dates to 1794, when an Italian biologist curious about how bats find their way in the dark discovered sonar, or the fact that distance can be determined by bouncing sound waves off a faraway object and measuring how long it takes for the waves to ricochet back. Centuries later, when the growing prowess of German submarines during World War I convinced the Allies that to win the war they needed a way to navigate underwater, scientists put sonar to use. The American, British, and French governments jointly funded research into the phenomenon. The effort succeeded, and by 1918 the Allies were using acoustic echoes to correctly pinpoint the location of German U-boats.
After the war, doctors guessed sonar might have medical applications as well. They first used ultrasound in surgery, where it turned out sound waves could heat and destroy tissue, making them helpful for everything from treating ulcers to performing craniotomies. Then in 1949 a chemist stationed at the Naval Medical Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, employed the new technology to locate gallstones in dogs, and ultrasound became a diagnostic tool as well. Physicians began navigating the human body as World War I submarines had navigated dark waters, bouncing sound waves off the internal organs.
Ultrasound proved surprisingly versatile. It could clean teeth, treat cysts, and dissolve kidney stones. It may have been with one of these applications in sight that in 1959 Scottish obstetrician Ian Donald used the new technology on a woman who happened to be pregnant and noticed that the fetus returned echoes as well.
Back then, ultrasound offered the simple promise of learning more about a pregnancy. Doctors could not perform x-ray exams on pregnant women because of the risk of damaging the fetus, so Donald’s discovery raised the prospect of an alternative form of prenatal imaging, giving physicians hope of monitoring high-risk pregnancies. If Donald suspected that knowledge would translate into fetal selection and subtraction, he probably envisioned women attempting to avoid debilitating sex-linked diseases like hemophilia. (When the first sex-selective abortions had been performed in Denmark using amniocentesis four years earlier, indeed, they were done for that reason --and discriminated against males as a result.) He could have hardly guessed that ultrasound would one day contribute to a sex ratio imbalance involving over 160 million "missing" females in Asia and elsewhere.
Sex selection was a dim possibility, indeed, because early ultrasound machines were nothing like those available today. The 1960s machines were cumbersome gadgets that towered over the pregnant women on whom they were used. One model, called the articulated arm scanner, resembled a giant version of the toy cranes fairgoers rent for a few quarters to try their hand at winning stuffed animals. The articulated arm scanner helped doctors take crude measurements of the fetal head, allowing them to track a baby’s growth in the womb. But beyond that the image it produced was hazy, making it impossible to discern fingers and toes, let alone a tiny penis or vagina.
It didn’t matter that the early ultrasound machines yielded fuzzy images, however, or that they only proved helpful in a small proportion of pregnancies. To the 1960s public the technology looked positively futuristic. Around the time pregnancy became a choice rather than an inevitability and the business of having children became about more than generating labor for the farm, we began seeking ways to bond with our babies before birth. An image on which to pin parental hopes made that task a whole lot easier, and so it was a breakthrough to have a preview, however muddled, of the baby growing inside a mother’s uterus. Coming at a time of technological optimism when Americans were enamored of outer space and kitchen appliances alike, an era some were calling the Biological Revolution, ultrasound captured the public imagination.
Even though the high-resolution machines capable of identifying fetal sex and other finer characteristics were still years away, the press seized on the possibility that portraits of babies before birth might help us control the mystical birth process. The flurry of coverage that greeted the new technology forecasted extensive reproductive manipulation—which newspaper editors saw as a great thing. The headlines were bold and optimistic: Ultrasound Device Takes Guessing Out of Pregnancy. Knowledge Is Key to Happy Childbirth. A New Eye into the Womb. One article dubbed ultrasound The Electronic Doctor. The headline on the cover of the September 10, 1965, issue of Life—alongside a hulking machine whose heavy arm nearly eclipsed the mother under examination— read Control of Life: Audacious Experiments Promise Decades of Added Life, Superbabies with Improved Minds and Bodies, and Even a Kind of Immortality. (Today preimplantation genetic diagnosis—a form of embryo screening during in-vitro fertilization that allows parents to select for sex, is greeted with similar enthusiasm. Girl or Boy? Now You Can Choose, proclaimed a 2004 cover of Newsweek.)
But public fascination also provided a window for criticism, and ultrasound elicited substantial ethical deliberation. Some critics feared overly powerful scientists. Feminists pushing for abortion rights fretted, justifiably, that the machine humanized the fetus. Others worried the new reproductive technology would be exploited by governments intent on manipulating their populations; the Nazis, after all, had screened newlyweds for genetic diseases in their eugenics program. What if the power to create "superbabies" fell into the hands of an evil dictator? But none of these critiques came close to identifying what turned out to be ultrasound’s most pernicious threat. In hindsight, 1960s Americans worried about everything except the possibility that average parents, emboldened by the new knowledge technology brought them, might make small, seemingly innocuous choices—and that those choices, taken together, would add up to disaster.
Excerpt by arrangement with Public Affairs from Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys over Girls and the Consequences of a World Full of Men by Mara Hvistendahl. Copyright © 2011 by Mara Hvistendahl.Halifax's north end community was stunned Tuesday after the beating death of a prominent gay activist.
Ryan Raymond Taavel, a former chairman of Gay Pride week events and a well-known editor for Wayves magazine, was killed outside Menz Bar early Tuesday.
Megan Leslie is the area's MP and her office is just down the street from where Taavel was killed.
"We're mourning the loss of a good friend; of a friend, of a community activist," she said. "Raymond Taavel was a friend to the entire community."
Leslie said she will be at Tuesday night's vigil and she expected a big turnout. "People have been coming into my office all day because he was a fixture in the community," she said. "It's really terribly sad news. We miss him."
She said she had worked with him many times on a variety of Pride and social justice issues.
"He was just in and out of the office all the time. He was a fixture in the community, that's for sure," she said.
"It's a huge loss. There's a big hole in our hearts right now. Hopefully coming together tonight, we'll try and close that wound a little bit. I'm looking forward to being with other people from the community who knew and loved Raymond."
'A terrific laugh and smile'
Hugo Dann was a friend of Taavel's. Dann said Taavel was one of the first members of the Halifax gay community he met when he moved to the city.
Hugo Dann was friends with Taavel for a long time. "He was delightful. He was kind," he said. "He was fun — a terrific laugh and smile. A bright light."
He said Taavel was very involved in Pride and had greatly contributed to the community, but kept himself in the background.
"He had really strong views about being there to serve and not being there to put himself forward," Dann said.
With eyewitnesses reporting that the assailant shouted gay slurs during the attack, Dann said it raised the question of if it was a homophobic crime. Dann said knowing that the suspect is a psychiatric patient got him thinking about the Glen Race case.
Race is a mentally ill man accused of killing two gay man in Halifax and a third man in New York in 2007. Halifax police temporarily issued a warning to gay men in the area. Race was convicted of the New York killing in a U.S. court and is now preparing for trial on the two Halifax deaths.
"I made the point then: How much is that vulnerable mind susceptible to the kind of hatred — the climate of homophobia — that exists in society?" Dann said. "Maybe they had a bad experience that informed them. Maybe they heard some religious fanatic speaking out against gay people."
Krista Snow, chairwoman of Halifax Pride, said she was devastated. She called her friend an "amazing person."
She said fears it was a hate crime had left people numb.
"The loss of Raymond is huge, but if somebody took his life because of who he loves, then our community will be devastated forever," she said.
A vigil for Taavel is being held Tuesday at 7 p.m. on Gottingen Street.Monday, December 20, 2010
By: Howard Galganov
I dont want to use this mans name because it would be unfair; and I like him, but that doesnt change the obscene benefits he receives courtesy of my hard work and yours.
Heres a person Ive just recently met who worked for 35 years as a medium level civil servant in a small city in Ontario (Canada).
As a civil servant, he earned a better than average salary in comparison to what he would have earned in the private sector.
He never had to lose sleep at night worrying about the security of his job, since working for the government is as secure a job as anyone could hope for.
In terms of vacations, he received far more vacation-pay and time-off than MOST people could dream of who work in the private sector. Plus, he was paid for sick leave and special civil service employee days off. In MOST private sector jobs, if you dont work, you dont get paid.
IN ADDITION... whether he took sick-days off or not, they were accumulated nonetheless and added as days worked.
One of my friends who retired from the Montreal police department a few years ago with a $75,000 annual pension, was able to retire about one and a half years earlier than his age allowed, because they applied his entitled accumulated sick-days that he didnt take-off.
For whatever reason, this guy whom Im writing about, decided to take early retirement at age 55. Can you retire at age 55? Ill be lucky if I can afford to retire before they put me in the ground.
I spent MOST of my life as an entrepreneur/employer. I have paid MILLIONS of dollars in salaries, commissions, bonuses, vacation pay - etc.
This guy, like most public sector employees NEVER did any of that. Instead, he lived off the (tax) money I generated through my risk, hard work and sleepless nights.
He never had to worry about the job when his day was over.
He never had to worry about generating sales against tough competition, or paying bills with money he didnt have because his clients havent yet paid, or how to make payroll with his own dwindling personal funds because there was not enough in the company account, especially with cash advances on credit cards that were just about maxed-out.
He never had to deal with multiple governments demanding their taxes whether he had the money or not. And if he didnt pay on time, the penalties and interest on the money owed was enough to be the final nail in the coffin.
He never had to deal with jackass bureaucrats who buried him in useless paper because they could, or with regulations that made his life a misery and empowered theirs.
All he had to do was wake up in the morning, report to his job if he felt like it, do his work, well or not, and at the end the day go home to a warm meal never having to worry what tomorrow would be like in job security.
This guy, who for thirty-five years lived off the public purse, told me the other day how difficult it was for him to get by on his pension, because it just isnt enough compared to what his salary was.
So, youre wondering how much money this poor 55-year-old government retiree receives in his measly government pension that makes it tough for him to get by?
Before I let you know, Ill tell you that after contributing to our various economies (municipal, provincial and federal) as an employee and employer, since I stared paying taxes at 16 years old, my annual pension is just less than $5000. When I turn 65 it will be about $10,000 per year with social security payments, all of which will be clawed-back since I will still be working.
His annual pension NOT including his federal pension or social security is $42,000. Can you see the mindset of this guy? He has no idea whatsoever, of what the real world outside government is all about.
We couldnt count the number of working families who would give thanks to God every day if they knew they would EARN $42,000 per year FOREVER.
But to him, receiving JUST $42,000 per year seems not to be all that fair, since it is so much less than what he earned while he was working. I should also mention that his wife is still working at a much better paying federal government job, and will retire with anywhere from 50% to 100% MORE than what hes receiving every year.
Also, when he turns 65, he will receive about $10,000 per year in his federal pension and an additional $6,000 in social security bringing the total he receives to just under $60,000 per year. Add that to what his wife will receive in retirement, and your looking at well over $150,000 per year between them.
Granted, theyll pay taxes on this money. But so what, its NOT money they actually earned. So theyll give back a bit if what we gave to them.
How many WORKING families do you know, who EARN anything close to that?
We spoke a bit about his pension. But, as I wrote at the beginning of this editorial, I like him, and I dont fault him for riding on the taxpayers gravy train, so I didnt want a confrontation.
But I couldnt help myself. So I asked him if he realized that I would have to work till the day I die, just to make sure that the government would have the money to pay his pension?
HE HAD NO IDEA OF WHAT I MEANT.
I dont believe for a second that this very nice hard workingman can relate to the fact that the government has no money other than the money they TAKE from the private sector.
HERES A REALITY My generation is the last generation to carry a nation upon its back. The immigrants who came to this country before, and a generation after World War II are not the same immigrants who are coming today.
My generations immigrants came here with hope to achieve, to work hard, to raise good families, and to pay their way in search of winning the brass ring with no expectation of a free ride.
Far too many of todays immigrants come to our countries in search of the free ride, especially in Canada where immigrants (illegal or not) are better cared for by the government than are our elderly poor.
Immigrants SHOULD be those upon whom a country builds its national future through hard work and innovation. But that isnt the present-day case.
Children of my generation went to work after high school. Not everyone expected to go to university to receive a bullshit degree by taking bullshit courses while running up TENS OF THOUSAND OF DOLLARS in student loans.
We were indeed the last generation the country could depend upon for its wealth. FORGET ABOUT THIS CROP COMING OUT OF HIGH SCHOOL AND UNIVERSITY.
How many computer geeks does a nation need? How many brain-dead addicted video players can the country sustain?
Where are our real workers who arent afraid to do an honest days work for an honest dollar? Whos here to develop factories and manufacture items we used to build and export?
Whether this is the USA or Canada; were in the fourth quarter, its the last down, theres no timeouts, were no way near the end zone, and nothing less than a HAIL MARY PASS can save our sorry asses which weve allowed our politicians to buy with our OWN MONEY, so they could give away our future.
What Ive written is not a matter of OPINION, neither is it JUST negative Conservative conjecture as the LEFT want everyone to believe.
IT IS FACT AND HARD COLD ARITHMETIC.
Not only are we rapidly running out of money, were rapidly running out of the creators of money. And perhaps MORE to the point, we might have already crossed the RUBICON between how much is paid-in, compared to how much is being paid out.
AND THE POLITICIANS STILL DONT GET IT.
To know more about what I think of this issue, Click on the Radio Icon at the Top of this Page to hear a 10-Minute Audio Editorial.
Best Regards... Howard GalganovLondon (CNN) Donald Trump is used to being the one doing the tough talk.
But on Monday the Republican presidential hopeful was on the receiving end of the harsh words -- with no opportunity of rebuttal -- as British MPs made their disdain for him clear during a parliamentary debate on whether to ban him from the country.
In doing so, the parliamentarians served up blunter criticisms than some of his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination have landed, labeling the 69-year-old "poisonous," "a buffoon" and even a "wazzock" -- British slang for "a stupid or annoying person."
"I don't think Donald Trump should be allowed within 1,000 miles of our shore," Jack Dromey, the Labour Party's shadow home affairs minister, told the assembled MPs.
The debate was triggered by a public petition launched in the wake of Trump's call to ban Muslims from the U.S., which called on the British parliament to ban Trump from the country for hate speech
It received more than 576,000 signatures -- more than five times the number required for MPs to consider sending the matter for debate in parliament.
But the debate was non-binding, with no vote taken at the end, and was always going to be used by MPs as an opportunity to vent their thoughts on the divisive Republican under the protection of parliamentary privilege, which legally shields them from accusations of defamation or slander.
And vent they did.
'No valid points to make'
"The person you're dealing with may be a successful businessman. He's also a buffoon and has the dangerous capability of saying the most obscene or insensitive things to attract attention," said Gavin Robinson, an MP for the Democratic Unionist Party.
Victoria Atkins, an MP for the ruling Conservative Party, said Trump's "comments regarding Muslims are wrong."
"His policy to close borders if he is elected as president is bonkers. And if he met one or two of my constituents in one of the many excellent pubs in my constituency, then they may well tell him that he is a wazzock."
Her fellow Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat said he thought Trump was "crazy" and had "no valid points to make," while Labour MP Tulip Siddiq said his "poisonous" words risked "inflaming tension between vulnerable communities."
Debate 'fueling publicity machine'
About 50 of the UK's 650 members of parliament were present for the debate. But while all but one used the forum to criticize Trump -- especially his comments on Muslims -- most felt a ban was unwise, and only risked making a martyr of the politician, and boosting his electoral prospects.
"I've heard of a number of cases where people have been excluded for incitement, for hatred," said Conservative MP Paul Scully.
"I've never heard of one for stupidity, and I'm not sure that we should be starting now."
JUST WATCHED UK lawmakers debate banning Trump Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH UK lawmakers debate banning Trump 02:24
Labour MP Paul Flynn said that the "great danger" in attacking Trump was that "we can fix on him a halo of victimhood. We give him the role of martyrdom."
Atkins remarked: "We are fueling this man's publicity machine by having this debate at all today."
British Home Secretary Theresa May already has the power to ban certain visitors -- including those deemed nonconducive to the public good for reasons such as a record of hate speech -- but such a move would appear highly unlikely.
British Prime Minister David Cameron has already said he is not in favor of a ban.
Trump business: Debate 'absurd'
Trump's camp responded to the debate via a statement from one of his companies Monday.
Sarah Malone, executive vice president of Scotland-based Trump International Golf Links labeled the debate "ridiculous" and "absurd," saying the British Parliament was setting a "dangerous precedent" and "sending a terrible message to the world."
But at least one of the MPs participating in the debate felt that the brash New Yorker was unlikely to be overly concerned about the opinions of a gathering of British MPs.
"I'm not sure that he's going to be terribly worried about this debate," said Conservative MP Sir Edward Leigh.Expanding on our initial observations from Green Bay Packers minicamp:
We should add a qualifying statement to last week's assertion, the one where we said the Packers have committed to James Starks as their primary running back for 2012. Here's a better way of putting it: To the extent that the Packers will have a primary running back in 2012, James Starks appears to be the one and only candidate.
The difference? The Packers have the NFL's reigning MVP at quarterback and one of the league's most dynamic passing games. They will run the ball in 2012, but employing a reliable 250-carry ball carrier isn't as high on their priority list as it might be for some teams.
Packers coach Mike McCarthy has indicated plans to tweak his running scheme this offseason, but if the team felt it needed to elevate the production of its running game dramatically, it likely would have added to its personnel this offseason. Instead, the Packers did not re-sign veteran Ryan Grant and conducted spring minicamp with Starks and second-year player Brandon Saine (70 career NFL snaps) as their top two runners.
(Alex Green, a third-round draft pick in 2011, was still recovering from surgery to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his knee.)
Starks has demonstrated strength and burst at times over the past two seasons, but the most important statistic of his career is that he has been healthy for only 16 games -- including the playoffs -- over the past three years. He missed his final season at Buffalo because of a torn labrum in his shoulder, was limited to seven games as a rookie because of a serious hamstring injury and was ineffective last season after spraining his knee and ankle in Week 11.
That, by definition, makes Starks' ascension a risk, but it's one the Packers figure they can manage as long as their passing game remains the crux of their offense. During a conversation last week, McCarthy widely praised Starks skills' -- including significant development as a pass protector -- while acknowledging his health will be the key.
"James [is a] very talented young man," McCarthy said. "The most important statistic for him is going to be availability. It has nothing to do with his skill set. He's getting better and better and better. … He's a young, raw guy that needs to play. If he can stay healthy, I think he'll make a significant jump as a player."
And in this offense, at least, that's probably enough.But first, each state must finish — and pay for — massive port-deepening projects in Savannah and Charleston. And they must leave behind decades of animus and bistate rivalry that threatened Savannah’s future as the Southeastern gateway for international trade.
A dredge, The Alaska, began deepening the Savannah River this week, a major step toward completion of the $706 million project by 2020. Charleston awaits final federal approval for a half-billion-dollar dredging project also scheduled for completion by then.
Yet Georgia still needs $400 million from Washington to finish its deepening. Charleston requires $166 million.
Once those projects are completed, port and state officials will turn their attention toward securing, at first, $2 billion for the joint port, the so-called Jasper Ocean Terminal. They are expected to request an environmental permit from federal officials this fall.
The proposed 1,500-acre port on the South Carolina side of the river will take at least 13 years to build, an eternity in international commerce. Predicting continued growth in imports and exports is risky, as is relying on China to keep sending packed container ships to the Southeast.
Shipping lines and their customers determine which ports to use and when, further muddying the economic feasibility of a long-off port. Shippers may abandon the Port of Savannah — a longer, costlier cruise upriver — for Jasper, a maritime shift that could cost the Georgia Ports Authority millions of dollars.
And, despite assurances that a Jasper port would be mutually beneficial, bad blood between the two states could overshadow its hoped-for success.
“I wouldn’t be surprised to see some of that acrimony as to who is the main beneficiary, how are the costs allocated and does one state feel it’s not getting as much benefit as the other,” said Steve Ellis, a vice president with Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonprofit fiscal watchdog in Washington. “And it’s not like there is a lack of port-deepening projects on the East Coast. Somebody is going to be a loser, and we’ll have a white elephant on our hands.”
Atlanta’s Jim Balloun, a former chairman of the Jasper port board, said it would be folly not to plan for a surge in container traffic, especially with the ports of Savannah and Charleston expected to run out of room in 15 years.
“Jasper gives us an opportunity to build the most modern port in the world, so it will be extremely cost-competitive with any other port,” he said. “This project will be very beneficial to the citizens of South Carolina and Georgia. We need to prepare ourselves today.”
‘A lot of stuff still to figure out’
The Zim Tarragona and the Maersk Wolfsburg, container ships steaming, respectively, to and from the Port of Savannah, dwarf the Boston Whaler piloted by Jason Ball. He idled the engine one recent cloudy morning to let pass the megaships. Just beyond, on the other side of the Savannah River, sat South Carolina and the 4.5-mile stretch of barren shoreline where the Jasper port may be built.
Ball, 39 and a maritime engineer, hunted for shark’s teeth along the banks of the proposed port as a kid. Today, he’s the top technical guy for the joint port that could one day berth ships at Jasper carrying twice as many containers as the Wolfsburg.
The Georgia Department of Transportation once owned the land in Jasper County, but it deeded the property in 2008 to the Georgia and South Carolina port authorities. Nine million cubic yards of mud will be scooped from the river bottom as part of the Army Corps of Engineers’ plan to deepen the channel to 47 feet. Much of the muck will be deposited on the Jasper site, a cost-saving move that will firm up the ground under the future terminal.
A report released last month by Ball’s engineering firm, Moffatt & Nichol, says the federal government will take eight years to study the Jasper port’s economic and environmental feasibility. Engineers will determine whether the river can go as deep as 54 feet. Construction of the terminal, four-lane road and two rail lines would take an additional five years.
The site sits almost 10 miles from a paved road. It is surrounded by swamp, bird sanctuaries, the river and the Intracoastal Waterway. Wild hogs, alligators and snakes hide amid the wax myrtles and marsh grass.
“There’s a lot of stuff still to figure out. But it’s an opportunity to unify the Southeast and bring two bitter rivals together,” Ball said as an occasional dolphin swam by.
Jasper — envisioned as large as Savannah’s Garden City Terminal — could handle 7 million containers a year; Garden City turned 3.7 million containers last year. Charleston did about half as many.
One study predicts hundreds of new jobs and $210 million in annual wages, an enticing economic impact for one of the poorest corners of South Carolina.
“We’re not suffering for a lot of jobs, but they’re not high-paying jobs,” said Bronco Bostick, the mayor of nearby Hardeeville, S.C. “Anytime you can make $14, $16, $19 an hour, that beats the minimum wage. It would bring a lot of opportunity to the Low Country.”
Savannah is the nation’s fourth-busiest port; Charleston is the nation’s ninth. By 2030, though, each will likely run out of room for the steel containers.
“Over the last 50 years, the container business has grown twice as fast as GDP,” said David Posek, the chairman of the Jasper port board. “As the shipping lines move to these larger ships, Jasper allows us to be the megaship container port on the East Coast.”
Environmentalists, though, who fought the river’s current deepening, can’t fathom further degradation of the Savannah River. Nearly half of the $706 million |
after the former was caught driving into Saudi Arabia from across the Emirati border.
A source close to the case told The Times: "Everyone is shocked. No one can understand why the government is pursuing the case like this. Saudi Arabia has bigger problems to deal with but Lujain and Maysa are seen as a threat."
Hathlool was driving across the border to raise awareness of the difference in women's rights between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Amoudi, a journalist, was also detained when she came to help.
On Christmas Day, a judge declared that the case should be referred to the terrorist courts, such was the perceived seriousness of the crime.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world where women are banned from driving. Since 2011, a campaign has been launched to overturn the ban, with some women defiantly driving cars in public in protest.
Activists behind the campaign, known as Women2Drive, have posted videos of their members illegally driving inside the Kingdom. Arrests have been made in the past but those convicted have hitherto received only limited punishments, usually a fine or a conduct warning.
A woman in the the Saudi city of Jeddah was arrested for driving in 2011. Only the late intervention of King Abdullah prevented the authorities from publicly flogging her for the offence.National Harbor, Md. — The 15 operational F-35A joint strike fighters grounded by a recent fuel line issue will likely be fixed and able to fly again by the end of the year, the program's director said today.
However, the program office is still assessing how long it will take for a group of 42 jets, in various stages of production, to be repaired — among them the first two Israeli F-35A models, scheduled for delivery in December.
Lt. Gen. Chris Bogdan, the head of the F-35 Joint Program Office, said at the Air Force Association's annual conference that contractor Lockheed Martin is preparing to test a potential fix on a ground-test aircraft next week. If that fix works, Lockheed will send a set of eight teams out to the field the following week to start repairing the jets.
Click here for our coverage of the 2016 Air Force Association conference.
Thirteen F-35A models used by the US Air Force, as well as two for the Norwegian Air Force, were grounded last week due to the coolant line issue. The design of the plane has the coolant lines traveling through where fuel is stored, although only on the outer tip of the wing. The insulation placed around that coolant line to keep it from being affected by the warm fuel was found to be decomposing into the fuel.
The issue was limited to the A models and does not impact the Marine Corps' F-35B model or the Navy's F-35C models.
The solution involves cutting holes in the wings of the jets and removing the bad insulation, as well as cleaning out the potential damage from those pieces floating around. Bogdan downplayed the challenge of cutting into the wing despite the stealthy coating and composite design of the plane, saying there are a number of access panels near the entry point that can also be used.
The Pentagon is working with the supplier to correct the issue, and plans to continue using the supplier in the future because of the number of jets expected to come online in the coming years. And Lockheed will be covering the costs, something Bogdan emphasized to reporters.
"To Lockheed’s credit — write this down, this is important — to Lockheed’s credit, at the highest levels of the corporation, they have committed to doing the right thing, and the definition of doing the right thing is they will pay for all of the engineering and all of the modification for all 52 airplane," Bogdan said.
The general also hit at those who would characterize the insulation issue as part of the long history of issues that have cropped up with the joint strike fighter, saying this was "not a technical issue, it is not a design issue. It is a quality escape from a supplier that supplied us with installation."
International Production Impact
In addition to the operational jets, there are 42 production models which had the flawed lines installed. While getting the operational jets up and flying again is the priority, the JPO plans to start working on those repairs as quickly as possible.
Jets for Italy, Japan, Norway and. perhaps most critically, Israeli planes — including the first two F-35As that the Israeli government expects to have delivered to them in December — are affected.
× Fear of missing out? Fear no longer. Be the first to hear about breaking news, as it happens. You'll get alerts delivered directly to your inbox each time something noteworthy happens in the Military community. Thanks for signing up. By giving us your email, you are opting in to our Newsletter: Sign up for our Early Bird Brief
Those two Israeli jets are the priority fix among the production models, Bogdan said, adding that the JPO still expects to deliver those planes on time. However, he could not give a timeline for when the production models would e fixed, in part because the planes are in various states of assembly.
"Some of them just had their wings put on. Some of them, the wings aren’t even on there yet. So the procedure for fixing those airplanes runs the gauntlet from virtually very little to having to cut holes in wings," Bogdan said. "So we’ll take care of fielded airplanes first, and then the production airplanes."
Given that the Israeli jets are so close to being handed over, it is likely they will require the more intensive fixes of the production jets.Standard thinking for decades has been that geothermal technology is too expensive and inefficient to be a significant source of energy.
But a growing number of experts say the time may be right for geothermal to assume a higher profile, especially in oil-rich Alberta.
The economics of renewable energy projects are improving as governments begin to introduce carbon taxes and other fees on large carbon-emitting facilities, such as coal power plants.
Geothermal power plants turn hot water into electricity. Companies drill underground for water or steam similar to the process of drilling for oil. The heat is brought to the surface and used to spin turbines. The water is then returned underground.
"I think Alberta is perfectly situated to make the technology work," said Todd Hirsch, chief economist with ATB Financial. "All the geothermal energy experts say it is all wrong for Alberta. You have to go down so deep to get any heat. Well actually, we have experience drilling through four miles [6.4 km] worth of rock to get at other things that are valuable."
Hirsch describes geothermal as "a perfectly green, perfectly renewable source of electricity." He also suggests geothermal could be a boon for the province, where companies have had a knack for developing "marginal resources" such as the oilsands.
"I think geothermal energy might be one that Alberta wants to champion specifically because it doesn't work here," said Hirsch. "If we can make it work here in Alberta, then it is a cinch to sell the technology to the Chinese and the Germans and everyone elsewhere geothermal doesn't work."
Alberta lacking program
While no geothermal electricity is currently produced in Canada, companies are trying to build facilities. Some are proposed in B.C. and Saskatchewan.
Calgary-based Borealis GeoPower would like to have a project in its home province, but instead is pursuing opportunities in neighbouring B.C. The main reason is because B.C. has a geothermal program in place for companies to develop electricity, while Alberta does not.
"That's a massive hurdle," said Craig Dunn, head geologist with Borealis GeoPower. "With a lack of a geothermal policy for development in Alberta, it makes a number of developers, including ourselves, apprehensive about approaching that market."
A geothermal company wanting to secure the rights to a thermal deposit would have to compete with oil and gas companies for the subsurface permit, since there is no separate program for geothermal, says Dunn.
The Alberta government's Energy Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Borealis GeoPower has geothermal projects under development in Terrace and Kinbasket Lake, B.C.
"I joke it's a great way to make your kids rich. You are creating the infrastructure for a resource that has no fuel costs," said Dunn. "I'm developing something that could be around for generations."
What are the costs?
Geothermal power plants cost more money than natural gas facilities. For some perspective, consider the Neal Hot Springs plant in Oregon that was constructed in 2012 for $139 million for 22 megawatts of production.
The Shepard natural gas power plant in Calgary began operating this year with a total cost of $1.4 billion for 800 megawatts of electricity. In this comparison, the geothermal facility costs three times as much per megawatt of power.
Enbridge, a part-owner of the Neal Hot Springs plant, has said the plant saves about 159,000 tonnes per year of carbon dioxide emissions compared to a similar-sized natural gas facility, and about more than 340,000 tonnes per year compared to a coal power plant.
Coal facilities supply nearly 40 per cent of electricity in Alberta.
While the NDP government has yet to announce a specific policy, the party ran on a campaign platform in the recent election pledging to phase out coal.
Premier Rachel Notley has announced an increase to the province's carbon pricing rules and is expected to announce significant climate change policies this year. Such changes improve the economics of renewable energy projects, such as geothermal.
"It requires a long-term vision to develop," said Dunn. "How much do we want to invest in the future?"Image Text: BUSINESS EMPIRE: Musician turned entrepreneur, J2K
A MAN'S most-prized accessory is undoubtedly his footwear. It can make an otherwise ordinary outfit look like a million dollars and give its wearer a confidence (more commonly known as'swag') he failed to unearth barefoot.
So it seems like the obvious place to start as far as business ideas go - and former Roll Deep member, J2K, was more than happy to exploit his fellow brethren's love of footwear with his latest business venture.
In 2012, the rapper turned entrepreneur launched Crep Protect, a spray-on protector for suede, leather, Nubuck and canvas shoes, which has taken the footwear industry by storm.
The product, its name derived from the slang word for trainers, is now stocked at all high street footwear stores including Footlocker and JD Sports plus fashion outlets such as Urban Outfitters and independent stores.
“I still have to pinch myself from time to time because I never thought [the product] would turn around to this extent in this amount of time,” says J2K, real name Jason Black. “Crep Protect has already become a general term for protecting your footwear, it's a bit crazy!”
“I was confident in the product, but as with anything that is new to the market, you can never be totally sure how it will be received and how it will perform once it's out there.”
Black and business partner, Imran Ahmed, came up with the concept for Crep Protect through their “shared passion for kicks and innovation” two years ago.
“Protecting those assets just seemed like the logical thing to do,” he explains.
“We went to Germany to work on developing the product - a hydrophobic solution, which creates a protective barrier that prevents rain and stains from damaging footwear.”
Though the 30-year-old studied business at college, he admits he was a bit out of his comfort zone when forced to market his new product, even though he's been praised for his fruitful efforts on social media.
“I would say it's more of a natural instinct, although I did study business at college, but a lot has changed since then. Things move faster now and you've got to be able to react quicker and be on the pulse.”
And he has seamlessly settled into his new role as an entrepreneur from a successful career as an applauded east London rapper just as quickly.
“I would say the transition has been pretty smooth. I mean, working in music for so long you tend to pick up certain skills if you pay attention, so I apply a lot of what I've learned to this really.”
Black, who “like most kids” had ambitions of being a professional footballer, rose to fame as a member of east London grime collective Roll Deep, headed by fellow east Londoner Wiley and comprised of members Dizzee Rascal and Tinchy Stryder - who have each gone on to have successful solo careers, in the early Noughties.
The group's hits included Good Times and Green Light, which both topped the UK charts in 2010.
Though he's spent the latter years concentrating on building his entrepreneurial empire, Black, whose dad and uncles were also heavily involved in music, “particularly sound systems” throughout their youth, hasn't ruled out a return to the studio in the future.
“Hopefully soon I'm about to get back in the studio and put together a project with [UK singer] Roses Gabor to drop over the next couple of months. Just a nice little warning,” he laughs.
And on the subject of Wiley, he adds: “Actually, Wiley's been sending me some ideas he's had recently, but as far as a Roll Deep project, I'm not sure about that at this moment in time, but who knows.”
The musician, who cites Little Simz, Fekky, Wretch 32 and Angel amongst some of his favourite UK artists, says he’s happy with the state of music in his hometown.
“The UK scene is making some nice noise right now and I like that the powers have no choice but to take notice and stop fronting on it.
“I think changes are being made slowly. I would just like to speed that process up and make sure the right people get the right recognition,” he continues.
But as for his own immediate future, he is focusing squarely on the success of Crep Protect “and the latest product in our line, a cleaner kit called The Cure.”
“I have lots of ideas for the company, but it's still early days despite how quickly we've grown. I want to focus on what's in front of me for the time being and give that my full attention. I don't want to get complacent.”
On the growing number of music artists moving into business while balancing successful careers, does he believe entrepreneurship offers more stability than music?
“It can do if you're successful with it, but otherwise, it's almost the same as being an artist where you have to come up with the ideas, you resource it and you become responsible for the outcome. It's all a risk at the end of the day.
“With everything, you have your good days and your bad days, high points and low points. It's just a blessing to be able to have your thoughts and your ideas received positively. But I will say that music has allowed me to do all of this in the first place and that's something I will always do regardless,” he says.Jeremy Shuler, who was home-schooled by his aerospace engineer parents, is settling in at Cornell University and finding classes ‘kind of easy so far’
When he was two, Jeremy Shuler was reading books in English and Korean. At six, he was studying calculus. Now, at an age when most children are attending middle school, the exuberant 12-year-old is a freshman at Cornell University, the youngest the Ivy League school has on record.
“It’s risky to extrapolate, but if you look at his trajectory and he stays on course, one day he’ll solve some problem we haven’t even conceived of,” said Cornell engineering dean Lance Collins. “That’s pretty exciting.”
Campus novels: six of the best books about university life Read more
Jeremy is the home-schooled child of two aerospace engineers who were living in Grand Prairie, Texas, when he applied to Cornell. While Jeremy’s elite-level SAT and advanced placement test scores in math and science at age 10 showed he was intellectually ready for college, Collins said what sealed the deal was his parents’ willingness to move to Ithaca. Jeremy’s father, Andy Shuler, transferred from Lockheed Martin in Texas to its location in upstate New York.
“I wanted to make sure he had a nice, safe environment in terms of growing up,” Collins said.
With his bowl-cut hair and frequent happy laughter, Jeremy is clearly still a child despite his advanced intelligence. He swung in his chair while his parents, who he calls Mommy and Daddy, recounted his early years during an interview at the engineering school where his grandfather is a professor, his father got his doctorate and Jeremy is now an undergraduate.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jeremy Shuler, 12, with his parents Andy and Harrey. Photograph: Mike Groll/AP
“From the beginning, he was physically advanced, very strong,” said Harrey Shuler, who has a doctorate in aerospace engineering but put her career on hold to home-school Jeremy. He fixated on letters and numbers at three months old, knew the alphabet at 15 months, and was reading books on his own at 21 months in English and Korean, his mother’s native language.
When he was five, he read “The Lord of the Rings” and “Journey Through Genius: The Great Theorems of Mathematics” on his own. Enrolling him in kindergarten was pointless.
“We were concerned about him socialising with other kids,” his mother said. “At the playground he was freaked out by other kids running around screaming. But when we took him to Math Circle and math camp, he was very social. He needed someone with similar interests.”
University league tables 2017 Read more
Jeremy nodded vehemently at that, saying his closest friends are from the math discussion groups. “One of my Math Circle friends actually wrote Minecraft for Dummies,” he said, adding that the computer game is one of his favourite pastimes, along with reading science fiction.
He said he’s settling in to college life.
“I was nervous at first, but I’m a lot more excited than nervous now,” he said, adding that he’s already made a couple of friends. “As Mommy said, all the kids in math camp were older than me, so I’m used to having older friends. As long as they like math.”
He’s enjoying the classes, especially the theoretical discussions, he said. “The classes are kind of easy so far, but I know they’ll be harder pretty soon.”
That’s an important thing to keep in mind, according to others with experience in early college. Joe Bates, founder of Singular Computing in Newton, Massachusetts, and a leading researcher in artificial intelligence, entered Johns Hopkins University when he was 13. Now 60, Bates said college was liberating after conventional schooling that always bored him.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jeremy Shuler on campus in Ithaca. Photograph: Mike Groll/AP
“It was actually the first time it was fun and interesting to be in school,” Bates said. On a social level, he felt more at home with his nerdy college classmates than he had with junior high students.
“If I were to give Jeremy any advice, it would be that it can be hard and you should not assume you can manage everything,” Bates said, recalling how distressed he was when he found himself struggling with his doctoral studies at Cornell engineering.
“You should truly keep your parents and advisers informed, and ask them for help. It’s not going to be like before, when you could just do everything.”
As for the future, Jeremy plans to just keep on learning. “I want to pursue a career in academia,” he said.SNAFU – Military slang, likely American or British and of WWII origin, meaning, “Situation Normal: All Fucked Up.”
The continuing tale of the US Navy commander accused of passing counterfeit casino chips at a western Iowa casino continues to be a case of poker-world and tabloid media working hard to not get the story right. Rear Admiral Timothy Giardana was yanked by the Navy from his post as the #2 commander at Offutt Air Force Base, a part of StratCom, the United States’ nuclear command. Giardana’s removal came after an incident involving the passing of three counterfeit $500 chips at the Horseshoe Casino in Council Bluffs, Iowa, near Omaha, Nebraska.
The incident, which occurred in June of 2013, was discovered when casino security verified the fake chips, which had been doctored with purple spray paint to look somewhat like the casino’s real $500 chips. Via surveillance recordings, the casino had been able to determine that Giardana passed the chips. Yet how Giardana obtained them wasn’t quite clear, and the whole tale seemed off for a commander who visited the casino only as a relaxation and diversion from his regular duties.
The final outcome of the case came last week, when the Navy announced, as correctly reported by the Omaha World-Herald, that Giardana had been found guilty of two counts of “conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman” in a military-justice procedure called an admiral’s mast.
Giardana was issued a reprimand and fined $4,000, and he chose not to contest the findings via a court martial, which would be the military’s version of a more formal court proceeding. The reprimand likely ends Giardana’s military career.
What Really Happened
What happened at the casino that night? Giardana apparently stumbled across the fake chips in the men’s restroom, along with what the Omaha World-Herald reported as “gambling vouchers, coupons, and an empty money clip,” and he scooped them, then told a casino supervisor that he’d found some valuables, and would return them if anyone could identify them.
As the night went on and no one claimed the items, he spent the fake chips at the poker tables. Later, when the counterfeits were identified as fake and they were traced back to Giardana, he lied about where he’d gotten them, saying he’d purchased them from another casino customer in the restroom.
That’s a wacky tale, for sure. I think back of all the dozens of times I’ve purchased things from people in restrooms, and… wait… nope, never did that. And of course, security footage would have shown if another punter had been exiting or entering the same restroom at the same time, meaning it was a stupid lie, and a case of very poor judgment by Giardana, which is why he was yanked from his post at Offutt.
Instead, he just found the chips and tried to spend them, likely after the original counterfeiter panicked and tried not to pass them off himself.
Giardana later admitted that he made up the story about buying the chips, but by that time, of course, military investigators had gotten involved, taking over from casino security and local authorities. Giardana was first yanked from his supervisory role in connection with Offutt AFB’s weapons stash, his security clearance suspended. A month later, after some office duty, he was reassigned to Washington D.C. and the Pentagon, and after several months more, the Navy finally reached its decision.
Lies
The odd thing is, despite Giardana’s lies and the very necessary step of his removal from the nuclear-weapons post, the story is incomplete. Giardana is the one who attempted to pass the fake chips, likely not knowing they were fake, and there was definitely a lapse in judgment involved.
However, the question of who actually doctored the chips and brought them to the casino remains unresolved. It’s likely the casino already has assembled a short list of patrons who visited the restroom just prior to Giardana that night, even if who actually dumped the fakes might not have been caught on camera.
The episode in general joins a growing list of fake-chip stories, including the controversial Borgata Winter Poker Open event canceled due to the alleged activities of Christian Lusardi, who awaits trial on that and related matters, and fake-chip episodes that occurred at two or more East Coast casinos, particularly Maryland Live!. There, two separate thirty-something couples have been arrested in connection with the alteration of dollar chips from another casino, changed to look like high-value chips issued by the Maryland facility.
Giardana’s tale is one of the most interesting of the batch, misreported though it was. And it brings up the old saying, “If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.” Giardana never seemed to have considered the possibility that the chips he found were fakes, and that ended up costing him dearly.NEWARK, NJ – Impact100 Essex, a new philanthropic collaborative of Essex County women, has announced it is accepting applications from Essex County nonprofit organizations for a $112,000 grant.
The application and other information are available at www.Impact100Essex.org.
Applications are due December 15, 2017. Finalists will present their proposals on March 1, 2018. The Impact100 Essex members will gather and vote on March 26, 2018, to select the one grant recipient.
Sign Up for E-News
The grant amount was announced at Impact100 Essex’s recent member celebration in Montclair. The philanthropic group succeeded in attracting 112 women, each of whom donated $1,000, to support, and ultimately participate in, the selection for its inaugural award.
https://www.tapinto.net/towns/millburn-slash-short-hills/articles/short-hills-residents-looking-to-make-a-big-impac
“Members had a chance to mix and mingle, and to hear about the road ahead for Impact100 Essex, including details about the grant process, as well as the three things members need to do going forward – tell a friend, tell a nonprofit, and get involved,” said Margo Greenfield of Short Hills, Steering Committee Chair. “From seeing the turnout, the enthusiasm, and the energy of the crowd, spreading the word and participation should be no problem.”
For its inaugural grant, Impact100 Essex is looking for:
Projects in Essex County with high impact – new projects or expansion of existing projects
Projects addressing under-met needs, empowering an underserved constituency
Projects that innovate, deepen or expand an existing mission, resulting in measurable, sustainable change
A plan to spend the grant within 2 years, and evidence that all funding needs will be fully met
Evidence that the idea is effective
Organizations must operate within Essex County, New Jersey and have:
501(c)3 status
Track record of success
At least 3 years in operation
Annual operating budget of at least $100,000
At least 2 years of independently prepared financial statements
Impact100 Essex is not interested in:
Lobbying, partisan, or religious projects
Debt reduction, interim or bridge funding, endowments or fundraising
General operating expenses or overhead
Grants to individuals
About Impact100 Essex
Impact100 Essex is a unique group of philanthropic women who collectively fund high-impact grants to help disadvantaged, impoverished, and underserved populations in Essex County, New Jersey. The grants are provided to nonprofit organizations that complete a rigorous application process and are selected through a membership vote. Impact100 Essex is a component fund of the Community Foundation of New Jersey.
About the Community Foundation of New Jersey
The Community Foundation of New Jersey educates and engages the people of New Jersey on the power of charitable giving to effect positive change in our communities. Since its founding in 1979, the Community Foundation has counseled New Jersey families and businesses on how to use philanthropic funds to target and increase the impact of their giving in the areas that matter most to them. These more than 1,100 Legacy Funds and Donor Advised Funds grant tens of millions of dollars each year, and have enabled the Community Foundation to launch its own Changemaker Projects that are improving New Jersey and its dynamic communities. The Community Foundation’s funds currently hold over $400 million in charitable assets and made over 5,000 grants last year to charitable work in New Jersey and around the world.When you're playing Plants vs. Zombies Garden Warfare 2, we want to make sure that the experience is as fun and rewarding as possible. Whether you're playing in a multiplayer match, the Backyard Battleground, or solo play, you're always earning coins, always earning XP, and always progressing. For every match you complete, for every secret you uncover, you're working on leveling up and promoting your characters.
Let's take a look at how XP and progression works in game:
Earning XP Across Characters
Whatever and wherever you're playing, you're earning experience for your characters. Each character earns XP independently of the others, too. So, if you're playing Kernel Corn, you'll earn experience to advance Kernel Corn, specifically. The more you play each character, the more XP you'll gain to unlock new upgrades and new ways to customize how they play.
Promotions
You can level each character up to level 10, but the fun doesn't end there. After you reach that cap, you can promote your character up to five times in the stats room. This resets them back to Level 1 and gives them a cool new title. They'll also get a new plaque and players will be able to see your accomplishments on the tombstone when you vanquish them. Which, really, is the best kind of bragging rights, isn't it?
The Quest Board
If you're looking to level your characters up quickly, the best thing you can do is to visit the Quest Board in your Backyard Battleground. Pick up quests to complete, and get them done. When you complete a quest, you'll increase your experience multiplier, which means even quicker advancement. There's a ton of Quests, too, including some specifically for the Backyard Battleground and for multiplayer. No matter what area of the game you feel like playing at any given time, you'll be able to complete quests progress.
Player Rank
So, you can advance your characters levels, but what about yourself? Each time you level up a character, you'll also increase in rank, too. You can achieve a maximum Rank of 100 while playing, but much like your characters, when you reach that level, you'll reset back to Level 1 and earn a brand new rank plate. There's no better way to show off your accomplishments and prestige in-game.
Have any questions about how XP and progression works in PvZGW2? Don't hesitate to ask us on Twitter!DENVER (AP) – A long-simmering marijuana driving debate in Colorado appears to be nearing an end. The state House gave unanimous approval Tuesday to a bill setting pot blood limits for drivers.
The proposal has sponsors from both parties who argued that it’s time Colorado finally set a pot driving standard. Colorado legalized marijuana last year along with Washington state. But unlike Washington, Colorado did not set a pot driving limit to go along with legalization.
“We have a problem. The problem is, we have people who are deciding to smoke marijuana and get behind the wheel,” said Rep. Rhonda Fields, D-Aurora.
The bill would say that drivers are too high if their blood contains more than 5 nanograms of THC per milliliter. THC is the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana.
Similar measures have failed three times before in the Colorado Legislature.
This year’s pot driving bill is slightly different because people accused of driving stoned would be able to argue that they were sober despite higher blood levels. Marijuana driving limits in Washington and other states are like drunken-driving laws, where drivers in excess of legal standards can’t claim they were sober.
Colorado’s marijuana driving bill has also been changed to state that police can’t use medical marijuana patient cards as evidence in a driving-high case. A medical-marijuana card also can’t be used as probable cause to test a driver’s blood for THC.
One of the marijuana driving sponsors, House Republican Leader Mark Waller, said the changes were “necessary to get this bill moving forward.”
Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper supports the blood standard for marijuana.
One marijuana advocacy group said the bill still goes too far. The Colorado Springs Medical Cannabis Council argues that frequent pot users have elevated blood levels even when sober and could be ensnared in legal battles to prove they are able to drive.
The head of that group, Jason Warf, said bill opponents are hoping the bill will be defeated in the Senate, where similar bills have failed three times. Warf said the blood standard isn’t necessary because it’s already illegal to drive while impaired, with officer observation the primary evidence in most cases.
“We’ve had 100,000 people driving on cannabis now for over a decade,” said Warf, who doesn’t believe the driving-high problem has increased since legalization.
However, other marijuana industry advocates at the Capitol have dropped organized opposition to the pot DUI standard. Rep. Joseph Salazar, D-Thornton, argued that this year’s version won’t burden legal marijuana users.
“This is a good public safety bill and it takes into consideration the constitutional rights of individuals,” Salazar said.
By KRISTEN WYATT, Associated Press
(© Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)In the deluge of recent media stories about who will lose if Congress repeals the Affordable Care Act (ACA), one crucial provision has received short shrift from journalists: the so-called Cadillac tax, written into the law as a way to raise money for government subsidies for the uninsured.
The Cadillac tax, which will affect nearly everyone with employer-sponsored coverage when it takes effect in 2020, is currently the target of bipartisan repeal efforts. Should the tax be repealed, it is not clear how the government would finance those Obamacare subsidies that it helped fund. Which makes the Cadillac tax central to the nation’s health care concerns, and a valuable focal point for reporters—provided they can parse and then relay its significance.
Architects of the ACA intended the Cadillac tax to rein in overly generous health insurance coverage provided by employers to their workers. The tax takes effect in 2020, at which point the value of health plans above $10,800 (for single-person coverage) and $29,100 (for family coverage) will be taxed at a rate of 40 percent. (Those values include the costs of on-site clinics and employer contributions to health savings accounts.)
The result? “In a few short years, the tax will affect all employer plans,” says Steve Wojcik, a vice president at the National Business Group on Health, which is working to repeal the tax. If employers need to reduce the value of their plans to avoid the tax, then they will need to reduce benefits or increase their workers’ share of the cost, which could result in significant increases in out-of-pocket costs for 177 million workers.
Economists, in particular, wanted the tax; MIT’s Jonathan Gruber, who helped to craft the ACA, even predicted the tax might raise workers’ wages from 2010 to 2019. If employers spent less on rich health benefits, the theory went, they’d pass the savings onto their workers in the form of higher wages.
However, says Wojcik, “The reality doesn’t match the theory.” The Kaiser Family Foundation, for example, reported that, between 2011 and 2016, deductibles for single workers increased by 63 percent while wages increased by only 11 percent.
Sign up for weekly emails from the United States Project
RELATED: What Trump can (and can’t) do to restrict press freedom
You would think a provision with such far-reaching financial consequences for so many people would have sparked more media coverage. It’s hard to say whether that dearth of attention is because taxes are hard to understand or because Cadillac Tax opponents are working behind the scenes in the halls of Congress rather than delivering anecdotes about sick people fearful of losing their coverage, as many Obamacare supporters have recently done. Whatever the reason, the press needs to start explaining the tax, and soon.
There have been a few stories about politicians introducing bills to repeal the tax, like this one from the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which reported that 1.3 million people in Nevada would be hit by the tax. Occasionally, the tax comes up in the context of a broader story about other ACA provisions or taxes, like this one in The New York Times, in which Sen. Orrin Hatch says, “All of the Obamacare taxes need to go as part of the repeal process.”
But explanations of the tax—how it came to pass, whether it will raise revenue and increase paychecks (as its advocates promised) or destabilize the employer insurance market (as James Klein, president of the American Benefits Council, an opponent of the tax, predicts), what might succeed it—have been missing from most coverage so far.
One option for replacing the Cadillac tax is to tax a portion of a worker’s employer-provided coverage. Those benefits are currently exempt from income taxes. But that solution may not help workers very much: Wojcik told the Wall Street Journal, “In the end, [both taxes] would have similar effects,” including pushing companies toward skinnier health plans.
Last week in the Wall Street Journal, Anna Wilde Mathews began to explore such tax proposals. Gary Claxton, a vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, warned that employees’ insurance would have to change, meaning that higher deductibles and narrower provider networks would be coming. Perhaps that’s what the framers of the ACA had in mind. Still, such changes would also affect less generous health insurance packages.
“You could be in a high-deductible health plan and still find the tax would be triggered,” Klein told me. “Plans will trigger the tax, not because benefits are richer, but because the population covered by the plan is more expensive to insure.” That means businesses whose employees have expensive medical care—women of child-bearing age, or older people with greater health care needs, or people with high-cost chronic conditions—are more likely to pay the tax.
Local journalists that can identify such businesses in their communities have an opportunity to present valuable anecdotes and explore the impact of the Cadillac tax in their communities. But such reporting depends on understanding the tax and its consequences.
A few weeks ago, a piece in the Los Angeles Times joined the sizable batch of media stories that have detailed how repealing Obamacare would hurt various groups of Americans. Its headline, “Obamacare repeal would also affect your employer health insurance,” seemed reasonable enough. I moved to the lede, which explained that 31-year-old Stephanie Blythe is expecting a baby in April but has already ordered a breast pump through her insurance company. She is worried about the future of the Affordable Care Act. “Once I have it they can’t take it away from me,” she told the paper. “If I want to continue breast feeding, I’m going to have to pump and do that at work. If it’s something the ACA covers for you, then why not take advantage of it?”
I read on, hoping to find a discussion of the Cadillac tax’s impending impact. The Times focused on other preventive benefits the ACA mandates besides breast pumps: diabetes screenings, folic acid supplements for pregnant women, colonoscopies, contraceptives, counseling for women. The Times told its readers, “Experts say well-woman visits, breast pumps and contraception are in particular danger because they’re on a list of covered preventive services that apply only to women and can be undone without a congressional vote.”
That may be. But if the Cadillac tax takes effect as scheduled, and employers reduce the value of the benefits |
described it as “astonishing” and “gripping” drama that “brings us as close to an understanding of war as cinema can”:
“The distinction between advertising and our award-winning editorial operation has always been fundamental…”Source: Sam Boal/Photocall Ireland
THE GROUP ‘MOTHERS and Fathers Matter’ today launched the No campaign for the upcoming same-sex marriage referendum, asking the question: Why doesn’t this government believe children deserve the love of a mother and father?
A group of four men and three women gathered in front of a room full of journalists, as well as a sizeable group of supporters, to outline their plans for the week ahead and the message they will be trying to get out to the public.
That message is that this referendum is about more than marriage equality and that it will have massive consequences for the rights of Irish children in the future.
Source: Sam Boal/Photocall Ireland
One of the speakers, Dr Tom Finnegan, said “senior politicians and leaders in society have been keen to argue” that there is no connection between this referendum and the issue of children, dubbing this claim “utterly and entirely false”.
Finnegan said a victory for the yes campaign in this referendum will make it impossible for any future government to include a preference in legislation for a child to be with their mother and father.
He said if same-sex couples are to be given equal rights to procreate, then donor-assisted reproduction and surrogacy “become constitutional rights in their own sense”.
This, according to Finnegan, could create a situation whereby two men could create a child “using the genetic material from one woman’s egg, using another woman’s womb or gestation in order to create a child that would be left deliberately motherless from a legal point of view, from a social point of view”.
Source: Sam Boal/Photocall Ireland
Other speakers from the No campaign included Keith Mills, who described himself as “a gay man who is asking people to vote no”.
He said the Irish people were being asked to vote for a fraud – that there is no distinction between the relationship between two men and the relationship between a man and a woman.
“I don’t believe that is true, I have personal experience of both.”
“With a woman, it primarily based in having a family and that is not the case primarily for the case of same-sex unions.”
Ecologist Sam Shephard told reporters that from the perspective of evolutionary biology, the union of a man and woman is actually “really the only approach to marriage that makes much sense” as it protects children by ensuring the people who helped create them are around.
And mother-of-five Kate Bopp referenced statistics that claim to show children who grow up without their fathers are more likely to be in abusive relationships or to end up in prison. She said it was “bizarre” that people are being asked what the problem is with a baby being taken out of the arms of its mother and “placing that baby into the hands of two unrelated men”.
Meanwhile, Director of Elections for the Fine Gael Marriage Equality Campaign, Minister Simon Coveney, said it is incumbent on all sides in the referendum debate to “stick to the facts”.
“This referendum is solely about extending the right to marry to same-sex couples. Nothing more. Issues around parenting and guardianship and the fundamental need to always protect children is dealt with in the Children and Family Relationships Bill along with other legislation,” he said. “These protections are not changed at all by this Referendum. To speak about children in this context by the No campaign is entirely inappropriate.”By Tony Maglio
(Updated with comment from DirecTV on April 7 at 7.40 p.m. PT)
Don’t be like DirecTV, the Better Business Bureau’s National Advertising Division (NAD) says.
The watchdog group has recommended that DirecTV discontinue its popular Rob Lowe ads, which feature the handsome actor taking on what the commercial group called “one of several odd or awkward alter-ego characters.” The ads that always end with Lowe’s spoken tagline, “Don’t be like this me — Get rid of cable and upgrade to DirecTV,” may not be long for your small screen, thanks to a complaint filed by cable provider Comcast Corporation.
The NAD found that several of the ad campaign’s claims could not be substantiated, or were even flat-out unfair.
“While humor can be an effective and creative way for advertisers to highlight the differences between their products and their competitor’s, humor and hyperbole do not relieve an advertiser of the obligation to support messages that their advertisements might reasonably convey — especially if the advertising disparages a competitor’s product,” the NAD said on Tuesday.
Also Read: Duke Basketball Legend Christian Laettner on Being So Hated That ESPN Made a ’30 for 30’ Film About It
The NAD didn’t like the signal reliability claims versus cable that are made in the “Creepy Rob Lowe” commercial, the shorter comparative customer service wait time suggested in the “Painfully Awkward Rob Lowe” spot, and the better picture and sound quality implications drawn in the “Far Less Attractive Rob Lowe” ad.
The group concluded: “Given the absence in the record of supporting evidence, NAD recommended the advertiser discontinue the claims.”
However, “the Rob Lowe campaign was always scheduled to end at the end of Q1,” Jon Gieselman, SVP, Marketing at DirecTV said in a statement to TheWrap. “We wanted to launch our new campaign with Hannah Davis in the Final Four [NCAA basketball championship]. We always reserve the right to bring back the Rob Lowe campaign, either in its current form or with new spots, it has been extremely successful for the brand.”
In its complaint, NAD also felt that the “Scrawny Arms Rob Lowe” commercial conveyed an unsupported message that DirecTV’s sports programming was better than cable’s. Other issues included the “superiority message” of Lowe’s aforementioned closing phrase, as well as DirecTV’s “rated No. 1 claim” and another that states it has been “ranked higher than cable for over 10 years.”
Finally, the NAD recommended that the satellite provider “either discontinue the price claim featured in the ‘Scrawny Arms Rob Lowe‘ commercial or modify it to reflect the price of a package that included the sports programming featured in the commercial.”
Also Read: DirecTV Q4 Earnings Top Expectations on US Subscriber Revenue Growth
In its prior response, DirecTV stated that it “continues to believe that the various Rob Lowe advertisements are so outlandish and exaggerated that no reasonable consumer would believe that the statements being made by the alter-ego characters are comparative or need to be substantiated.”
Further, the company said, DirecTV disagrees with NAD’s findings with respect to its ranking claims, picture quality claims and sports programming claims.
DirecTV plans to appeal, the satellite provider promised.
Watch an example of the Lowe DirecTV spots in question:
Related stories from TheWrap:
Adam Brody Talks ‘Billy & Billie’ Incest Label, Jokes About Co-Star’s F-Bombs: ‘It’s a Wonderful Word’ (Video)
FTC Accuses DirecTV of Deceiving Customers About PricingUpdate at bottom: Senior intel official concedes Congress was misled
From The Hill:
The CIA misled Congress at least five times since 2001, according to Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee.
The Democrats said CIA officials had either lied or withheld information from Congress. They also said CIA officials did not fully inform Congress about the use of enhanced interrogation techniques during a September 2002 briefing, which would validate House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) claim that she was lied to about the program.
The ongoing probe found the practice of incomplete briefings or outright lying was part of a “large disease” of misinforming even the chairmen of the select intelligence committees, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) said at a Tuesday press briefing that highlighted the early findings.
Schakowsky and Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) are leading two subcommittees investigating the legitimacy of intelligence briefings to Congress.Sheldon Adelson and the Koch Brothers really want to buy the next presidency, and they're agreeing to go halvsies to prove it.
0 SHARES Share Tweet
LAKE GEBROCHEN-DEMOKRATIE, FLORIDA — It was no secret during the 2012 presidential election season that both casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson and oil industry billionaires Charles and David Koch all wanted to buy the next president. The three combined to spend close to a billion dollars — if not more — attempting to purchase for themselves a shiny, new robotic president by the name of Mitt Romney. While the exact sum that Adelson and the Kochs contributed in their attempt to purchase controlling interest in the next president is unknown, what is known is that it simply was not enough, and the country ended up “electing” Barack Obama to a second term instead of giving the three mega-rich, old white men the presidency they so clearly had earned by giving away a ton of money.
But 2016 will be different, at least according to the Kochs and Adelson. “What we realized,” Adelson said at a fundraising dinner he held at a hotel in Lake Gebrochen-Demokratie, Florida, “is that Davey, Chuck and I were spending money separately, dividing our purchasing our power. We took a look around and decided to share costs. We’re going to go Dutch this time around.” Adelson told the attendees at the dinner — who all paid at least $15,000 a plate for the choice of chicken, beef, or fish and rice pilaf and a chance to listen to an octogenarian billionaire tell them why he would help make the country safe to be a billionaire with so much money your great-great-great-great-great-great grandchildren could never spend trough it all. “The three of us will make sure — as the country’s newly minted oligarchic financial backers of your new president — that once again insanely, filthy rich people can once again feel secure in the knowledge that their blessed earthly fortunes will be protected from the thieving hands of the government daring to ask for a few more pennies on the dollar.”
At a separate fundraising event in Iowa, Charles Koch told a room full of donors that his brother and he were quite excited to be teaming-up with Adelson. “We held a lot of meetings and came to the conclusion that the three of us have so many of the same goals in mind — chiefly ensuring that the nation’s economy continue to be rigged to punish the working class while the elite financier class that is taxed at a wholly different rate, thereby making the income tax rate almost a moot point, keeps getting richer and richer and richer, sucking up even more of the nation’s wealth.” Koch said that “Shel and I will personally ensure that the president we buy will do our bidding — er I mean will listen to the voice of the people, or whatever.”
A third, even more expensive fundraiser was being held in New Hampshire by David Koch, who told donors at that dinner that he knows “Chuck, Shel and I will be able to deliver the goods this time” because “the moochers won’t have their Dear Leader to inspire them” and “we’ve done a good job helping push poll taxes — er we mean voter ID laws — in some key swing states” and that “in the worst case scenario we will just buy the property the White House is on and evict any Democrat who lives there.”
“I’m tremendously excited about this partnership,” Adelson told his audience. “After all, isn’t unity, and teamwork what this country was built on? Well, the Kochs and I are teaming up to make sure the agenda our government follows the next twenty or thirty years ensures future generations of Kochs and Adelsons will be in charge of the purse strings too, and isn’t that really what the founders intended — a system of government where the super rich control everything? I think so. And you do too. Don’t you,” he asked the crowd, that three thousands of hundred dollar bills in the air — a traditional sign of agreement from large groups of affluent people, creating a loud, fluttering sound unlike bourgeois clapping produces.
James' newest satirical compilation is out now and available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and soon at WalMart.com.Seeking to quell growing criticism and public attention, "Late Night" host Jimmy Fallon has apologized for his house band's understated musical attack on Rep. Michele Bachmann on Monday night.
"I'm honored that @michelebachmann was on our show yesterday and I'm so sorry about the intro mess. I really hope she comes back," Fallon wrote on Twitter Tuesday night.
When Bachmann, who appeared as a guest on Fallon's show, walked across the stage to take her seat next to the host's desk, The Roots played the opening of a song by Fishbone called "Lyin' Ass Bitch."
While the audience only heard a "la la" refrain, the message was sent. Before the show, the band's drummer, Questlove tweeted, "aight late night walkon song devotees: you love it when we snark: this next one takes the cake. ask around cause i aint tweeting title."Cost of homelessness: Governments will save money by spending on accommodation services, study finds
Updated
It is significantly cheaper for governments to provide last-resort housing than to have people continuing to sleep on the streets, new research commissioned by the University of Melbourne has found.
For the first time, the cost of homelessness in Victoria has been costed at $25,615 per person per year, covering health, crime and other factors, research conducted by SGS Economics and Planning found.
With 7,600 Victorians living on the streets, that represents an annual cost of $194 million.
Despite projected one-off costs of $60,000 to create each emergency accommodation bed, economists calculated that the investment would result in savings of $10,800 per year when calculated over 20 years.
Lead author of the report Ellen Witte believes the findings should drive further government investment in emergency accommodation for the homeless.
"We hope that this will make clear to the Government that if you provide people with a roof over their heads there will be a lesser demand and impact on emergency services, on healthcare, on the police force because there will be a reduction of crime and, last but not least, it will greatly improve the quality of life of the people involved," she said.
Getting people off the streets was calculated to have the following economic benefits per person:
Type of cost Savings per year, per bed Health cost $8,429 Reduced crime $6,182 Individual costs $6,500 Improved human capital $4,236 Other $268 Total $25,615
Source: SGS Economics and Planning
The report found investment in last-resort housing had a cost-benefit ratio of 2.7 - that is, for every $1 spent on housing rough sleepers society would derive $2.70 worth of benefits over a 20-year period.
Last-resort housing consists of legal rooming and boarding houses, emergency accommodation and transitional housing.
The number of people sleeping rough in Melbourne has increased by 70 per cent since 2014, and over the same time the number of beds available to the homeless has also plummeted.
A survey of rough sleepers in 2016 found there were 247 people sleeping rough on the streets of Melbourne compared to 142 in 2014.
In the last four years, 460 beds have been taken off the emergency accommodation market as rooming houses are redeveloped to cash in on the housing boom.
Another 110 beds will soon be gone - including 80 at the Gatwick Hotel in St Kilda.
Melbourne City Mission's Sherri Brounhout said being able to monetise homelessness was a significant development.
"We've known for a long time that homelessness has a huge impact on both the individual and the community but to now be able to monetise that and put it in a level that we can understand... that's a game changer," she said.
Victorian Housing Minister Martin Foley welcomed the report, but said it came as no surprise.
"We know that every dollar invested is a dollar that we're going to save in health, in justice and in the prison system," he said
"We welcome anything that helps quantify not just what's the right thing to do socially, but the right thing to do economically."
Mr Foley said the report affirmed the Victorian Government's decision to spend $30 million over three years to improve rooming houses.
"We would see this report as backing in our already $646 million worth of investment in the last year in housing and homelessness support," he said.
Topics: homelessness, community-and-society, states-and-territories, state-parliament, housing, melbourne-3000
First postedThe opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not represent the views of Townhall.com.
If conservatives made it through eight years of Obama, liberals can make it through eight years of Trump. Of course, as a general rule, conservatives aren’t snowflakes who whine about being triggered and desperately need safe spaces to cope with the fact that there are people who disagree with them. Liberals tend to be a bit more fragile. So when something upsets their little world, things can go sideways quickly, which makes for amusing reading for the rest of us.
1) Trump’s Election Stole My Desire To Look For A Partner: “Once it was clear that Donald Trump would be president instead of Hillary Clinton, I felt sick to my stomach. I wanted to gather my children in bed with me and cling to them like we would if thunder and lightning were raging outside, with winds high enough that the power might go out. The world felt that precarious to me.
...That urge to cling to my family while keeping our foundation strong didn’t mesh well with continuing to date the man I’d been seeing. He also has a daughter. He, too, had been feeling a lot of the same emotions I was experiencing: hopelessness; fear; uncertainty about the future; panic over having to talk to my 9-year-old about anything that might come up at school, or what to do in the instance of sexual assault. But I couldn’t reach out to him anymore. He was too new, too unfamiliar.
My focus had to be on my community of friends that are my family. I need to fiercely love the people close to me instead of learning to love someone new. To reach out to others could weaken the bonds that hold my family together.
‘I can’t,’ I told him. ‘I just can’t.’
I’ve lost the desire to attempt the courtship phase. The future is uncertain. I am not the optimistic person I was on the morning of Nov. 8, wearing a T-shirt with ‘Nasty Woman’ written inside a red heart. It makes me want to cry thinking of that.
2) How I Ended Up In A Psych Ward On Election Night: “I found out Donald Trump had won the Electoral College while midstream in providing a urine sample for the emergency psychiatric staff of a New York City public hospital. The unlockable bathroom door in this unescapable wing was ajar, and I could hear the victorious Mike Pence’s sinister Sunday-school baritone taunting me with the truth from the hallway television.
...Terror drove me to this interrupted state. I was afraid for the nation, for the stigmatized and oppressed. I was also afraid for my own life. Because the values and principles I hold dear felt fatally incompatible with the hate and bigotry that Trumpism had come to stand for. I did not want to live in a world that would elect such a man as president.
I tumbled from quite the perch of high expectations. An official ‘Hillblazer,’ I raised $187,000 for Hillary Clinton and down-ballot Democrats, mostly by selling tickets to events headlined by first-name-basis gay icons — Cher, Barbra, Hillary herself.”
3) The Post-Trump Haircut: (This story from NYMag quotes multiple women) “’I cried for three days,’ the Atlanta native, 45, recalls. ‘I felt like it was the worst thing, politically, that ever happened in my lifetime. It was catastrophic.’ By Friday she noticed grays growing in, so she put on her big-girl panties and dragged herself to the drugstore. ‘Literally without thinking, I grabbed the Natural Black box by Garnier,’ she says. ‘I was like, f** it! The election deadened my soul. I think I wanted to do something defiant to feel stronger.’
...Over at Georgetown Salon & Spa, one of the most exclusive salons in D.C., much-sought-after colorist and stylist Mariangela Moore has witnessed this ‘take control’ movement daily for the past month. ‘One of my clients said, “Think of Melania Trump and go in the opposite direction,” she says. ‘She said, “I don’t want to be that person people see as sexual, I want to be seen as strong.”
...George Washington University teaching instructor Dr. Kristian Henderson had been battling with her hair for years, but after the election, she finally took off her weave and cut it all off. ‘The election results felt like an attack on minorities, women, and marginalized people in general. Having long hair was my attempt to fit into society, so after the election, I felt a need to exert my “uniqueness” and not tie my femininity to the length of my hair,’ she says.”
4) Rutgers University Professor Sent To Psych Ward Due To Anti-Trump Tweets: “A Rutgers University professor said police arrived at his Brooklyn home Tuesday (Nov.15) and took him (to) Bellevue Hospital’s psych ward at the request of campus officials due to his anti-Trump tweets.
‘Rutgers police told them I’m a threat based on political statements I’ve made on campus and on Twitter,’ Kevin Allred later tweeted after the authorities arrived.
...Allred, who teaches gender studies and has merited national attention because of his Beyonce course titled ‘Feminist Perspectives: Politicizing Beyoncé,’ told the Daily News he was placed in a van and sent to the hospital. Allred said he stayed at Bellevue’s psych ward for two hours before it was deduced he doesn’t have any mental health issues.
...In a Tweet posted to Allred’s account the day after Donald Trump was elected, Allred speaks of what he would do if (he) saw a Trump supporter.
‘If I see any Trump bumper stickers on the road today, my brakes will go out and I’ll run you off the road.’”
5) Faking Hate Crimes: “The first one to really go viral involved a Muslim female student at the University of Louisiana who claimed to have had her hijab ripped off and her wallet stolen the day after Trump's election by two white men wearing Trump hats. But on Thursday, local police announced that the young woman had admitted she fabricated the story. 'This incident is no longer under investigation,' the Lafayette Police Department said in a press release.
...And an alleged incident of a gay man named Chris Ball getting beaten up by Trump supporters in Santa Monica on election night seems to have not happened the way it was initially recounted, if the incident even happened at all. The Santa Monica Police Department posted a message to Facebook Thursday saying that neither the department nor city officials had'received any information indicating this crime occurred in the City of Santa Monica' and 'a check of local hospitals revealed there was no victim of any such incident admitted or treated.'
....In one of the widely-shared stories, a black woman claimed that four white men had threatened her while she was pumping gas at a Smyrna, Delaware, gas station Wednesday. After talking about things would change now that Trump was president, one of the men allegedly approached her and asked, 'How scared are you, black b*tch?' before saying 'I should kill you right now. You're a waste of air.' Another of the men allegedly flashed a gun and said, 'You're lucky there's witnesses or else I'd shoot you right here.'
The woman, Ashley Boyer, posted about this awful incident on Facebook in an update that was since deleted; on Thursday, she followed up by noting that 'charges were filed, fugitives were caught.' But when PhillyVoice contacted Smyrna police Thursday, the department said no report about such an incident had been filed and no one had contacted them about anything similar. So PhillyVoice reached out to Delaware State Police... who reported that no neighboring police agencies had received any such reports either, and there was no record of any local 911 calls about such an incident. 'There is no record of this occurring in Smyrna, if at all,' said Corporal Brian Donner of the Delaware State Police.
The second alleged incident, out of Minnesota, involved an Asian college student named Kathy Mirah Tu who said she was accosted by a white man while crossing a bridge on the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities campus. 'I was stop in my tracked by a white male, who yelled at me to “Go back to Asia,’'' Tu posted to Facebook, in an update that had received more than 17,000 shares as of Thursday evening. 'I pretended to not hear any thing and continue on walking since I didn't want to create conflict. Shortly after that moment, I was stopped by that same man who told me 'Don't you know it's disrespectful to walk away from someone when they are talking to you?' After that, the man grabbed Tu's wrist and threatened to hit her so she punched him, according to her post. 'His friends who were watching the entire situation go down saw that I was going to the win fight and came over to his rescue and accused me of assaulting him and called the police.'
According to Tu, the police arrived and handcuffed her but eventually let her off with a warning. Yet neither the campus police nor the Minneapolis Police Department have any record of the incident Tu describes. 'We heard complaint from student related 2 Wash bridge yestdy, UMPD didnt respond to bridge or make an arrest,' the University of Minnesota Police Department tweeted Thursday, also asking Tu or anyone who did know about the alleged incident to come forward.”Greetings Citizens and Civilians, and welcome to episode 41 of Guard Frequency, the universe’s premier Star Citizen podcast recorded on 4th October 2014 and released for streaming and download on Tuesday 7th October 2014 at GuardFrequency.com [Download this episode]
Lennon’s back this week and joined by Tony and Geoff for another episode of the universe’s premier Star Citizen podcast. In this week’s Squawk Box, we let Tony get something off his chest that all of us here at Guard Frequency strongly agree with — why #GamerGate needs to go away. In CIG News we bring you everything that’s happening around the UEE, including our weekly Crowd Funding Update, the latest Letter From The Chairman ($55m), September’s Monthly Report and 10 For The Chairman episode 39. In Nuggets for Nuggets, prepare to hide under the blankets (or start sharpening your blades) as we let you know everything there is to know about humanity’s nemesis, the Vanduul. Finally, we tune into the Feedback Loop and let you join in on the conversation.
Topics Discussed
This Week’s Community Questions
How would you like procedural generation to work? Fully customisable, persistent maps like Minecraft IN SPAAAAACE, or something less ruinable by players? What challenges do you think the CIG team will face in trying to implement procedural generation?
Let us know your thoughts by commenting below!
View our post for the episode on the RSI forums.
View the slightly roiling waters of the Reddit/r/StarCitizen post for this episode.
Our Organisation: Guard Frequency Response
Click here to go to our Organisation page and apply today!
Bonus link
Tales From The Front – Contains a story by ChivalrybeanMelvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus. Writing in the 5th century BC, Heraclitus believed that everything is constantly changing or, as he put it, in flux. He expressed this thought in a famous epigram: "No man ever steps into the same river twice." Heraclitus is often considered an enigmatic thinker, and much of his work is complex and puzzling. He was critical of the poets Homer and Hesiod, whom he considered to be ignorant, and accused the mathematician Pythagoras (who may have been his contemporary) of making things up. Heraclitus despaired of men's folly, and in his work constantly strove to encourage people to consider matters from alternative perspectives. Donkeys prefer rubbish to gold, he observed, pointing out that the same thing can have different meanings to different people.Unlike most of his contemporaries he was not associated with a particular school or disciplinary approach, although he did have his followers. At times a rationalist, at others a mystic, Heraclitus is an intriguing figure who influenced major later philosophers and movements such as Plato and the Stoics.With:Angie HobbsAssociate Professor of Philosophy and Senior Fellow in the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of WarwickPeter AdamsonProfessor of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy at King's College LondonJames WarrenSenior Lecturer in Classics and a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, University of CambridgeProducer: Natalia Fernandez.
Show lessU.S. marines are in Syria to augment the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS) in the battle for Raqqa, the militant group's de facto capital, having quietly arrived in the country weeks ago, defense officials confirmed to the Washington Post on Wednesday.
About 400 new troops have been deployed overall, in addition to the 500 already on the ground. The plan had been in the works "for some time," according to the Post's Dan Lamothe and Thomas Gibbons-Neff.
The plan also reportedly includes more Special Operations troops and attack helicopters. Lamothe and Gibbons-Neff write:
The force is part of the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which left San Diego on Navy ships in October. The Marines on the ground include part of an artillery battery that can fire powerful 155-millimeter shells from M-777 Howitzers, two officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the deployment.
Although the deployment is temporary, it may be a signal that the Trump administration will give the Pentagon more flexibility in calling the shots in the fight against ISIS, as military commanders had portrayed themselves as being micromanaged under former President Barack Obama, the Associated Press notes.
The Obama administration's still-existing limits say the military can have no more than 503 U.S. forces in Syria—but temporary personnel do not count towards that cap.
SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT Help Keep Common Dreams Alive Our progressive news model only survives if those informed and inspired by this work support our efforts
Although the move does not explicitly confirm that the U.S. will significantly change its fight against ISIS, it comes as President Donald Trump considers a new plan to defeat the group, submitted by the Pentagon last month.
Axios reports that U.S. Central Command chief Gen. Joe Votel will likely testify before Congress about it on Thursday.
The U.S. is also reportedly considering sending an additional 1,000 reserve troops to Kuwait, Reuters reported.
Meanwhile, collateral deaths of civilians continue to climb, with the Airwars monitoring group estimating that more than 2,500 people have been killed as a result of the U.S.-led coalition's air campaign in Syria and Iraq.
A U.S. official told reporters Wednesday that "Raqqa will probably not be the final battle against ISIS."Famitsu Does The Expected, Scores PS4 Launch Titles Highly
Famitsu is a gaming magazine popular in Japan for its news scoops and interviews, while Japanese gamers routinely call their reviews “advertisements.” Despite Japanese gamers not taking Famitsu reviews seriously, they seem oddly popular outside of Japan. And so, here I am posting the scores of PS4 launch titles.
In all, the 11 games are scored out of 40 (by way of four reviewers giving out-of-ten marks), and their total adds up to 384 points, making the average Famitsu review score of a PS4 game 34.9 out of 40. Famitsu’s average review score, upon last calculations, is about 31, with more advertised titles of course getting higher marks. Here’s the full list of games and their scores:
Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag – 9/9/9/9 (Total: 36/40)
Call of Duty: Ghosts – 9/9/9/9 (Total: 36/40)
Dynasty Warriors 8: Xtreme Legends – 9/10/9/9 (Total: 37/40)
Killzone: Shadow Fall – 8/8/8/8 (Total: 32/40)
Knack – 6/7/8/7 (Total: 28/40)
NBA 2K14 – 9/9/9/9 (Total: 36/40)
Nobunaga’s Ambition: Creation – 10/9/9/8 (Total: 36/40)
Resogun – 9/8/9/7 (Total: 33/40)
Strider – 9/8/8/9 (Total: 34/40)
Tomb Raider – 9/9/9/10 (Total: 37/40)
Yakuza: Ishin – 9/10/10/10 (Total: 39/40)
The PS3 version of Yakuza: Ishin was scored one point lower than its PS4 counterpart.
Sony’s PlayStation 4 will launch in Japan on Saturday, February 22nd.
[Source]Tracy Fullerton (born June 21, 1965) is an American game designer, educator and writer. She is a Professor in the USC Interactive Media & Games Division of the USC School of Cinematic Arts and Director of the Game Innovation Lab at USC. In 2014 she was named Director of the USC Games Program, an interdisciplinary collaboration between the School of Cinematic Arts and the Viterbi School of Engineering at USC.[1] From 2010 to 2017, she served as Chair of the USC Interactive Media & Games Division.
Biography [ edit ]
In December 2008, she was installed as the holder of the Electronic Arts Endowed Chair of Interactive Entertainment at USC.[2] Fullerton is the author of Game Design Workshop, a textbook advocating a playcentric design process. She was also faculty advisor for the award-winning student games Cloud and flOw, and game designer for The Night Journey, a game/art project in production with media artist Bill Viola, and Participation Nation, a game to teach Constitutional history being produced in collaboration with KCET and Activision. Her project, Walden, a game, was supported by a media arts grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, one of the first video game projects to be awarded such a grant,[3] as well as the National Endowment for the Humanities.[4]
Prior to joining the USC faculty, she was president and founder of the interactive television game developer, Spiderdance, Inc. Spiderdance's games included NBC's Weakest Link, MTV's webRIOT, The WB's No Boundaries, History Channel's History IQ, Sony Game Show Network's Inquizition and TBS's Cyber Bond. Before starting Spiderdance, Fullerton was a producer and creative director at the New York design firm R/GA Interactive. While there, she created games and interactive products for clients including Sony, Intel, Microsoft, AdAge, Ticketmaster, Compaq, and Warner Bros. among many others. Her projects include Sony's Multiplayer Jeopardy! and Multiplayer Wheel of Fortune and MSN's NetWits, an early multiplayer casual game launched in 1996.[5] Additionally, Fullerton was Creative Director at the interactive film studio Interfilm, where she wrote and co-directed the "cinematic game" Ride for Your Life, which starred Adam West and Matthew Lillard.[6] She began her career as a designer at Robert Abel's company Synapse, where she worked on the interactive documentary Columbus: Encounter, Discovery and Beyond and other early interactive projects.
Fullerton's work has received numerous industry honors including an Emmy nomination for interactive television, best Family/Board Game from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, I.D. Magazine's Interactive Design Review, Communication Arts Interactive Design Annual, several New Media Invision awards, iMix Best of Show, the Digital Coast Innovation Award, IBC's Nombre D'Or, Time Magazine's Best of the Web, IndieCade's Festival of Independent Games, The Hollywood Reporter's Women in Entertainment Power 100 and Fortune's 10 Powerful Women in Videogames.[7]
Fullerton appeared in Danny Ledonne's documentary Playing Columbine.
She is the cousin of television, novel, comic and game writer Charlotte Fullerton.
Walden, a game [ edit ]
In Walden, a game, Tracy Fullerton designed a conceptual, experiential game that simulates the philosophy of living the simplified experience articulated by Transcendental author, Henry David Thoreau. It puts Thoreau's ideas about life into playable form.[8] The game exemplifies Fullerton's design methods, where she encourages designers to find inspiration in ideas and activities that have meaning to them and then see where that leads rather than rely on standard genres and design solutions. She says "Serendipity is a great design strategy, and letting yourself recognize that you've found something great even though you weren't looking for it."[9] Walden, a game was released on Itch.io on July 4, 2017 and subsequently named Game of the Year and Most Significant Impact at the 2017 Games for Change awards.[10]
Writings [ edit ]
Awards [ edit ]It's finally over: Donald Trump has secured 304 Electoral Votes following the Texas vote (with 2 faithless electors), officially securing the presidency of the United States. Of course, the now official President-Elect Trump took to twitter to confirm the victory:
We did it! Thank you to all of my great supporters, we just officially won the election (despite all of the distorted and inaccurate media). — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 19, 2016
Texas' 36 electoral votes for Trump pushed him over the edge at around 4:30 Central Time, even though two rogue electors' defections deprived Trump of one of those votes. That gave Trump 304 total electoral votes.
A quick recap of the day's events from the WSJ:
Members of the Electoral College meeting in state capitals across the country on Monday confirmed President-elect Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 election, ending a last-ditch campaign to deny him the presidency. Mr. Trump amassed at least 270 electoral votes on Monday afternoon—enough to officially become the president-elect over his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, according to a tally of votes by the Associated Press. Typically just a formality, this year’s Electoral College vote attracted an outsize amount of attention after a group |
they see through my clothes?” You didn’t get that vibe?
LeVar Burton:That is the VISOR. Glass isn’t that sophisticated yet.
Photo credit: Luis Gomez, KPCC
Rico Gagliano: That’s what you were doing the whole time on “Next Gen”? You were just looking at people naked?
LeVar Burton: Yep, I was just lookin’ at naked people.
Rico Gagliano: I’m gonna watch that show differently now. By the way, there’s something in that box, isn’t there?
LeVar Burton: Yes: I am asked all the time, “Could you see out of the VISOR?” And so I brought the VISOR to demonstrate just how difficult it was to see. This is the box, by the way, that the VISOR was delivered in by the propmaster, Charlie Russo, every time. It’s a wooden box. It’s got a little brass plate on it that says “Geordi LaForge”.
Rico Gagliano: You better hold on tight to that, by the way, after the show —
LeVar Burton: I will cut you, Rico!!
Rico Gagliano: …It’s not just gonna be me, man; I think about half the audience is gonna bum rush you for that.
LeVar Burton: So, this is the VISOR, and it is molded to my face. It’s a piece of machined metal. Here’s the thing: We screwed the Visor into my head. For the folks at home, there are two cotter keys that… one goes clockwise, the other goes counter-clockwise… [he turns screws on each side of the VISOR into his temples] and I am literally screwing that puppy down.
Brendan Francis Newnam: Wow. Does that hurt at all?
Aubrey Plaza: He’s shaking his head around and it’s not falling.
LeVar Burton:Thank you for the play-by-play, Aubrey, for the folks at home.
Brendan Francis Newnam: Have you ever worn that at a dinner party?
LeVar Burton: No. Aubrey Plaza: Where’s the weirdest place you’ve worn that? LeVar Burton: In bed with my wife. Aubrey Plaza: Yeah — there it is. That’s what I wanted to hear. LeVar Burton: Warp speed, baby. Warp speed. Warp speed.
Brendan Francis Newnam: Does your wife want ‘warp speed’? Maybe we should talk about that after. That’s another etiquette question — you can submit it and we’ll get someone to answer it.
LeVar Burton: Anyway, Google Glass! Yeah, Google Glass… you know what? Google Glass… it’s a downgrade. It’s a downgrade.
Aubrey Plaza: No!
Rico Gagliano: You’re saying no, no to Google Glass, Aubrey?
Aubrey Plaza: No. Put your dumb glasses away!
Brendan Francis Newnam: Yeah, they look weird. Let’s skip ahead. Next is Hannah? Hannah, are you going to show your face?
Rico Gagliano: We’re not going to give her last name, by request, and you’ll see why in a second.
Hannah: In my defense, I thought that the questions were anonymous, so…
Rico Gagliano: Come on, now, you gave us permission to say your first name.
Brendan Francis Newnam: You asked us not to use your last name, but you’re standing right there.
Hannah writes: “I love my mother dearly, but she has bad breath. Often! Should I just grin and bear it, or should I say something to her? If so, how can I address it without hurting her feelings?”
Aubrey Plaza: [gasps as though realizing something]
Brendan Francis Newnam: Go ahead, Aubrey, you wanna chime in here?
Aubrey Plaza: No, I just had an idea for an app. I did! It’s called the “Bad Breath App.” You just anonymously send a note to someone that has bad breath, and the note comes from the app, but it’s really polite, and gives you links to how to fix it. Someone pay me a million dollars so I can create that, and now everyone will steal it — good-bye.
Brendan Francis Newnam: No; this can be bundled into the Reading Rainbow app, because people read close to each other. Breath is important.
LeVar Burton: Hannah, you’re very close with your mother?
Hannah: Yes.
Brendan Francis Newnam: Too close.
LeVar Burton: Are you certain that it’s your mother that has the bad breath?
Hannah: Yes.
LeVar Burton: Then, you should be able to have that conversation with her. The woman gave birth to you.
Brendan Francis Newnam: What do you do now? Do you give her mints?
Hannah: Occasionally, I’ve been like, “Oh, here’s a piece of gum”.
LeVar Burton: I’d invest in Altoids, if I were you. Send her a bushel. Anonymously, of course!
Rico Gagliano: Using the app, perhaps.
Hannah: Yes. I’ll pay for that app.
Aubrey Plaza: Okay! I really want to do it!
Brendan Francis Newnam: You know, Hannah, if you give us your last name, I don’t think your mom’s breath will bother you anymore.
Rico Gagliano: Yeah — she’ll be out of your life, permanently.
Brendan Francis Newnam: So we can solve that right now.Spanish version
State Representative Lynn Stucky represents House District 64, which includes the cities of Denton, Krum, Corinth, Shady Shores, Hickory Creek, and Lake Dallas.A native of rural Kansas, Dr. Lynn Stucky was raised on a farm with his five siblings. He is a graduate of Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in 1979, followed by his Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine in 1983.Shortly after graduating, Lynn set out for Texas to find a place to begin practicing veterinary medicine. He stopped in Denton County, and he never left. In 1986, he bought into veterinary practices in both Denton and Sanger, and in 1997, he opened the Animal Hospital on Milam Road where he still practices today.Over the course of his 34 years as a veterinarian in Denton County, Lynn has cared for the animals of over 9,000 of his friends and neighbors. He is also a member of the American Veterinary Medical Association, a lifetime member of the Texas Veterinary Medical Association, a former member of the Denton County Animal Advisory Board and the Bayer Animal Health International Advisory Board, and he is a long-time veterinary volunteer for PRCA rodeo events. He was the President of the Denton County Veterinary Medical Association for 6 years.In addition to his work in the veterinary profession, Lynn has distinguished himself as a public servant and a community leader. He served for 15 years on the Sanger ISD Board of Trustees, including 4 years as president. Lynn has also served in a variety of other capacities. He is a graduate of Leadership Denton, served on the Board of Directors of the Sanger Chamber of Commerce for six years, is a long-time member of the Denton Chamber of Commerce, and since 2002 has served on the Board of Directors of the Kanakuk Institute, a graduate discipleship program for young men and women to intensively study scripture. In 2003 & 2007, he was named "Citizen of the Year" by the Sanger Chamber of Commerce.Lynn and his wife, Lori, a former teacher and coach in Denton ISD, will celebrate 30 years of marriage this year. They are the proud parents of three grown children, Evan, Lyndi and Malori. The Stucky Family are members of the Denton Bible Church.HARARE, Zimbabwe (CNN) -- Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai was in stable condition and recovering from head injuries Friday night after a car wreck that killed his wife, Susan, medical sources told CNN.
Tsvangirai and his wife, Susan, were en route to the prime minister's hometown of Buhera.
The crash, on a busy two-lane highway between Tsvangirai's hometown of Buhera and the capital city of Harare, comes just weeks after the start of a power-sharing agreement between Tsvangirai and his political rival, President Robert Mugabe.
Analysts say the crash is bound to raise suspicion of foul play, with one former U.S. diplomat calling for an outside investigation, saying it is not the first time that a political foe of Mugabe has been killed or injured in a car crash.
Members of Tsvangirai's political party, the Movement for Democratic Change, said Friday that it was too early to tell whether the crash is anything other than an accident.
Tsvangirai's aide and driver also were injured in the head-on collision with a large truck, according to his spokesman, James Maridadi.
Movement for Democratic Change spokesman Nelson Chamisa said he spoke to Tsvangirai at the hospital, and the party leader was in "relatively stable" condition. An MDC spokesman describes 'critical' accident »
Sources at The Avenues Clinic in Harare said that Tsvangirai was in stable condition with minor head injuries and that the prime minister was alert and talking. One source said the attending doctor had told him of his wife's death.
Another said that doctors were planning to keep Tsvangirai overnight for observation and that specialists were checking his condition.
Tsvangirai, Zimbabwe's main opposition leader, took office last month under a power-sharing deal with Mugabe after a contentious election.
Tsvangirai's MDC reached the power-sharing agreement with Mugabe in September after months of angry dispute that included violence. More than 200 deaths, mainly those of opposition supporters, were reported leading up to and in the aftermath of the election.
"I'm skeptical about any motor vehicle accident in Zimbabwe involving an opposition figure," said Tom McDonald, the U.S. ambassador to Zimbabwe from 1997 to 2001. "President Mugabe has a history of strange car accidents when someone lo and behold dies -- it's sort of his M.O. of how they get rid of people they don't like." Watch more on the fatal crash »
McDonald cited the 2001 death of Defense Minister Moven Mahachi, Employment Minister Border Gezi's death in 1999 and the death last year of Elliot Manyika, a government minister and former regional governor.
All three died in car crashes.
"This is several," McDonald said. "So, when I hear that Tsvangirai was in an accident, it gives me pause."
McDonald, now an attorney with the Washington law firm Baker Hostetler, urged a full investigation by outside authorities.
One analyst who studies the region said the collision could "exacerbate" the fragile unity government.
"There will undoubtedly be suspicions about the cause of the crash and whether there was foul play involved," said Jennifer Cooke, director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
"At a time when there needs to be confidence-building measures, this incident potentially raises suspicions and undermines the potential for greater cohesion of the government. [There is] huge potential for the agreement to be manipulated by Mugabe."
McDonald, however, was quick to say that traffic accidents are common in Zimbabwe. The highway on which Tsvangirai was traveling is a two-lane road where tractor-trailers are common, vehicles in the country are often in bad shape and drivers often are inexperienced, he said.
"It's certainly plausible that this was just one of those tragic things," he said.
The collision occurred on the Harare-Masvingo Road as Tsvangirai and his wife headed to his hometown of Buhera, south of the capital, Harare, his spokesman said.
The couple, who were married in 1978, have six children, according to the British Broadcasting Corporation.
Last month, Susan Tsvangirai told a BBC affiliate that the past decade had been an "endurance test" for her husband and his MDC colleagues.
"People went through hell, but they stuck to their ideals to seek change through democratic means," she said. "This was a struggle that we endured with MDC cadres, activists, supporters and peace-loving Zimbabweans.
"To them I say thank you so much for the support they gave the MDC to reach this momentous period."
A former miner and union organizer, Morgan Tsvangirai first ran for president in 2002 against Mugabe, who has been the country's leader since it gained independence from Great Britain in 1980.
Since then, Tsvangirai has been charged with treason twice and accused of plotting to assassinate Mugabe. Tsvangirai was arrested and allegedly beaten in 2007. The criminal charges against him were dropped.
CNN's Nkepile Mabuse, Alan Silverleib and Doug Gross contributed to this report.
All About Zimbabwe • Robert Mugabe • Morgan TsvangiraiThe recent decoding of a cryptic cup, the excavation of ancient Jerusalem tunnels, and other archaeological detective work may help solve one of the great biblical mysteries: Who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?
The new clues hint that the scrolls, which include some of the oldest known biblical documents, may have been the textual treasures of several groups, hidden away during wartime—and may even be "the great treasure from the Jerusalem Temple," which held the Ark of the Covenant, according to the Bible.
The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered more than 60 years ago in seaside caves near an ancient settlement called Qumran. The conventional wisdom is that a breakaway Jewish sect called the Essenes—thought to have occupied Qumran during the first centuries B.C. and A.D.—wrote all the parchment and papyrus scrolls.
But new research suggests many of the Dead Sea Scrolls originated elsewhere and were written by multiple Jewish groups, some fleeing the circa-A.D. 70 Roman siege that destroyed the legendary Temple in Jerusalem.
"Jews wrote the Scrolls, but it may not have been just one specific group. It could have been groups of different Jews," said Robert Cargill, an archaeologist who appears in the documentary Writing the Dead Sea Scrolls, which airs Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET/PT on the National Geographic Channel. (The National Geographic Channel is part-owned by the National Geographic Society, which owns National Geographic News.)
The new view is by no means the consensus, however, among Dead Sea Scrolls scholars.
"I have a feeling it's going to be very disputed," said Lawrence Schiffman, a professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University (NYU).
Dead Sea Scrolls Written by Ritual Bathers?
In 1953, a French archaeologist and Catholic priest named Roland de Vaux led an international team to study the mostly Hebrew scrolls, which a Bedouin shepherd had discovered in 1947.
De Vaux concluded that the scrolls' authors had lived in Qumran, because the 11 scroll caves are close to the site.
Ancient Jewish historians had noted the presence of Essenes in the Dead Sea region, and de Vaux argued Qumran was one of their communities after his team uncovered numerous remains of pools that he believed to be Jewish ritual baths.
His theory appeared to be supported by the Dead Sea Scrolls themselves, some of which contained guidelines for communal living that matched ancient descriptions of Essene customs.
"The scrolls describe communal dining and ritual bathing instructions consistent with Qumran's archaeology," explained Cargill, of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
Dead Sea Scrolls: "Great Treasure From the Temple"?
Recent findings by Yuval Peleg, an archaeologist who has excavated Qumran for 16 years, are challenging long-held notions of who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Artifacts discovered by Peleg's team during their excavations suggest Qumran once served as an ancient pottery factory. The supposed baths may have actually been pools to capture and separate clay.
And on Jerusalem's Mount Zion, archaeologists recently discovered and deciphered a two-thousand-year-old cup with the phrase "Lord, I have returned" inscribed on its sides in a cryptic code similar to one used in some of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
To some experts, the code suggests that religious leaders from Jerusalem authored at least some of the scrolls.
"Priests may have used cryptic texts to encode certain texts from nonpriestly readers," Cargill told National Geographic News.
According to an emerging theory, the Essenes may have actually been Jerusalem Temple priests who went into self-imposed exile in the second century B.C., after kings unlawfully assumed the role of high priest.
This group of rebel priests may have escaped to Qumran to worship God in their own way. While there, they may have written some of the texts that would come to be known as the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The Essenes may not have abandoned all of their old ways at Qumran, however, and writing in code may have been one of the practices they preserved.
It's possible too that some of the scrolls weren't written at Qumran but were instead spirited away from the Temple for safekeeping, Cargill said.
"I think it dramatically changes our understanding of the Dead Sea Scrolls if we see them as documents produced by priests," he says in the new documentary.
"Gone is the Ark of the Covenant. We're never going to find Noah's Ark, the Holy Grail. These things, we're never going to see," he added. "But we just may very well have documents from the Temple in Jerusalem. It would be the great treasure from the Jerusalem Temple."
Dead Sea Scrolls From Far and Wide?
Many modern archaeologists such as Cargill believe the Essenes authored some, but not all, of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Recent archeological evidence suggests disparate Jewish groups may have passed by Qumran around A.D. 70, during the Roman siege of Jerusalem, which destroyed the Temple and much of the rest of the city.
A team led by Israeli archaeologist Ronnie Reich recently discovered ancient sewers beneath Jerusalem. In those sewers they found artifacts—including pottery and coins—that they dated to the time of the siege. (Related: "Underground Tunnels Found in Israel Used In Ancient Jewish Revolt.")
The finds suggest that the sewers may have been used as escape routes by Jews, some of whom may have been smuggling out cherished religious scrolls, according to Writing the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Importantly, the sewers lead to the Valley of Kidron. From there it's only a short distance to the Dead Sea—and Qumran.
The jars in which the scrolls were found may provide additional evidence that the Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of disparate sects' texts.
Jan Gunneweg of Hebrew University in Jerusalem performed chemical analysis on vessel fragments from the Qumran-area caves.
"We take a piece of ceramic, we grind it, we send it to a nuclear reactor, where it's bombarded with neutrons, then we can measure the chemical fingerprint of the clay of which the pottery was made," Gunneweg says in the documentary.
"Since there is no clay on Earth with the exact chemical composition—it is like DNA—you can point to a specific area and say this pottery was made here, that pottery was made over here."
Gunneweg's conclusion: Only half of the pottery that held the Dead Sea Scrolls is local to Qumran.
Scroll Theory "Rejected by Everyone"
Not everyone agrees with the idea that Dead Sea Scrolls may hail from beyond Qumran.
"I don't buy it," said NYU's Schiffman, who added that the idea of the scrolls being written by multiple Jewish groups from Jerusalem has been around since the 1950s.
"The Jerusalem theory has been rejected by virtually everyone in the field," he said.
"The notion that someone brought a bunch of scrolls together from some other location and deposited them in a cave is very, very unlikely," Schiffman added.
"The reason is that most of the [the scrolls] fit a coherent theme and hang together.
"If the scrolls were brought from some other place, presumably by some other groups of Jews, you would expect to find items that fit the ideologies of groups that are in disagreement with [the Essenes]. And it's not there," said Schiffman, who dismisses interpretations that link some Dead Sea Scroll writings to groups such as the Zealots.
UCLA's Cargill agrees with Schiffman that the Dead Sea Scrolls show "a tremendous amount of congruence of ideology, messianic expectation, interpretation of scripture, [Jewish law] interpretation, and calendrical dates.
"At the same time," Cargill said, "it is difficult to explain some of the ideological diversity present within some of the scrolls if one argues that all of the scrolls were composed by a single sectarian group at Qumran."
Caves Were for Temporary Scroll Storage?
If Cargill and others are correct, it would mean that what modern scholars call the Dead Sea Scrolls are not wholly the work of isolated scribes.
Instead they may be the unrecovered treasures of terrified Jews who did not—or could not—return to reclaim what they entrusted to the desert for safekeeping.
"Whoever wrote them, the scrolls were considered scripture by their owners, and much care was taken to ensure their survival," Cargill said.This weekend at Newport Folk Festival, Ryan Adams will debut a new acoustic band with The Infamous Stringdusters and Nicki Bluhm joining the fold. The ensemble made a surprise debut at Telluride Bluegrass Festival back in June, performing a host of Adams classics like “To Be Young,” “Let it Ride,” “Oh My Sweet Carolina” and more obscure cuts “Pearls on a String,” “Trains,” “Bartering Lines” and a cover of Dio’s “Holy Diver.”
While this may seem like a unique and out of the blue collaboration, Chris Pandolfi of the Dusters says that while it was a bit “out of left field” for the bluegrass rockers, Adams’ music contains that “old school bluegrass” element that will make it a seamless transition. “It’s going to be rootsy string band meets Ryan Adams with a dash of bluegrass on top,” he says.
Read the rest of Pandolfi’s thoughts below as we check in with him prior to the first gig in Telluride.
This seems like a rather unlikely collaboration, so let’s start with how it all came together.
It was a little out of left field for us and it wasn’t necessarily something we were pursuing or on our radar screen. Needless to say, we’re always up for a cool and different collaboration. This wasn’t something we were seeking out.
Nicki has been doing some work with Ryan and, from what I understand through talking to Nicki, he has some solo gigs booked and was sort of thinking maybe I want to go in a different direction with this. He had this idea that he wanted to have an acoustic band. At the time, I think through his connection with Nicki, he was soliciting some advice and information from her and through her connection with us she suggested The Dusters which is cool because Nicki has been around our scene and she’s played with all the acoustic bands.
We were definitely flattered by that and just psyched. Ryan is, to me, I know he’s known as a songwriter, he’s hard to classify as an artist. He’s someone who just has this intense and really noticeable force, just this energy behind his songs. He does other forms of art as well, too. He’s hard to classify. He’s someone who just really makes quality stuff. That was one of the big things that attracted us to the opportunity, not to mention the fact that, some of us were definitely Ryan Adams fans predating news of this. Just to team up with someone who is a real integrity artist and really cares about making something quality and all those good things I associate with Ryan.
Similar to things that I associate with old school bluegrass. It’s really about the art form and perfecting this beautiful thing regardless of whether or not people loved it or if it was viable in popular sense. There are a lot of reasons were excited, but essentially the opportunity came to us through Nicki and we’re excited to get to work on it.
What’s the back and forth been like between all parties thus far as it relates to song selection and show structure?
I have had some back and forth with Ryan about what songs we’re going to do and what might sound good in this setting. The list is still big and needs to be trimmed down, but I think there is some brand new stuff on there that nobody’s ever heard and some classic Ryan Adams.
It’s cool, as far as the direction of the music and sound of the band in talking to Ryan, it’s become really clear that he knows bluegrass. He knows the Stanley Brothers and he knows the Carter Family and he knows what quality picking sounds like and the harmonies and the structure of the music and how plaintive, but also just deep and powerful it can be. Some of his musical groove, he says the Carter Brothers and the Stanley Brothers were around a lot growing up. He knows his stuff and I think musically it’s going to be rootsy string band meets Ryan Adams with a dash of bluegrass on top.
I feel like a lot of people forget that he grew up in the hills of North Carolina and has recorded with people like Dave Rawlings, etc.
Absolutely, people associate with him with much more of this hip, hipster strain of music, especially with the covering of the Taylor Swift album and things like that. He’s got old school bluegrass in him too. If you listen to his music, it’s country rock essentially. It’s rock and roll but it’s got those tones and it’s got a twang, an edge, that brings the music to life. Taken out of context, I don’t think people really associate that with the larger country roots movement because of where his music has appeared. If you just listen to it and judge it just based on what it is, it fits great with a string band. It has all those essential elements, sort of old school essential rock and roll.
You mentioned some of you guys are fans—how do you turn off that fan mindset and focus your approach?
Like any gig, we’re going to learn the stuff and be ready to do whatever. I think one of the reasons that the Dusters make a lot of sense for this is because we were a quick study and we’ve got influences that run a real live gamut. Unlike some other bands, who are really specialized in playing mainly their own music, one thing we’ve shown over the years is there’s a lot of versatility and a lot of flexibility. We can do a lot of different things with just our acoustic instruments.
We’re learning the stuff, but as far as the musical approach, I think we’re all going to wait until we’re all in the same room and try some things and the hope is that it’s all just very natural and we don’t have to reach very far to find the thing we all sort of mutually agree is just sitting right there for us. We just got to plug it in and make the music.
Are you one of the Ryan Adams fans in the band?
Oh yeah, he’s awesome. I don’t know all of his stuff but there are a few albums, mainly Easy Tiger, that I have listened to a lot and sing all of the words, that kind of thing. He’s so good you don’t even have to be a diehard Ryan Adams fan to have had a phase where you probably deeply ingested his music. That’s sort of the case for me, I remember hearing that first time and, “Oh man, this is good.” Next thing I know, it had crept onto my all-time list.
Going back to the relation between bluegrass and his music, as someone who has extensive experience in the genre, how prevalent are some of those influences to you?
I noticed a lot, but what I’ve mainly noticed about his music and I think this is one of the really special thing about it is, the first thing you notice is, it’s Ryan Adams, he’s got his own sound. I think a lot of that is, of course, predicated on the songwriting but also on his voice, his singing is something really, really special. I think it’s equal parts uniquely his own, but also, it has those elements.
It was really on these listens though here, getting ready to do this project. There’s music that I listen to that falls into this category of music I play and then there’s a lot of music that you listen to that falls into a another category. When I’m listening to the old school bluegrass or even more modern stuff, I say, “Oh, I can relate to that because it’s the music that I play.” Then there is this other school of music, that is not as tied to what I do and I would have originally put him in the latter. The music that I listen to as it’s going down, I’m not hearing the solos out of context, I’m not thinking what the chord changes are, and I’m just hearing it. It’s funny now that we’re getting ready to play this stuff and I’m learning it and I’m going back and I’m thinking, “Oh man, this is like, could be quintessential Stringduster music or bluegrass or country.” It’s in there but you got to kind of look pass what the first thing that is so unique about his stuff, which like I said, it’s Ryan Adams music. Once you delve in there and start checking it out, it’s got a lot of that old country rootsy stuff and on these current listens is when I really sort of realized a lot of that.
As you study the material, what are some of the most challenging aspects?
It’s less chord changes and more that sort of ever constant question of, how do I take what I do and add it to what this music is to make something great, to make something better, make it better than it was before. Like any music it’s all about the song. For me personally, what is the ideal role of the banjo here? What can I do to really support the music? That’s the challenge.
It’s sort of enhanced this time around with Ryan’s music because these songs are so strong, so tried and true. They’re songs that are already in your head. Man, how do I bring what I do as a musician to this? It’s challenging because it’s not readily obvious like it is on a lot of bluegrass stuff where you just plug in and play and do your role. It’s more constantly searching for, how do I support the music and how do I add to this and make it better? How do I take this song and make it great?
It’s the same challenge as a lot of music, it’s just now applied to some really tried and true stuff. It’s not like we’re learning and writing new Stringdusters songs. We’re playing some of the most awesome music that’s been written in the last ten, fifteen years. There’s a responsibility there, there’s a challenge there, we embrace that.Looking for news you can trust?
Subscribe to our free newsletters.
This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website.
The revelers watched in stunned disbelief, cocktails in hand, dressed for a night to remember. On the big-screen TV a headline screamed in crimson red: “Projected Winner: Scott Walker.” It was 8:49 p.m. In parts of Milwaukee, people learned that news networks had declared Wisconsin’s governor the winner while still in line to cast their votes. At the election night party for Walker’s opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, supporters talked and cried and ordered more drinks. Barrett soon took the stage to concede, then waded into the crowd, where a distraught woman slapped him in the face.
Walker is the first governor in American history to win a recall election. His lieutenant governor, Rebecca Kleefisch, dispatched her recall challenger no less decisively. So, too, did three Republican state senators in their recall elections. Democrats avoided a GOP sweep with a win in the sixth and final senate recall vote of the season, in Wisconsin’s southeastern 21st District, but that was small consolation. Put simply, Democrats and labor unions got rolled.
The results of Tuesday’s elections are being heralded as the death of public-employee unions, if not the death of organized labor itself. Tuesday’s results are also seen as the final chapter in the story of the populist uprising that burst into life last year in the state capital of Madison. The Cheddar Revolution, so the argument goes, was buried in a mountain of ballots.
But that burial ceremony may prove premature. Most of the conclusions of the last few days, left and right, are likely wrong.
The energy of the Wisconsin uprising was never electoral. The movement’s mistake: letting itself be channeled solely into traditional politics, into the usual box of uninspired candidates and the usual lineup of debates, primaries, and general elections. The uprising was too broad and diverse to fit electoral politics comfortably. You can’t play a symphony with a single instrument. Nor can you funnel the energy and outrage of a popular movement into a single race, behind a single well-worn candidate, at a time when all the money in the world from corporate “individuals” and right-wing billionaires is pouring into races like the Walker recall.
Colin Millard, an organizer at the International Brotherhood of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental, and Reinforcing Iron Workers, admitted as much on the eve of the recall. We were standing inside his storefront office in the small town of Horicon, Wisconsin. It was night outside. “The moment you start a recall,” he told me, “you’re playing their game by their rules.”
From Madison to Zuccotti Park and Beyond
A recap is in order.
The uprising began with Colin Millard. The date was February 11, 2011, when Walker “dropped the bomb,” as he later put it, with his “budget repair” bill, which sought to gut collective bargaining rights for most public-employee unions, Later that day, a state Democratic Party staffer who knew Millard called him and pleaded with him to organize a protest. Millard agreed, even though other unions, including the AFL-CIO, urged him to back out. Don’t make a fuss, they advised. Let’s call some lawmakers and urge them to oppose Walker’s bill. “Fuck off,” was Millard’s response.
On the Sunday after Walker unveiled his bill, Millard rounded up more than 200 people and marched down Lake Street, past the John Deere factory and Dannyboy’s Bar, to the home of Republican Jeff Fitzgerald, the speaker of the state Assembly and a Walker ally. Fitzgerald lived a mile or two from Millard in Horicon. “I’ve got a message for Scott Walker,” Millard told the crowd outside Fitzgerald’s house. “This is my union card and you can pry it from my cold, dead hand.”
As rumors spread of more protests, Walker threatened to call out the National Guard to deal with the protesting public workers. That’s when popular outrage erupted. Students marched on the state Capitol, and then a local teaching assistants union led the effort to take over the capitol rotunda, transforming intermittent protests into a round-the-clock occupation. Organizers provided food, shelter, health care, day care, education, and a sense of purpose for those who had taken up residence inside the Capitol.
In support of the occupiers, the daily protests outside the Capitol grew into crowds of 10,000, 25,000, then upward of 100,000. People marched in the snowy streets to challenge Walker, Wisconsin Republicans, and their political donors. Tractors circled the Capitol in protest, as did firefighters and cops, even though their bargaining rights had been exempted from Walker’s “reform” proposals. By now, Madison had captured the nation’s attention.
A two-week occupation of the Capitol and months of protests didn’t, however, deter Walker and Republican lawmakers. He signed his budget repair bill, known as Act 10, into law in March. But that doesn’t mean the Wisconsin uprising had no effect. For one thing, the “Walkerville” occupation of the grounds outside the state capitol helped inspire the “Bloombergville” protest in New York City targeting Mayor Michael Bloomberg. That, in turn, would be a precursor to the Occupy Wall Street events of the following September and later the Occupy movement nationwide. Without Wisconsin, without the knowledge that such things could still happen in America, there might never have been an Occupy.
Hijacking the Uprising
By the time Occupy Wall Street took off, the Wisconsin uprising had swapped its come-one-come-all organizing message for a far narrower and more traditional political mission. Over the summer of 2011, the decision was made that the energy and enthusiasm displayed in Madison should be channeled into recall elections to defeat six Republican state senators who had voted for Walker’s anti-union Act 10. (Three Democratic senators would, in the end, face recall as well.) By that act, Democrats and unions hoped to wrestle control of the senate away from Walker and use that new power to block his agenda.
The Democrats won two of the 2011 recalls, one short of gaining control of the Senate, and so the Republicans clung to their majority.
What followed was more of the same, but with the ante upped. This time, the marquee race would be the recall of Walker himself. Launched last November, the grassroots campaign to recall the governor put the populist heart of the Wisconsin uprising on full display. Organizing under the United Wisconsin banner, 30,000 volunteers statewide gathered nearly 1 million signatures to trigger the election. The group’s people-powered operation recaptured some of the spirit of the Capitol occupation, but the decision had been made: recalling Walker at the ballot box was the way forward.
The Walker recall effort would, in fact, splinter the masses of anti-Walker protesters. Many progressives and most of the state’s labor unions rallied behind former Dane County executive Kathleen Falk, who in January 2012 announced her intent to challenge Walker. Tom Barrett, who had lost the governor’s race to Walker in 2010, didn’t announce his candidacy until late March, his entry pitting Democrat against Democrat, his handful of union endorsements pitting labor against labor. Unions pumped $4 million into helping Falk clinch the Democratic nomination. In the end, though, it wasn’t close: Barrett stomped her in the May 8 primary by 24 percentage points.
By now, the Madison movement was the captive of ordinary Democratic politics in the state. After all, Barrett was hardly a candidate of the uprising. People who had protested in the streets and slept in the Capitol groused about his uninspired record on workers’ rights and public education. He never inspired or unified the movement that had made a recall possible—and it showed on Election Day: Walker beat Barrett by 7 percentage points, almost his exact margin of victory in |
indoor/outdoor carpeting. A teacher snaps out the lights.
Despite the dirty carpet and peeling walls, and a first-floor bathroom with no toilet paper, no paper towels, and heavy scribbling in the stalls and over the sink, Pastor Claudio is proud of how much better things look here since school started in September, after a major cleanup. Last fall, he tells us, the lights didn't work.
This building has flipped through several voucher schools. The last resident was BEAM Academy, an Edison charter school. "Edison" plastic tags still adorn some of the classroom doors. Another Academy of Excellence school, on the south side, is in even worse shape, the pastor tells us.
There are three Academy of Excellence schools in Milwaukee, run by the Association of Vineyard Churches, a conservative, evangelical sect.
Every morning, Pastor Claudio leads the school in a daily devotional.
"We use the Bob Jones University curriculum," he says.
Most Academy of Excellence teachers have gone to college, he says, though not necessarily in the education field. "We don't need a teaching certificate in the choice program," Pastor Claudio explains.
"We have two-thirds of our kids who would probably benefit from special ed," Pastor Claudio tells us. But there is no special education program here. Instead, the pastor makes an effort to connect kids with tutors: "college kids, people who are interested in education. They sit down for individual instruction with them. Plus we have people from all the churches—I'm connected with so many churches."
"Welcome to Middle School Science," says a sign on an upstairs classroom door. Eleven eighth-grade boys are sitting in the science class. Another poster at eye level on the door says: "In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth—Genesis 1:1"
The teacher, Mr. Mosconi, walks over and closes the door as we look in.
On the same hallway there is another large poster that says: "God can see your heart and he knows that it is wicked."
There are currently 270 students enrolled in the Academy of Excellence in kindergarten through eighth grade. Next fall, the school plans to double in size when it takes in 200 children of refugees from Myanmar whose native tongue is not English.
"There are new refugees coming in every day," says Pastor Claudio. "They didn't have any other choice. They are being picked on and bullied in school. So we will have 400 kids."
None of the teachers here speak Karen, he says. "If you speak their language, they make slower progress," he adds.
As we leave, a gaggle of little girls is sitting on the ground in the parking lot. "I like your shoes!" one of them calls.
Herndon is shaking her head.
"He said his building is better than the one on the south side, you should see that one!" she says.
"And the city approved it anyway," says Hicks.
State representative Mandy Wright, a former teacher, is concerned about the special ed kids and the Karen-speaking immigrants who are coming to the Academy of Excellence.
"They are targeting this super-vulnerable population, whom they know nothing about," she says. "And when he says that two-thirds of his kids need special ed... they have no idea how to serve those kids."
Not all of the schools on our tour have such grungy facilities. Some, run by former Congressman Mark Neumann, boast shiny new computers, spic and span classrooms, and a strict, orderly environment.
Herndon's van pulls into a strip mall on North 25th Street. Next door to a Family Dollar Store and a blood plasma donation center is the HOPE Christian School: Prima.
Banners in the parking lot are emblazoned with the school motto: College, Christ, and Character.
Founded in 2002 by millionaire home-builder and former Republican Congressman Mark Neumann, the HOPE Prima school is the oldest of five HOPE Christian schools he runs in Milwaukee. Neumann's business, Educational Enterprises, Inc., also runs charter schools in Phoenix and St. Louis.
"Wisconsin is unique in allowing religious schools" to take public funds, HOPE's principal, Anna Greenman, explains. The other Educational Enterprises schools are secular.
Inside, Harvard and MIT pennants hang in the entryway, along with a big poster of the cross.
Black children wearing uniforms—dark blue slacks and skirts and bright green shirts—file through the hallway in silence. The overwhelming first impression of the school is how quiet it is.
"We believe in a really calm environment," says Greenman. "Our voices are off in the hall. Our arms are hugging our materials or behind our backs."
More than 98 percent of the 560 students in kindergarten through eighth grade are African American.
"How many of your teachers are African American?" Herndon asks the principal. "None, unfortunately," says Greenman. But, she adds, 90 percent of the teaching assistants in the classroom are black.
In one classroom, a young white woman stands at the front of the room asking questions and calling on students who answer from their desks. A black teaching assistant stands at the back of the room, looking on.
In a large computer room, middle schoolers wearing headphones are taking a standardized test. Teachers are rigorously evaluated on their students' scores, and the school expects rapid improvement, Greenman tells us.
Almost every child at HOPE qualifies for free or reduced lunch.
There is no cafeteria, so at lunchtime the children collect sandwich trays from a cart in the hall and carry them back to their classrooms, where they eat quietly at their desks.
Each classroom is decorated with the name and mascot of the teacher's college—or the college the teacher roots for, explains Greenman, who graduated from Martin Luther College, run by the evangelical Lutheran Synod, in 2008.
College pennants are everywhere: Boise State, Ripon College, UW Stevens Point.
Bulletin boards advertise scholarship awards from colleges to the graduates of HOPE High School: "Bethany Lutheran College with a $20,000 academic grant!!!"
And then there is this: All over the walls in the hallway are big, green million-dollar bills.
A child's face peers out from the center of one million-dollar bill, announcing that he is a member of the "Millionaires Club," having taken a computerized test to show he knows one million words.
"Can you be the next millionaire?" a poster over another kid's face asks. "Winner, winner millionaire!!"
"Rockstar Millionaire!"
There is something troubling about this theme. Partly, it's the fact that the students here are so poor. Partly, it's the feeling of a heavy-handed sales job—all the talk about big scholarships, the Ivy League pennants, and the "millionaires club" in a school located next to a Dollar Store.
And then there's the fact that the school's founder, Mark Neumann, is, himself, a millionaire—with assets that may be worth as much as $16.38 million, according to filings from his 2012 Senate campaign.
Neumann's company, Educational Enterprises, Inc., is a nonprofit. The company's tax forms show that Neumann draws no salary. But his son Andrew makes $146,452 to administer the schools. The schools' development director made $103,137.
Last fall, Milwaukee County agreed to issue $18 million in bonds to the HOPE Christian Schools. Educational Enterprises lists seven private real estate holding companies on its tax forms, all located at the same Waukesha address. Five of these companies each share a name with one of the Neumann voucher schools—Prima, Semper, Fortis, HOPE Christian High School, and a new school, Caritas. Caritas is due to open in the fall in a car dealership purchased by the Caritas real estate holding company.
The Prima school recently bought the whole strip mall and is now landlord to the Plasma Center and Family Dollar.
There is not much public information available on the business dealings of Neumann's privately held real estate interests.
But, according to a 2013 Forbes magazine article, "Charter School Gravy Train Runs Express to Fat City," real estate investment in private schools that take public funds has become a highly lucrative business, attracting players like EPR Properties. "Charter schools are in the firm's $3 billion portfolio along with retail space and movie megaplexes," Forbes reports.
The Federal New Markets Tax Credit allows investors in school buildings located in poor areas to earn up to 39 percent in tax credits.
"So attractive is the math," Forbes notes, "according to a 2010 article by Juan Gonzalez in the New York Daily News, "a lender who uses it can almost double his money in seven years.' "
Educational Enterprises, Inc., reported $11.6 million in assets in 2012. EEI Real Estate Holding Prima LLC has also listed assets of $1,149,835.
How much of this money is trickling down to the students at HOPE?
The school makes a big deal about getting 100 percent of its graduating high-school seniors into college. But a closer look shows those results are not as good as they sound.
Governor Walker recently attended a HOPE Christian High School "Signing Day" ceremony, where, with much fanfare, he announced that for the third year in a row 100 percent of HOPE high school graduates were accepted to college.
But data kept by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction shows that out of a class of seventy-three tenth graders in 2011, only twenty-three showed up for the "signing day" photo op with Governor Walker, or 31.5 percent.
Out of eighty tenth graders who attended the HOPE high school in 2010 only thirty-six graduated in 2013, or 45 percent.
The statistics are even worse if you look at the lower grades.
A five-year longitudinal study by the Legislative Audit Bureau in 2011 showed that approximately 75 percent of Wisconsin voucher students who enrolled in ninth grade withdrew by twelfth grade.
"We have a very transient population," Greenman suggests.
The last stop on our tour is Carter's Christian Academy, in a building that could pass for a corner store.
This is a mom-and-pop enterprise, run by the Carter family for the last ten years on the same block as a check-cashing joint. Twice a week, the 175 kindergarteners-through-eighth graders who attend Carter's go across the street to the Salvation Army to use the gym.
Ms. Carter, the proprietor, greets us in the bright yellow entryway, crowded in by a reception desk and a soda machine. Big, shiny plastic letters spell out the name of the school over her head, on a "wall of fame" with quotes from the bible and pictures of Carter's staff.
"We've been going up a hill one wheel at a time," says Ms. Carter. "It is an honor to have you come." She clasps hands with Representative Mandy Wright. The Carter Academy has never received an elected official before, she says. "Just the thought," she enthuses. "Just the thought."
Third-grade teacher Annette Davis, a former guidance counselor in the Milwaukee Public Schools, has been teaching a lesson that involves a poster of a Van Gogh painting, a list of biblical principles, and some financial information labeled "Resource: Money Kit."
She takes time out to show us something the class made called a "Time Capsule of Prayer."
"We're getting ready to present this to the school," she says. She reads us some of the kids' prayers: "We'd love our school to go green." "We'd love a gym."
In the combination lunch room and chapel, cafeteria tables are stacked across from an altar with a "Lion of Judah" cloth on it.
A big drum set and a keyboard sit behind plexiglass near the altar, waiting for religious services to start.
In the four-year-old kindergarten classroom, kids are looking at flash cards. The teacher asks them, "How long is infinity?" A little boy yells, exuberantly: "All day long!" The teacher laughs.
Herndon asks the African American assistant principal, Mickell Hartell, "What do you see as the importance of children being exposed to their own culture?"
"I think it's very important," he says. "I was exposed to black teachers, and I wanted to be like them. Some of us grew up the exact same way as these kids. I tell them, we made it out, so you can.... I try to be walking testimony.
"I didn't have lights at home," he adds. "I tell them you can still do your homework before 7:30, before it gets dark."
The family-like atmosphere here is a relief after the strict silence of the HOPE Christian School and the squalor and menacing religious messages at the Academy of Excellence. At least kids can eat together, and there is music.
Still, it's hard to believe that this hodgepodge of a curriculum is what passes for public school. Surely there ought to be some floor on both the basic facilities and the professionalism of teaching in a publicly funded institution.
"My thing is, as blacks, do we have to go to school in a dump to get an education?" says Herndon as we drive away. "You are what you live, what you see."
Both Herndon and Hicks came out of Milwaukee's once-thriving, industrial African American middle class. They went to good, integrated public schools. Herndon graduated from West Division, now known as Milwaukee High School of the Arts, in 1964. Hicks graduated from Rufus King High School in 1961.
"I never went to a segregated school," says Hicks.
Herndon was one of the first black women computer programmers in Milwaukee, when she started at Honeywell in 1974. She finished her career at Harley Davidson as an accounting software trainer for Harley dealerships nationwide.
Hicks was a high school special ed teacher.
Now they are fighting the resegregation of their community—and the stranding of kids in isolated, fly-by-night academies that virtually guarantee they will never make it out of poverty.
The latest battle of the mad grandmas is against new laws that would force the sale of public school buildings to private school operators.
"The public schools are just being raped," says Hicks. "A lot of schools no longer have gym, no longer have art, language, higher math. Schools don't have the money because they're sticking money in charter schools and vouchers, which are businesses."
In Milwaukee, eighth graders are attending what purports to be a public school to study science and learn creationism.
Third graders are absorbing a strange home brew of art, finance, and bible passages.
Immigrant children straight from refugee camps in Myanmar are landing in a school that looks like a refugee center, to be immersed in English and a harsh religious ideology that teaches them that their hearts are wicked.
All of this is supported by the public with tax dollars.
It looks like the end of society.
If you like this story from The Progressive magazine.
Subscribe today and get one full year of digital access to our magazine for just $10!For all that’s made of Donald Trump’s antagonistic relationship with the GOP establishment, the president showed Wednesday he’s willing to borrow from their playbook when it suits him.
“To protect millions of small businesses and the American farmer, we are finally ending the crushing, the horrible, the unfair estate tax, or as it is often referred to, the death tax,” Trump said Wednesday in Indianapolis. “Your family won’t have to run out and do a fire sale to try to get the money to pay the tax, lose the business, ends up going out of business, all of those jobs are lost. The farmers in particular are affected. They have wonderful farms but they can’t pay the tax, so they have to sell the farm.”
Republicans have pretended for decades that the taxes assessed on extremely wealthy people’s fortunes when they die are a cruel raid on farm country. The optics of GOP politicking against the estate tax system have always played on the image of a leathery farmhand who sweated for decades to leave his children better off only to have the evil taxman swoop in before his body’s even cold. When President Bill Clinton was closing out his second term, estate tax opponents drove a copy of their repeal bill to him aboard a literal tractor.
This is, for lack of a better term, bullshit. Only a few thousand Americans will ever pay the “death tax.” All of them come from the absurdly wealthy cluster of the American public who are worth more on paper than tens of millions of people at the bottom end of the national income distribution. Half of the rare families worth enough to trigger the estate tax live in New York, California, Texas, Florida, or New Jersey. Almost none of them are farmers or small business owners. Nearly all of them are suit-wearing plutocrats from privileged enclaves.
Advertisement
Trump pretended otherwise in Wednesday’s speech. “Our framework includes an explicit commitment that tax reform will protect low-income and middle-income households, not the wealthy and well-connected,” he said. “They can call me all they want. It’s not going to help.”
Republicans want you to believe estate tax payers spent their lives in the dirt, when they were really miles above it stretching their legs in first class. The sheer industry the party puts into maintaining its false image of the estate tax battlefield belies the severity of the deception.
There are so few estate tax payers in some states that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) won’t even publish the exact number for fear the families in question could be too easily identified by name. Seven states – with 14 Senators between them – fit this category.
In Indiana, there are just 70 estates large enough – worth more than $5.5 million for an individual or $11 million for a married couple – to pay even a penny of estate tax next year, according to the IRS figures. Yet that’s where Trump has gone to peddle the venerable lie that a tax targeting people like him – absurdly wealthy suit-wearing members of the coastal elite – is in fact a villainous sacking of the American heartland.
Wednesday’s face for the lie was an Indiana farmer named Kip Tom. American taxpayers have given Kip Tom at least $3.3 million in farm subsidy payments, according to the Environmental Working Group’s database on the crop supports and insurance systems designed to protect agricultural companies from the vicissitudes of the weather.
Advertisement
The Tom family’s 187-year legacy of farming in Indiana “could come to an end because of the death tax or the estate tax. And could make it impossible for him to pass that legacy to his wonderful family,” Trump said. “We are not going to let that happen. We are not going to allow the death tax to steal away the American dream from these great, great families.”
Tom follows where others have led. But while rich Republicans frequently treat farmers and ranchers as props for the cameras, as Institute for Policy Studies scholar Chuck Collins has documented, behind the scenes the opponents of the estate tax have flailed.
Part of the reason no one loses their family farm to the estate tax is that no one pays any estate tax on that first $5.5 million per person of heritable wealth. The graduated nature of the tax does not mean you pay 40 percent of everything you hand down the second that sum cracks the threshold. Families pay the 40 percent rate on every dollar above the cutoff.
If the estate tax doesn’t actually harm the people Republicans pretend it does, then repealing it would mean a windfall for the opposite type of economic character. The sums returned to absurdly wealthy families under the repeal Trump wants are staggering – as much as $20 million per family on average for the wealthiest cut of the pool in any given year, per the Joint Committee on Taxation. By 2028, repeal would have stripped about $270 billion out of the common pool of money the United States uses to buy itself things like school, tanks, and affordable housing.
If anything, the estate tax system needs to be strengthened so that it is harder for the hyper-wealthy to evade. The country would have had $100 billion more to spend on common goods from 2000 to 2013 were it not for the machinations of billionaires who use creative accounting to elude the law.
That’s approximately what it would cost to provide universal preschool coverage to every American child, sitting in elite bank accounts while working families struggle to afford basic child care.I was looking forward to the march. On the personal side, it was an opportunity to alleviate the deep regret I felt over letting my fear of exposure keep me away from the first march, in 1979. When I reminisced about that event to Gerry Studds, who was also closeted in 1979, he told me that he had changed the route of his daily jog so that he could at least pass by the Mall, where the march was being held.
At the time of the march, the military ban still awaited congressional action. Seven hundred thousand marchers had come to town, but as Tim McFeeley, the executive director of the leading LGBT organization, the Human Rights Campaign, notes in Creating Change, “Only a few hundred of the marchers bothered to lobby their members of Congress.” To my deep disappointment, the march confirmed my impression that many of my allies preferred undisciplined self-expression to serious participation in the political process. There were eloquent appeals to allow us to serve our country. But their impact was substantially diluted, if not obliterated, by the antics of those McFeeley describes as “foulmouthed entertainers and bizarrely costumed revelers.” One prominent lesbian comedian exulted that there was finally a first lady she would like to “fuck”—her remark was carried live by C-SPAN and widely cheered by the march audience. If Nunn and Dole were watching, they must have been grateful.
I take credit for preventing what would have been an even greater disaster. As I waited behind the stage to be introduced, I was horrified to see nine or ten of the gay soldiers who had been victimized by the ban standing shoulder to shoulder, beginning a rhythmic kick routine, with accompanying campy gestures. Nothing could have been more devastating to our argument that LGBT people would blend comfortably into the military than a photo—or worse, a video—of these guys lined up not to march but to emulate the Rockettes. The soldiers agreed to halt their routine, though not without expressing their anger at me. Not for the last time, I was told I was too culturally restrained to be a gay leader. (In 2011, when I disassociated myself from outrageous, abusive comments made about Senator Scott Brown’s family by the comedian Kathy Griffin, she responded that I was obviously an inhibited straight man pretending to be gay.)
There were obvious parallels between the 1993 gathering and the civil rights movement’s great March on Washington in 1963. But the differences were far greater, and entirely to our disadvantage. A. Philip Randolph, the patriarch of the anti-racist movement, put Bayard Rustin in charge of organizing the march and supervising the speaking program. The result was a series of disciplined, powerful messages calculated to have the maximum beneficial effect. John Lewis reports that he had to submit multiple copies of his speech to Rustin for vetting. In one case he was told that he could not say “the people demand” equality because it would sound too radical. The contrast between that great sober, moving occasion and the antics at our march could not have been greater. If a black comedian had begun to joke about having sex with Jackie Kennedy, he would have been thrown in the Reflecting Pool, not cheered.
In addition to being disappointed in the march, I was disappointed in the ad hoc organization that the LGBT community created to manage our effort—the Campaign for Military Service. The leaders of this group, David Mixner and Tom Stoddard, were talented men with impressive track records. I admired their past work, but I differed sharply with their strategy in this case. (Candor requires a personal note here: Stoddard and I had dated for a few months, but when that ended, we remained friends, and there was no ill feeling on either side—until strategic and tactical differences inevitably took on a personal dimension.)
●
By the mid-1990s, our progress was not confined to poll numbers. Our legal position was better too. Starting with Wisconsin in 1982 and Massachusetts in 1989, states began including us in their anti-discrimination laws. Moreover, the Defense of Marriage Act did not prove to be a potent wedge. To my knowledge, no Democrat was defeated because of his or her opposition to the bill. The GOP would not initiate another anti-LGBT legislative effort until 2004.
Not for the first time, my political reading of the status of our struggle was more optimistic than that of many in our community. And once again I believe that the subsequent events have validated my view. This was not merely a theoretical debate. It was directly relevant to deciding where we should put most of our energies. If I was correct, then we ought to step up our participation in the political process—we should register to vote, let our representatives know what we wanted them to do, and then, following the classic and still valid political maxim, reward our friends and punish our enemies with votes, contributions, and organizing.
The logic of the opposite opinion—that the “system” was stacked against us and in the control of those determined to keep us unequal—called for direct action instead of electioneering. “You want to play nice with the system,” I was told scornfully. “We know that power never grants rights without struggle, without our making that establishment so uncomfortable that they have to give in.”
Such a preference for demonstrative over electoral politics was often reinforced by a badly flawed reading of the careers of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. They did rely on marches, sit-ins, and other forms of physical protest to put moral pressure on their opponents, who claimed to believe in the democratic principles Gandhi and King were invoking against them. And they sought to disturb the status quo so that it would be less socially disruptive for officials to accommodate them than to continue to repress them. But neither of these great leaders chose this route in preference to using the votes of their millions of followers to gain their ends. They engaged in direct action precisely because this was the only method available to them—Indians in the British Empire had no right to vote on their situation, and African Americans in the American South had that right in theory but hardly in practice. Once they gained full access to the ballot box, they sensibly made that their main focus.
When LGBT leaders cited Gandhi and King, I offered my own counterexample—the National Rifle Association’s great success in dominating policy debates about gun control, despite being in a minority on the issue in every national poll I have ever seen. As I enjoyed pointing out, especially to those LGBT activists who decried my lack of “militancy,” I have never seen an NRA public demonstration. They do not have marches. There have been no NRA mock shoot-ins to rival the die-ins staged by AIDS activists. And those liberals who try to comfort themselves with the notion that the NRA wins legislative battles because of their vast campaign contributions are engaged in self-deceptive self-justification. The NRA wins at the ballot box, not in the streets and not by checkbook. The NRA does what I have long begged my LGBT allies to do, at first with mixed results, and more recently with much greater success. They urge all of their adherents to get on the voting rolls. They are diligent to the point of obsession in making sure that elected officials hear from everyone in their constituencies who opposes any limits on guns, especially when a relevant measure is being considered, and then they do an extraordinary job of informing their supporters of how those officials cast their votes.
It was necessary for us to make our presence known publicly when our fight started in the early 1970s, because our anonymity was an obstacle to gaining support. It is impossible to generate sympathy for people who are largely invisible. To return to the comparison to race, African Americans never had to worry that white people didn’t know they were there or that discrimination existed. While racism has done far more damage than homophobia, LGBT teenagers faced a problem that heterosexual African Americans did not: breaking the truth to their parents. No teenager ever had to endure the emotionally fraught task of informing her parents that she was black. Once the public became aware of our existence, however, the situation changed. The case for putting demonstrative politics first became defunct.
Click here to read the rest of The Point’s issue 11 symposium, What is Protest for?
Excerpted from “The True Story of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and “Welcome to an Earmark” from Frank: A Life in Politics from the Great Society to Same-Sex Marriage by Barney Frank. Copyright © 2015 by Barney Frank. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.In the update notes for 1.16, Super Evil mentioned that they were aware the community was pleading for new roam heroes, and answered by giving short previews of two upcoming new roam-focused heroes. Since then, on another stream they mentioned that big changes to items would be coming in the patches leading up to the summer season. Today, Zekent and SurpriseBirthday held a special stream where they discussed the upcoming changes.
The Current State of Roams
Right now, roams lack item diversity as well as hero select options. The early game is the worst part of this problem, because Ironguard Contract is the only (viable) opening item for Roams. Currently, there is never a moment where an eSports announcer will say “OMG… look at the roam’s starting item choice.” There are very few strategies in the first five minutes of the game, and the overwhelmingly-prominent IGC strategy is pretty much the equivalent of “watching grass grow” for VG; babysitting jungler or lane while they get rich. It’s not very fun or decision-based. IGC—and the items built from it—don’t make sense for non-roams. Items like Warhorn and Stormguard Banner are useless for anyone who isn’t a roamer, because they scale with gold gained from the IGC passive, something only a roam would have a decent amount of. Warhorn is great, but it’s a waste on a carry because you’re not utilizing the IGC part of it. Stormguard Banner is a short-to-mid-term solution for making roam’s basic attacks relevant, it’s just a brute force way of making roam’s attacks feel more powerful. T3 support items tend to focus on bruisers, specifically Catherine and Ardan. SEMC feels that Adagio and Phinn don’t do as well as they should, because the current items are designed with Catherine and Ardan in mind. There’s also not a lot of diversity in roam heroes or roam items (same 3 or 4 core items on roam heroes), and the notion of having a squishy support is unheard of due to current item choices. Roam is supposed to be the captain role, and it is to some extent; they do most of the initiating and shot-calling in the late-game. Their leadership will be furthered with new items and more diverse choice in the future.
Starting Items
Right now, there is no diversity in starting items for roams. Supports always begin with IGC, which limits strategy and feels boring. So they’re adding more early-game items. SEMC wants to create a brand new, beautiful utility item tree. Zekent said they have around 6 or 7 items in the works right now, making a roam’s opening options roughly as broad as the starting options of a weapon or crystal carry. Super Evil wants it so the roam player could be anywhere on the map depending on what they bought. Here are the examples they mentioned:
Aiding lane. Actively helping the laner or harassing the enemy laner.
Hurting enemy lane’s CS. Harassing enemy laner or preventing last hits.
Invading. New item to facilitate invades.
Ironguard will likely still exist, but in a different form.
Maybe: stealing camps to aid ally. Item to solo steal camps. These new items will also make sense for non-roams. It won’t often be optimal for a carry to use them, but possible. They’ll be testing roam items on carries to make sure there are not OP combos. You also won’t know what the enemy has as an opener item until you can see them. This adds a lot of importance to vision, and creates a more interesting early game strategy that the roam has a lot more control over. To add to this, your scoreboard will only update the enemy’s items when you have vision on them. This is a huge change and it’s supposed to be coming in 1.17. Hero Diversity They’ll be increasing choices for roam heroes, both by making existing roams more relevant through items, and by introducing new, unique roams. Roams’ opening options will feel a lot more like the options for a carry. Whereas support items, especially tier-3 items, tend to focus on bruisers and tankiness now, they’ll be more versatile in the future. Adagio and Phinn don’t do well with the current lack of variety in items. Going forward, there will be more items for helping backline supports, like Adagio. Cath & Ardan are more flexible than Adagio & Phinn, which is why Cath & Ardan have been so strong (or rather, more consistent) historically. Expect more flexible support styles, and fewer bruiser supports. The notion of having a squishy support right now is unheard of, due to the available item choices. This will be changing, backline supports will now be viable. It’s also worth noting that invade items could help make Fortress more relevant, a hero that tends to be less of a bruiser. Looking at the description of the two new heroes: “Lance is a heavily armored defender with a unique sword-and-board fighting style. Lyra, on the other hand, brings powerful magic to support her allies from a distance. In addition to their primary roam roles, Lance will offer a separate warrior path while Lyra will offer a separate mage path.” It sounds like Lyra will be one of these “backline” support heroes. Basic Attacks SEMC wants to give roamers interesting basic attacks, both through items and hero kits. Stormguard Banner was a medium-term fix for this, it was just a brute force way of making roam attacks feel more powerful. Expect to see more items that affect their basic attacks. Examples: Healing
Stunning
Transferring health Items like Shiversteel already do this a little, but it’s rare to see anyone but a melee roam to pick up Shiversteel, and far more common to see a melee bruiser, like Krul, pick one up. So expect changes to this. It also sounds like roam heroes will have kits involving more interesting basic attacks, this brings to mind when Celeste was first revealed and they described “wanting her basic attacks to feel like spells.” I think we’ll see a lot of really interesting takes coming from SEMC on how to make basic attack more interesting. We already know that Lance is designed around this, we know that he can hit multiple heroes with his basic attacks—like Glaive’s crits—and that he will have the largest basic attack range in the game.
Timeline and Closing Thoughts
Originally, Super Evil wanted to push out items fast in the updates leading up to the Summer Season, now they’re going to come a bit later and spend more time in testing. They didn’t want to rush something so important.
As far as changes coming sooner, Zekent and SurpriseBirthday confirmed that in 1.17 the scoreboard will only update enemy items when you have vision on them.
Specific timelines for Lance and Lyra were not given, but it seems that they will probably be the next two heroes released. Meaning that they’ll probably becoming out in the updates leading up to Summer Season. Emphasis on probably, because this is largely speculative. It’s also fair to say that Lance will be coming before Lyra, since they’ve teased more about Lance and Lance sounds like a bruiser who could fit the current, tanky roam meta.
I’m sure we’ll be hearing more about this at PAX East this weekend, and possibly even reveals of the upcoming items and heroes. Roam is a position that has long felt stale and I’m excited to see large changes coming to make it more fun and interesting.
If you’d like to watch the full stream on upcoming roam changes, you can watch it here.Multiple discrepancies theory (Lance et al. 1995) posits that people arrive at job satisfaction evaluations by weighing discrepancies between what they need and want from a job relative to what they have in a job. This emphasis on having, contrasts with the emphasis on being and doing in existentialist theories of wellbeing (Fromm 1976; Rand and Tannenbaum 1998; Sartre 1994). The distinction between having and doing is reflected in job satisfaction and pride in work, respectively. While evaluations of satisfaction may typically be framed in terms of what one has, people are frequently proud of what they have done (Tracy and Robins 2007), such as overcoming obstacles to achieve success (Campos et al. 2013).
Since orientations to having, or extrinsic motivation, and doing, or intrinsic motivation, are associated with gender and age (Deci et al. 1999; Inceoglu et al. 2012), this study focuses on the joint association of gender and age with pride in work, and job satisfaction. Analyses are of data from a telephone survey of a random sample of adults living and working in Toronto.
1.1 Pride in Work is a Neglected Topic Before outlining theory and research that suggests how and why effects of gender and age on job pride and job satisfaction should differ, it is important to note that previous quantitative research has barely touched on the topic of pride in work. In fact, there have been more studies of pride in one’s affiliation with an employer or organization (Basch and Fisher 2000; Gunter et al. 1996; Knoop 1994) than of pride in one’s own work (Haslam et al. 2009). Qualitative studies have analyzed pride in work (see Bulger 2013; Hodson 1998 for reviews), and related outcomes (e.g., Crowley 2012), but no research has investigated gender and age differences in pride in what one does in one’s job. This lack of research is surprising because related outcomes such as self-esteem have been found to be associated with job characteristics and resources, such as income and autonomy (Gecas and Seff 1989; Mutran et al. 1997). The lack of quantitative research on job pride is also surprising given that research on the psychology of pride in general has been growing rapidly (Tracy and Robins 2007). Tracy and Robins (2007) argue that not all pride is “authentic.” They refer to pride that is rooted in unfounded self-contentment as “hubristic” pride (Tracy and Robins 2007). Studies have investigated gender differences |
strange craft, made the rounds on local and international news outlets, as well as UFO believer blogs and publications such as Open Minds Magazine.
On Tuesday, the Space Centre revealed it masterminded the “close encounter” to hype up its $500,000 digital upgrade for the Planetarium Theatre, which was completed over the summer.
“We want to show Vancouver, B.C. and the world that you can truly have a rare experience by exploring the exciting new shows and state-of-the-art projection system,” centre director Rob Appleton said in a statement.
The UFO was actually a drone in the shape of the Space Centre, which was photographed not only at the baseball game, but at Deep Cove, Jericho Beach, and the intersection of Burrard and Cornwall streets.
Images and video of the sightings were purposefully spread online by an ad agency.
The Space Centre said it’s seen a 65 per cent bump in attendance with the new Planetarium projection system. For information on upcoming programs at the theatre, visit the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre website.One Million Moms denounces Dancing With the Stars for promoting LGBT lifestyle. And Aaron Gouveia, for one, is not happy.
Dear ABC executives:
I have never watched a single episode of your television show Dancing With the Stars, but I have grave concerns after it was brought to my attention by One Million Moms, that you’re showcasing a gay man and—even worse—a transgendered “man” for the upcoming season.
How dare you?!? According to One Million Moms:
Some families have already decided against watching Dancing with the Stars because of the skimpy costumes and provocative dance routines, but now they have gone too far! This year, not only are they casting Carson Kressley from Carson-Nation, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and How to Look Good Naked, but also transgender Chaz Bono––child to Sonny and Cher––from the documentary Becoming Chaz will be appearing in the show. Both are LGBT rights advocates and promote this destructive lifestyle. DWTS is helping them create visibility for the LGBT community.
Hey ABC, I’ll have you know I’m the father of a 3-year-old child. An impressionable 3-year-old child. And he watches TV. How can you have the gall to market yourself as a family show and then turn around and feature GAYS? Worse than that, you’ve also got some “he-she” thing prancing around on stage. Forget the fact that my son would never know Chaz Bono used to be a woman if One Million Moms didn’t point it out. Because you know what? God knows.
Don’t like ads? Become a supporter and enjoy The Good Men Project ad free
This is completely unacceptable and Christians should not watch the show, no excuses! Kressley will be paired up with a female dancer, and since Chasity, transformed to Chaz after her sex change in 2009, will also be paired with a female dancer. To push the envelope even further for a program that could be a family show but is obviously not, Kressley is also author of the children’s book You’re Different and That’s Super, a children’s book promoting the homosexual lifestyle to children.
Don’t think I’m not onto you ABC. You think you can mitigate things by putting the gay guy with a woman? I don’t think so. God doesn’t miss a beat and neither do I. And don’t get me started on the gender-bending of placing that “she-man” with a man. I mean sure she started out as a woman and therefore God’s will is technically being followed because Chaz is paired with a woman, but it doesn’t count. Because now she’s a woman turned into a man dancing with a woman. OK, so admittedly I’m a little confused but it all sounds wicked gay. And that’s bad.
Furthermore, how can you not see the evil in Carson Kressley’s book? The title is You’re Different and That’s Super. I think we know that “different” equals “gay.” And if you’ve ever read the bible, you’d know that being gay is definitely not OK. We Christians will not stand for anything that promotes, or even acknowledges, differences. You think I want my child learning about different cultures, races and beliefs? Imagine the consequences of our children forming their own opinions on such matters after being exposed to an array of different mindsets. Horrible.
Not to mention it’s so not cool to send the message that kids should be okay with themselves if they are gay. We will not accept alternative lifestyles that aren’t in accordance with God’s plan. If we do that then kids will be more apt to accept themselves and others, and the gay kids might even stop committing suicide. Gay people are going to hell anyways, no reason to postpone the trip.
We Christians will not have homosexuality forced on us. I mean, sure—we could just change the channel or not tune in to the show. But that’s hardly the point. Simply knowing people with different beliefs exist is awful enough, but when the gays are promoting their lifestyle by dancing, that’s when things have gone too far.
After all, it’s common knowledge gayness is contagious. Like I said, I’ve never actually watched the show but I saw it for a second while flipping channels. Even though I didn’t go full on gay, I noticed myself talking with a slight lisp for about 20 minutes. I also matched my shoes and belt the next day before work, not to mention using the word “fabulous” to describe my wife’s cooking.
Besides, all good Christians know this is just a way to gather up support for the acceptance of gay marriage. Perhaps the biggest threat to our way of life these days.
I should know. I live in Massachusetts where gay marriage has been legal since 2004. And look what’s happened in that time. We elected a black, communist president, we’re in two wars, everyone has mandatory health care, we went through an awful recession and the recent earthquakes, tsunamis and hurricanes were no doubt part of God’s punishment for tolerating homosexuality. Do we really need any more proof gay marriage is bad?? It doesn’t matter that it’s legal in several states and rapidly gaining acceptance everywhere. Two men or two women just doesn’t count because it goes against God’s plan and the sanctity of “real” marriage.
These immoral gays keep bitching about their equal rights. Why can’t they just respect the institution of marriage as God intended? They need to follow in the footsteps of Britney Spears & Jason Alexander, Britney Spears & Kevin Federline, Brad Pitt & Jennifer Aniston, Michael Jackson & Lisa Marie Presley and Larry King and his 243 marriages. These couples prove a rock solid marriage can only be between one man and one woman. Anything less than these shining examples of fidelity and monogamy threaten the very fabric of marriage as we know it.
All I can say is thank heavens for One Million Moms. This isn’t the first time they’ve stepped up and struck a blow for integrity and Christianity.
Bert and Ernie will not be getting married and homosexuality will not be spread
Old Navy was selling shirts that actually encouraged gay teens to “Live Proudly.” Imagine thousands of gay teenagers being encouraged to take pride in themselves and who they are. The horror!
They actually discouraged Google’s support in the “It Gets Better” campaign, on the grounds that “choosing the homosexual lifestyle actually increases the risk of suicide.” Family values has to come before the lives of troubled gay teens who are already hellbound. Everyone knows that.
One Million Moms also took aim at a Dentyne commercial, because even though it features no sex at all it too closely imitates a condom commercial. And condoms are evil. Especially when used during filthy gay sex.
As you can clearly see, One Million Moms is a pure, Christian group that is not at all insane. Gays are ruining the world, Dancing With the Stars is featuring LGBT people so therefore DWTS is an evil, liberal regime that must be stopped. I urge you to stop exposing the general public to people of varying backgrounds. I will not stand for differences to be showcased to millions on a national TV show. If you need guidance as to how to proceed, I have a book you can read that’ll do just fine. It’s a little old and some of it may not make total sense, but you’d be wise to live your life by it and interpret it as we do. Because that’s the only way. The right way.
Don’t like ads? Become a supporter and enjoy The Good Men Project ad free
We will not rest until you comply with our perfectly rational, not-at-all nuts demands. Stop trying to poison the minds of our youth with messages of equality and acceptance. And cease bringing all this gayness into our living rooms. If I come home and find my son doing a perfect Paso Doble with Carson Kressley’s patented flair, there will be hell to pay.
And where does it end? Perhaps Handy Manny gets a Manly Handy in a shady Sheetrock Hill back alley? Maybe Phineas and Ferb are more than just stepbrothers? And The Wiggles…well, I think they speak for themselves. Lord only knows the kind of nipple-twisting that goes on when Jeff the narcoleptic Wiggle passes out.
I’m gonna bottom line it for you ABC: Take these gays off the air!
It’s a well-known fact that TV and the entertainment industry is no place for homosexuals. And having them beamed into our homes is dangerous and deeply upsetting. Align yourself with God—with us Christians—and live in the light of the truth and His way. Because that is the only way we’ll leave you alone.
Until we, the denizens of One Million Moms, display our bigotry by needlessly latching onto the next non-issue that keeps us in the spotlight and validates our pathetic existence.
Warmest Regards,
Aaron Gouveia
Parent & definite non-gayImage by the brilliant Stuart F Taylor
On Monday night a PR person got in touch with me to offer me an interview with her client, Garren James. He’s a former model who runs a male escort agency – Cowboys 4 Angels – to provide services for straight women. In her original email, she said something so bizarre I couldn’t help but wonder if this was genuinely the opinion of her client, or if she’d gone a bit off-piste. Was this just an individual being ignorant of her own prejudice, or was it a company that genuinely built its services on biphobic principles?
Let’s find out.
What is biphobia?
There are lots of things that fall under the category of biphobia – many of them equate to ‘making ridiculous/incorrect/offensive assumptions about bisexual people.’ See if you can spot any in this quote from the original email she sent me.
“Garren James, a former model/actor/escort started Cowboys4Angels when he noticed there were no agencies that only catered to women and felt it was a bit of a turn off for women to know that the men are bisexual or possibly even Gay (not that there’s anything wrong with that haha). Garren feels women who pay for this service deserve to be with men who are 100% heterosexual so the experience is genuine.”
Did you spot some? I did. The key assumption being, of course, that men who are bisexual are not able to have a ‘genuine’ experience with a woman, and by extension that bisexual women can’t have a ‘genuine’ experience with a guy either. It conflates ‘being bisexual’ with ‘being gay’ – two things which are poles apart. And hahahahahaha of course there’s nothing wrong with being either lol hahahaha. But saying that doesn’t make the conflation of the two any less ignorant.
I replied:
“Why does he think that bisexual guys would not be ‘genuine’? What’s more, why does he think that women would (could, even) be turned off by guys who are bisexual? You say there’s ‘nothing wrong’ with guys being bisexual, yet at the same time imply that it’s not ‘genuine’, and that women might be turned off by it. Are Garren’s clients biphobic? Or is he making assumptions that they are? Or is he himself simply biphobic?”
I’ll spare you the details of the back and forth – you can read that on twitter if you like. In her responses, the PR rep repeatedly stated that she wasn’t biphobic, yet also tried to back up her client’s choice to not hire bisexual men because she herself would be ‘unsure’ if they were genuine. Which is a bit like saying ‘oh I don’t think badly of Starbucks staff, I just don’t trust any of them.’ It’s oxymoronic, ignorant, and so obviously illogical it’s almost impossible to argue against.
Almost.
Biphobia and male escorting
I don’t want to focus on her personal views, so I asked the PR to forward my original questions on to Garren – owner of the male escort agency and apparently the one with a super-biphobic hiring policy. I told her I’d happily publish his statement in full (along with a link to his site) here, so here goes:
“I just never envisioned a classy heterosexual woman wanting to spend quality time with a man who spent the night before with another man. It seems like that has been the case. About 10% of the calls say and not your sure he is not gay right? “I do believe there are men that can definitely be equally attracted to both men and women. I don’t think the fact that a man can be equally attracted to women or men is the problem. I think the problem is more with the consumer which is the female client. I think on average women are attracted more to a very straight masculine man. I am sure there are plenty of women out there that don’t care wither way. I just think women just might think in the back of their minds that experience is not as real if she also thought the guy was attracted to men. She may get the feeling that men can’t be bi and that he must just be gay and is faking this experience. I think women are very cerebral and so any hint of a man that also like men might just affect her self esteem. Like he is being paid to with a woman but he secretly would rather the client be a man. That could ruin the whole experience for them”
Let’s unpick this, shall we?
“I never envisioned a classy heterosexual woman wanting to spent quality time with a man who spent the night before with another man.”
There is absolutely nothing about sleeping with someone of the same gender that detracts from your ability to be good company the day after. Besides – you’re running an escort service. Your male escorts are, surely, professionals, who are unlikely to spend the entire date talking about the client they had the night before.
“About 10% of the calls say and not your sure he is not gay right?”
‘Gay’ and ‘bisexual’ are not the same thing. To repeatedly conflate the two, as Garren does here, is spectacularly ignorant. If Garren were to tell me he were straight, and I repeatedly insisted on referring to him as ‘bisexual Garren’, not only would it be rude, it would also be incorrect and make me look (quite rightly) like a twat.
“I do believe there are men that can definitely be equally attracted to both men and women.”
How magnanimous of you to accept that bisexual people exist.
“I think on average women are attracted more to a very straight masculine man.”
Why are you suddenly equating ‘straight’ with ‘masculine’? Can bisexual dudes and gay dudes not be masculine? If Garren truly thinks this then, when he’s eventually managed to dig his way out of the 1950s, he might like to go and meet some gay and bisexual people.
“I just think women just might think in the back of their minds that experience is not as real if she also thought the guy was attracted to men.”
Why – do you think that women are bigots?
“She may get the feeling that men can’t be bi and that he must just be gay and is faking this experience”
She? Or you?
“I think women are very cerebral and so any hint of a man that also like men might just affect her self esteem.”
According to Garren, women are not only bigoted, but are also apparently so lacking in self esteem that we could never have sex with someone who might at some point have fancied someone else.
“Like he is being paid to with a woman but he secretly would rather the client be a man. That could ruin the whole experience for them.”
OK. So this sentence touches on all the assumptions we’ve covered already:
Assuming that bisexual dudes are actually gay – check Assuming that any of the escorts on his books would be unprofessional enough to spend the date chatting about who they fancy other than their client – check Assuming that women feel uncomfortable about bisexual guys – check Assuming that, in order to run a successful business, one must pander to the bigoted whims of your clients, with no regard for whether they’re actually correct – check
The first three need to get utterly fucked. The fourth deserves more analysis because I think it’s easy to accidentally set up a false dichotomy where you have ethics on one side and business on the other. Marketing professionals can sigh and say ‘oh, well we just HAVE to do this because our clients want it.’ While there are often compromises you might need to make in the name of business, happily this isn’t one of those areas. In fact, unless your company is specifically catering to bigots of a certain type, I think bigotry is always bad for business. Lemme explain…
Bigotry is bad for business
By making statements like this publicly, you make it clear that you think your customers (in this case straight women) hold certain prejudices. Personally, I would never use a company that made those kind of assumptions about me. On top of this, you drastically limit your pool of potential escorts by saying that not only must they ‘be 100% straight’ (How do you even know this, by the way? Is there a litmus test?), but that they must also fit your definition of ‘masculine’. In short: you bring your own prejudices and judgments to the fore, regardless of what your customers actually want. It would be like a book shop owner deciding to only stock books they personally like.
In the statement he made, Garren says that about 10% of the calls he receives ask about whether the escort is gay – he doesn’t mention whether callers care about bisexuality. So strike three: not listening to your customers.
Look: I am certain there are women out there who want to hire an escort who is ‘definitely 100% straight.’ These women are likely labouring under the same bigoted assumption Garren is: that ‘bisexual’ just means ‘gay’. But I am willing to bet that there are plenty more women who either understand what bisexual actually means, would refuse to use a company that assumed they were bigots, or would take offence at the implication that if they enjoyed spending time with bisexual guys they weren’t ‘classy.’
Let’s not forget also that a proportion of the women who hire male escorts will be bisexual themselves, and probably be similarly angry about the ignorance displayed by Garren’s policy.
Further reading
If you’d like to find out more about bisexuality and biphobia, here are some cool things to check out:
Right of replyWashington (CNN) Donald Trump is coming to Capitol Hill to rally the GOP troops roughly two weeks before he's slated to accept his party's nomination for president at the GOP convention in Cleveland, but the crowd might be a little thin.
"I've got a long-standing appointment downtown and I don't know at what time I can get out of that and get back to the Hill," Rep. Fred Upton, R-Michigan, told reporters Wednesday.
Colorado GOP Rep. Mike Coffman, one of the House Democrats' top targets in November, told CNN, "I'm not going to be able to make it. I've got a conflict."
Sen. Pat Toomey, who is in a difficult re-election race in Pennsylvania and has not endorsed Trump, shrugged off questions about the meeting Trump has scheduled with at the National Republican Senatorial Committee Thursday.
"I haven't checked my schedule yet," Toomey said Wednesday evening when asked if he'd attend the Trump session. "I don't know."
Asked if he felt the need to hear what his party's nominee had to say, Upton, who hasn't endorsed Trump and isn't planning to attend the convention, said about his own meeting, "This has been set up for some time."
For those who are going, there's a group that is still skeptical, but hopeful they will learn something new, especially since the vast majority of Hill Republicans haven't met Trump personally yet.
Illinois Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger has publicly criticized Trump but has left open the possibility he could eventually back him and told CNN he's going to the meeting.
"For me, I've always said I want to get there. I'm not there, so if he's going to come talk to us, I'm happy to hear what he has to say," Kinzinger said.
But the Iraq war veteran said that Trump's comments praising Saddam Hussein at a rally in North Carolina are making it harder for him to come around to his candidacy.
"It was ludicrous," Kinzinger said. "I've always had a deep concern that he has a fundamental lack of knowledge about foreign policy and the president has almost unchecked power on foreign policy."
Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-California, one of Trump's earliest supporters in Congress, downplayed those who decided against attending the morning session at the Capitol Hill Club hosted by House GOP Conference Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Washington.
"If they are skipping it, they are skipping it -- they've got stuff to do," Hunter said.
After weeks of infighting within their party and lingering fears about Trump's candidacy, some clearly hope that Trump's Thursday meeting will give the party a chance to unite. And Republicans say one thing has helped in that regard -- the common desire to beat Clinton, something many believe is quite possible after her handling of classified intelligence was sharply criticized by the FBI.
Rep. Raul Labrador, an Idaho conservative who has been critical of Trump, said he was more concerned about beating Hillary Clinton than he was worried about Trump.
"We have a very beatable candidate in Hillary Clinton," Labrador said. "When he calls her 'Crooked Hillary,' the FBI just said that it was true.... So I think we need to make sure that he continues to prosecute the case against Hillary, and I think he can win."
Still, Republican leaders are uneasy with Trump.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who is among the California delegates for Trump at the convention, declined to say if he's now more comfortable with Trump as the nominee.
"I always look to constant improvement," McCarthy told reporters.
And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would not say if Trump should receive classified briefings -- even as Republican leaders say Clinton should now be denied access to highly sensitive intelligence.
"The question here is Hillary Clinton," McConnell said when asked about Trump, "and her public explanations compared to her private representations to the FBI."
Hunter said Trump "needs to be himself" at the meeting and said he believes the chance to talk with members will help the business mogul expand support among those who haven't yet embraced his candidacy.
But when asked about his colleagues worried about what Trump's comments about Hussein, Hunter, who served three combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, said he didn't see the comments, so couldn't speak to the context and added, "I'm not a surrogate, I'm not going to answer for him."
Pennsylvania GOP Rep. Charlie Dent said he remains concerned about some of the controversial statements the businessman has made "dealing with issues like POWs, the disabled, to Mexicans, to Muslims, to women, to the David Duke debacle, to the Chris Matthews exchange on abortion, to the Indiana judge, to yesterday and Saddam Hussein."
Initially, Dent told reporters he planned to go, but after a few minutes appeared to be on the fence, saying, "I intend to go, but I could change my mind between now and then."Moscow may win over Syrian rebels who were previously financed by the United States, according to the US media outlet.
© AP Photo / Virginie Nguyen Hoang, File Catfight: Pentagon and CIA at Odds Over Syria
Some Syrian rebels who were previously supported by the United States may now be recruited by Russia, BuzzFeed reported; the goal is to do away with the Islamists, end the Syrian conflict on Moscow's terms, and finally oust the Americans from the region.
The information was revealed during BuzzFeed correspondent Mike Giglio's interview with the commander of one of the rebel groups in the Turkish city of Antakya, near Syrian border.
According to BuzzFeed, it is an "open secret that the commander had once received cash and weapons from the CIA, part of a covert US program that backs rebel groups against both Daesh and the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad."
When his battalion, like many other US-backed groups, was driven out of Syria by jihadists, he asked Americans to increase their support, which finally proved to be insufficient.
Therefore, he said, he was "out of the game" but now he's received an offer, thanks to which he can return to the battlefield. He was being recruited to work for Russia, Washington's chief rival in Syria, according to Giglio.
"They told me, 'We will support you forever. We won't leave you on your own like your old friends did,' he said. Honestly, I'm still thinking about it," Giglio quoted the commander as saying.
His revelations were confirmed by four other people who Moscow contacted through their intermediaries, Giglio said.
According to him, this "secret outreach" shows that Russia is seeking to demonstrate the weakness of the US position and muscle Washington out of Syria. However, first and foremost, Moscow wants to help Assad win the war by driving a wedge between rebel groups, he said.
In exchange for assistance, Russia wants the rebels to fight Islamists from Daesh and the Nusra Front. When the extremists are destroyed, the commanders of those rebel battalions who decided to support Moscow will start negotiations with Damascus to end the conflict, and then decide the fate of President Assad, according to Giglio.
"This plan — whatever its chances of succeeding — represents an ideal outcome for Russia in Syria, preserving its influence in a country it considers an important client state while dividing the rebels and helping the regime to a military victory," he said.
Meanwhile, some rebels associated with the United States confirmed in interviews with BuzzFeed that Russia had tried to recruit them, but that they refused the offer.
In contrast, "other rebel leaders were receptive at least to hearing the Russians out," Giglio said, referring to Mousa Humaidi, a 40-year-old ex-businessman from northern Syria, who was a senior leader with the Syrian Revolutionaries Front, or SRF.
"Honestly I found that they are honest and good friends, because they support their friends. Russia has more honor than America," Giglio quoted Humaidi as saying.
The commander interviewed by Giglio in Antakya said that he understands that joining forces with Russia will mean the recognition that Assad's government forces have won. He also said that he fears potential retaliation from the CIA and Turkish authorities.
On the other hand, he said that Moscow, unlike Washington, at least offers a way out. "The Americans just want to buy time. But the Russians are here to work," he said, adding that he still "cannot decide" on the offer because "it's like walking down a dark tunnel, and you don't know if you will find the light."
The journalist's story hasn't been verified by the Russian Foreign Ministry, and it raises some questions. The interview was conducted in Antakya, which neighbors the militant-held Syrian province of Idlib, where government troops fought the Nusra Front with Russian air support.
In Turkey, which prohibits locals from "liking" and sharing social media posts that are critical of the president, how could Moscow expect to recruit, arm and deploy fighters which had opposed its Syrian government allies?
Syria has been mired in civil war since 2011, with government forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad fighting numerous opposition factions and extremist groups.
A US-Russia-brokered ceasefire came into force across Syria on February 27, but it does not apply to terrorist organizations active in the country, such as Daesh and the Nusra Front, which are outlawed in many countries, including Russia.
Despite the ceasefire agreement, violence has escalated in Syria in recent weeks, especially in the northern Aleppo region.About: I am a high school student who is interested in making new and improved tech items. Stay tuned to this channel for more inscrutables that will be coming by following me.
Bone conduction is the conduction of sound to the inner ear through the bones of the skull.
Some hearing aids employ bone conduction, achieving an effect equivalent to hearing directly by means of the ears. A headset is ergonomically positioned on the temple and cheek and the electromechanical transducer, which converts electric signals into mechanical vibrations, sends sound to the internal ear through the cranial bones. Likewise, a microphone can be used to record spoken sounds via bone conduction.
In use, the speaker is strapped against one of the dome-shaped bone protrusions behind the ear and the sound, which can be surprisingly clear and crisp, seems to come from inside the user's head.
APPLICATIONS
1) Bone conduction is one reason why a person's voice sounds different to them when it is recorded and played back. Because the skull conducts lower frequencies better than air, people perceive their own voices to be lower and fuller than others do, and a recording of one's own voice frequently sounds higher than one expects it to sound.
2) Musicians may use bone conduction while tuning stringed instruments to a tuning fork. After the fork starts vibrating placing it in the mouth with the stem between the back teeth ensures that one continues to hear the note via bone conduction, and both hands are free to do the tuning.
3) The Google Glass device employs bone conduction technology for the relay of information to the user through a transducer that sits beside the user's ear. The use of bone conduction means that any vocal content that is received by the Glass user is nearly inaudible to outsiders.
4) The use of a wireless microphone placed next to the speaker helps to reduce the effects of reverberation from poor room acoustics, bypasses the sounds between the speaker and the listener, eliminates the background noise by the listener, and by using a directional microphone reduces the background noise by the speaker.
5) One example of a specialized communication product is a bone conduction speaker that is used by divers. An underwater scuba diver communication system is disclosed which is comprised of an oral bone conduction mouthpiece based sound transmission and conduction device, an oral--mouthpiece based microphone, an ultrasonic sound transmission device, an ultrasonic receiving device and the electronic circuitry required to facilitate the transmission or reception of ultrasound transmitted signals through a water medium.
You will need an amplifier to hear the sound clearly, you can either make one or just use a ready made one.
the piezoelectric sensors are used as a prototype but the actually we need a bone conduction transducer. But since it is way more costly and unavailable in my country, I decided to work with the piezoelectric sensors.Nick Ulivieri | April 28, 2011
My balcony hangs over the BNSF tracks…literally. If I jumped from the railing I could probably land top of a locomotive or boxcar. I haven’t tried it yet, but if I ever need to make a dramatic get away this would definitely be my most impressive option. Isn’t it loud? Does your building shake? they ask. Well, yes and yes. But as the old cliche goes; you get used to it. When we first moved in I immediately fell in love with the rail-yard. So what if I didn’t have a sliver at the city skyline to look at. I mean, when I was a kid I didn’t love architecture…I loved trains.
Day in and day out the freight trains are rolling by on the nearest three rails, shunting boxcars to various pens. Each growing train destined for a different location. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, the Yellow Union Pacific locomotives shuffle back and forth, often having to stop to let off a conductor who flips the manual rail switch. Not even the weather stops them (except for two days after “the blizzard”). All of those items need to be at a specific place at a specific time. Industry depends on it. Without the rails, our society wouldn’t have become what is is today.
Naturally, I’m always trying to figure out what’s may be rolling by me at any one second. Is that crate carrying Hazardous materials? What about diamonds or flat screen TVs? Or is it just 20 pallets of some mundane raw material. I’ll probably never know, but just once it would be cool to find out.
There are plenty of other things I never imagined I’d see, let alone existed, like jet engines that blow the snow out of the rail switches; a train lined with hummers as far as the eye could see in both directions; a hulking monster of a machine that jettisons out sparks as it grinds and smooths down the rails..to name a few.
I’m also blown away by the sheer amount of coal that passes by. I couldn’t tell you how long the trains are, but the cars stretch as far as I can see in both direction. By the way, at least two of those trains pass by daily. And for each load that comes in, there is a train of empty coal cars heading back out. I suspect all of that coal is burned at the Fisk Generating Station on Cermak (giant smokestack in background of some of my photos) which can’t can’t be good for my health. Oh well.
So for as long as I’ve been here, the rail-yard has been my photographic muse of sorts. The pictures below are just a few of the images I’ve taken over the past three years. Hope you enjoy!
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
-Click to enlarge-“We killed him, do you hear!?” They taunt me through the slat in the door, over and over, but it doesn’t matter now. It barely mattered when he was alive, why should it matter now he’s dead?
“What will you do with me now?” I ask, sat on the concrete floor, my head dipped, hands clasped. There’s no fear here, in me, I simply do not care. That’s what they don’t understand, that’s what they cannot grasp. It’s not even the acceptance of my fate, we went beyond that, he showed me things-
“You fool! You’re going next, you’re on your way! Will you not recant?”
“I’m not sure what I’ve done,” I reply, and it’s true. For all that they pulled us through, for all that they tried to induce, for everything that they threw at us, at him, all the questioning, all the demands, I can only see we are guilty of indifference, to this, the worst of all possible worlds.
The door slides open, the steel runners crunch the concrete fragments in their groves until it slams and they come rushing in. “You!” They scream and I know this will be the last time, dragging me, pulling me through the corridors and out into the desert.
They push me against a grey wall smeared with blood. I rise a smile at the spectacle, the idea that others have also held out. Whether they held onto themselves or simply did not care, they died all the same.
I turn and there’s another man being marched along, the desert sun glints off his spectacles and he looks serene. I tilt my head as they tie my arms tight behind my back and the man calmly sidesteps a puddle of blood at his feet. Why? Where does he think he’s going?
They walk him over to my side, he smiles and tries to wriggle his nose to reposition his spectacles. “Fine day for it,” he says as they slam a truncheon into his gut and he falls to his knees wheezing.
“Do you know why you’re here?” I ask as they do the same to me and I fall to my knees and turn and see him spluttering, his glasses smashed on the floor.
He coughs up some blood and turns to me, “To die of course,” before dipping his head to the ground.
“But why did you dodge that puddle, if you know? If you knew?”
He cries out a bloody laugh, “I really couldn’t tell you, actually.”
And they come up behind him and put a bullet in the back of his head and he lurches forward, face pushing along the concrete, his broken glasses wrapping themselves around his head. How could he know, how can any of us know? Why should any of us care?
I hear the gun cock and close my eyes. Maybe now I will find out.
Building inspiration: CONCRETE BRUTAL AXIAL 036–163 (Work In Progress)In the run-up to Assembly elections in December, Gujarat is in the throes of powerful forces.
On the one hand, some of its principal economic pillars, such as small manufacturing and agriculture, are in trouble. At the same time, the state is seeing a curious fissuring. What was once a separation between Hindus and Muslims has spread further. It is visible not just in the case of Una – where Dalits rose in protest after four tanners from the community were accused of cow slaughter and attacked in July 2016 – or the Patidar agitation for reservations in jobs and education, but also within the Patel community. It is getting increasingly difficult for Kadva Patels to get a house in a Leuva Patel colony and vice-versa, this reporter was told in Rajkot. Look closer at the state and you will see other shifts. Public displays of devotion during festivals are on the rise, for instance.
Trying to make sense of such changes, Scroll.in spoke with Ghanshyam Shah, a leading political scientist on Gujarat and the author of Social Movements in India. As we learnt, some of these patterns are visible elsewhere in India – like Punjab turning to gurus and deras or religious organisations as economic insecurity deepens. Other changes, however, are fruit from a very different tree. Gujarat has been under majoritarian governments for the last 20 years. Come here and you see what happens to a society once majoritarian politics wins. How its rulers use the power they accumulate. How society – the minority and majority communities alike – changes.
What are the major changes you see in Gujarat over the last five to seven years?
Certain changes have consolidated, like the attitude of the majority towards the minority. This is something that started in the 1960s and picked up pace from the mid-1980s. Take civil society: writers, |
solve the confusion. I scrolled up to see that it was a watermelon flying with balloons. I felt this need to read what the image is about.
And, BAM! There the marketing team behind the ad smirked!
[Image Source - adespresso.com]Matthew Weiner, Eli Broad, Norman Lear and Frank Gehry are among those who warn of a "tragic mistake" should Congress kill the agreement.
A coalition of 98 prominent members of Los Angeles' Jewish community — most with ties to Hollywood — have signed an open letter supporting the proposed nuclear agreement between Iran and six world powers led by the United States.
Identifying themselves as "American Jewish supporters of Israel" in the full-page ad, which will appear in the Thursday edition of L.A.'s Jewish Journal, the group urges Congress to approve the agreement because it "is in the best interest of the United States and Israel."
"We appreciate that many have reasonable concerns about the risks of a complex nuclear weapons development agreement with an untrustworthy adversary like Iran," the letter states. "We too hold these concerns, but the deal that was reached is not founded on trust; it is grounded in rigorous inspections and monitoring."
The letter warns that killing the deal, as many Republican lawmakers have pledged to do — and even one Democrat, New York Senator Chuck Schumer, considered one of Congress' most influential Jewish voices — would be a "tragic mistake."
Among the seven lead signatories are billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad; Walt Disney Concert Hall architect Frank Gehry; and legendary TV writer-producer Norman Lear. Other signatories include Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner; film producers Lawrence Bender and Mike Medavoy; UTA agent Peter Benedek; WME agent Rick Rosen; Game of Thrones executive producer Carolyn Strauss; Matthew Velkes, COO of Village Roadshow; and TV director Daniel Attias.
"I just felt that some of the mainstream Jewish organizations weren't speaking on behalf of a large segment of the community that has a different point of view," Velkes tells The Hollywood Reporter, adding that LA's Jewish population is "as diverse a community as one might imagine."
The ad provides an email address – LAJewishLeadersForIranDeal@gmail.com – for "more information, resources and to express your support."
The letter is similar in message to one published Tuesday in The Washington Post by 36 retired U.S. generals and admirals and another sent by 29 top American nuclear scientists and arms control experts to President Barack Obama. The latter praised the deal as "innovative" and "stringent" in advancing the cause of peace in the Middle East.
Congress has until Sept. 17 to vote on a resolution of disapproval on the deal. Should the naysayers win (a likelihood as Republicans control both chambers), Obama's ability to waive economic sanctions imposed on Iran — a key deal point — would be blocked, scuttling the agreement. Obama has pledged to veto such a resolution if it passes Congress.
Among Israelis, opinion is heavily weighted toward those who oppose. Recent polls conducted by Israel's Channel 10 found that 69 percent of Israeli citizens are against the deal, 10 percent are in favor and 21 percent are undecided, according to Haaretz. The same poll found that opinion was split down the middle on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's campaign against the deal. Thirty-seven percent thought the leader — who has vociferously opposed the measure — has failed to adequately block its passage, while 34 percent feel he has done a good job.
In the U.S., a CBS News poll conducted earlier this month found that 53 percent of respondents felt the agreement will not be effective in preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. But a Jewish Journal poll in July of American Jews found that 49 percent favored the deal despite misgivings while 31 percent opposed it.
The full ad is below:
The full list of signatories:
Mel Levine, Mickey Kantor, Eli Broad, Norman Lear, Frank Gehry, Stanley Gold, Irwin Jacobs
David Abel, James Adler, Daniel Attias, Elaine Mitchell Attias, Lawrence Bender, Peter and Barbara Benedek, Michael Berenbaum, Donna Bojarksy, Peter Braun, Rabbi Sharon Brous, David Bubis, Rabbi Ken Chasen, Eli Chernow, Rabbi Neil Comess-Daniels, Bruce and Toni Corwin, Geoffrey Cowan, Bert Deixler, David Fisher, William and Patricia Flumenbaum, Terry Friedman, Abner Goldstine, Rabbi Joshua Levine Grater, Arthur Greenberg, Earl Greinetz, Richard and Lois Gunther, Stephen Gunther, Janet Halbert, Michael Hrischfeld, Elaine Hoffman, Jane Jelenjo and Bill Norris, Charles Kaplan, Marty Kaplan, Steven Kaplan and Janet Levine, Glenn and Miriam Krinksy, Luis and Lee Lainer, Mark Lainer, Peter Landesman, Shawn Landres, Shari Leinwand, Irwin Levin, Peachy Levy, Rabbi Richard N. Levy, Mike Medavoy, Douglass Mirell, Charles Mostov, Allan and Nicole Mutchnik, David N. Myers, Mark and Marsha Novak, Rabbi Arnold Rachlis, Carolyn Ramsay, Gene Reynolds, Victoria Riski and David W. Rintels, Fredric D. Rosen, Rick Rosen, Monica and Philip Rosenthal, Ranni John Rosove, Thomas Safran, Dena Schechter, Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller, Larry Shapiro, Abby Sher, Richard Siegel, Glenn Sonnenberg, Carolyn Strauss, Bradley Tabach-Bank and De Dee Dorksind, David A. Thorpe, Larry Title and Ellen Shavelson, Matthew Velkes, Hope Warschaw, Rick Wartzman, Matthew Winer, Sandford and Karen Wiener, Daniel Weiss, Marcie and Howard Zelikow and Michael Ziering.I've always had a bad habit of overthinking. Overthinking prevents me from getting things done. I'll decide I want to do something and then my thoughts make me second guess myself so much that I end up not taking action. I'm trying to change that. I'm painting everyday to help myself break that habit. No matter what, I must put something on paper.
I signed up for a co-ed flag football team. I have wanted to do this for a long time but I was scared. I kept putting it off because I would overthink and then all my insecurities would come flooding. This time, I just signed up without thinking. I'm still scared hahaha but I'm gonna practice not overthinking till the season starts. I'm really looking forward to this <3This news release is available in Portuguese, French, Arabic, Japanese and Chinese.
The disappearance of large, fruit-eating birds from tropical forests in Brazil has caused the region's forest palms to produce smaller, less successful seeds over the past century, researchers say. The findings provide evidence that human activity can trigger fast-paced evolutionary changes in natural populations.
Mauro Galetti from the Universidade Estadual Paulista in São Paulo, Brazil, along with an international team of colleagues, used patches of rainforest that had been fragmented by coffee and sugar cane development during the 1800's to set up their natural experiment. They collected more than 9,000 seeds from 22 different Euterpe edulis palm populations and used a combination of statistics, genetics and evolutionary models to determine that the absence of large, seed-dispersing birds in the area was the main reason for the observed decrease in the palm's seed size.
The study appears in the 31 May issue of the journal Science.
"Unfortunately, the effect we document in our work is probably not an isolated case," said Galetti. "The pervasive, fast-paced extirpation of large vertebrates in their natural habitats is very likely causing unprecedented changes in the evolutionary trajectories of many tropical species."
In general, researchers estimate that human activity, such as deforestation, drives species to extinction about 100 times faster than natural evolutionary processes. However, very few studies have successfully documented such rapid evolutionary changes in ecosystems that have been modified by human activity.
Galetti and the other researchers found that palms produced significantly smaller seeds in patches of forest that had been fragmented by coffee and sugar cane plantations and were no longer capable of supporting large-gaped birds, or those whose beaks are more than 12 millimeters wide, such as toucans and large cotingas. In undisturbed patches of forest, on the other hand, large-gaped birds still make their homes and palms continue to produce large seeds, successfully dispersed by the birds, they say.
"Small seeds are more vulnerable to desiccation and cannot withstand projected climate change," explained Galetti. But, small-gaped birds, such as thrushes, that populate the fragmented patches of forest are unable to swallow and disperse large seeds. As a result of this impaired dispersal, palm regeneration became less successful in the area, with less-vigorous seedlings germinating from smaller seeds.
The researchers considered the influence of a wide range of environmental factors, such as climate, soil fertility and forest cover, but none could account for the change in palm seed size over the years in the fragmented forests. They performed genetic analyses to determine that the shrinkage of seeds among forest palms in the region could have taken place within 100 years of an initial disturbance.
This timescale suggests that the conversion of tropical forests for agriculture, which began back in the 1800's and displaced many large bird populations in the region, triggered a rapid evolution of forest palms that resulted in smaller, less successful seeds.
Long periods of drought and increasingly warmer climate (as predicted by climate model projections for South America) could be particularly harmful to tropical tree populations that depend on animals to disperse their seeds. About 80 percent of the entire Atlantic rainforest biome remains in small fragments, according to the researchers, and the successful restoration of these habitats critically depends on the preservation of mutualistic interactions between animals and plants.
"Habitat loss and species extinction is causing drastic changes in the composition and structure of ecosystems, because critical ecological interactions are being lost," said Galetti. "This involves the loss of key ecosystem functions that can determine evolutionary changes much faster than we anticipated. Our work highlights the importance of identifying these key functions to quickly diagnose the functional collapse of ecosystems."
###
The report by Galetti et al. was supported by the Fundação de Amparo do Estado de São Paulo, Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico and Programa Iberoamericano de Ciencia y Tecnología para el Desarollo.TYRONE Vickery appears to be the casualty of Richmond's belief its team was too tall in the forward line last week against Collingwood.Vickery was the only player from last week's 22 to fail to travel north on Wednesday ahead of Thursday night's clash with the Brisbane Lions at the Gabba.The Tigers took 25 players because of the short week with Matt McDonough, Ricky Petterd, Nathan Foley and the untried Ben Lennon part of the travelling squad.But Vickery was a no-show at Melbourne Airport despite coach Damien Hardwick ruling him fit to play after he was subbed out at half time last week following just two touches"It's nothing to do with injury," Hardwick said before the team departed."Ty's working on his game; he's probably like the majority of our players at the moment."He's playing at about a six out of 10 like the side is."We've just got to continue to work with him, get his best football up and going because he's a very important player to our side. He knows that and we know that."Second ruckman Orren Stephenson didn't travel, indicating the Tigers are happy to go up against the Matthew Leuenberger-less Lions' outfit with Shaun Hampson and Ben Griffiths as their big men. Leuenberger will miss up to three months after surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his knee on Tuesday.Hardwick said being too big in attack was something the Tigers had gleaned from last week's loss to Collingwood and believed their forward structure would not lose potency if it was a tall short."It's still solid. We've still got some players who can go through there," he said."We probably felt even a little bit tall, a little bit cumbersome and once we got our forward mix right, I think we had 11 forward 50 turnovers, which we're leading the League in at the moment."We're just not getting the scoreboard result we're after."It's still going to be dangerous; we've got Dustin [Martin] who can go through there, [Trent] Cotchin, these types of players, and [Brett] Deledio when he comes back."It will still be formidable."The Tigers will take on their former assistant coach Justin Leppitsch this weekend for the first time since he took on the Lions' senior role last year.Hardwick said Leppitsch would no doubt lean on his inside knowledge of the Tigers and it could provide an advantage regarding specific players, but was not likely to affect how he approached their game plan."It's important, no doubt. He's got an idea of the strengths and weaknesses of our players, and also from a game plan point of view - has a lot changed, has a little bit?" he said."At the end of the day, most sides know how each other plays; it's just who comes out and executes it the best on the day."It will be no different this week."Hardwick said the Tigers were no closer to putting a return date on Brett Deledio, who remains out with a sore Achilles.He said the vice-captain had trained at times this week but emphasised how he pulled up was the important part."We're hopeful that next week's a possibility but at this stage I can't say."The Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders and his populist Freedom party have suspended all public campaigning for next month’s parliamentary elections following an alleged security leak.
Wilders, current frontrunner for the Netherlands’ general elections, to be held on 15 March, said on Twitter: “Very alarming news. The PVV is suspending its public activities until all facts in connection with the corruption investigation are known.”
Dutch media reported this week that a member of the far-right politician’s police security team had been arrested on suspicion of leaking details of his whereabouts to a Dutch-Moroccan criminal gang.
Geert Wilders: Dutch far-right leader criticised for calling Moroccans'scum' Read more
The Algemeen Dagblad newspaper reported on Thursday that the officer and his brother, both previously members of the Utrecht police force, had also been investigated in the past in connection with suspected leaks of confidential information.
The DBB security service, responsible for the safety of the royal family, diplomats and high-profile politicians, said the officer, of Moroccan origin, was not one of Wilders’ bodyguards but screened locations for his public appearances.
Wilders, whose platform includes banning the sale of the Qur’an, closing mosques and Islamic schools, shutting Dutch borders and banning Muslim migrants, has lived under 24-hour police protection for more than 10 years following death threats.
He was found guilty of inciting discrimination against Dutch Moroccans last December and sparked uproar at his official campaign launch on Saturday by criticising “Moroccan scum who make the streets unsafe”.
The Dutch police chief, Erik Akerboom, told Dutch radio an investigation had been opened but insisted Wilders’ safety had not been compromised, prompting the latter to reply that if he could not trust the DBB, he could “no longer function”.
The justice minister, Stef Blok, insisted Dutch politicians could “campaign safely on Dutch streets” and said the alleged leak had endangered no one. The security officer, identified as Faris K, was released on Thursday but suspended pending the investigation.
Wilders’ PVV (Party for Freedom) is running neck-and-neck with the liberal VVD (People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy) led by the prime minister, Mark Rutte. The PVV could become the Netherlands’ largest party but is likely to be shut out of government by a coalition of more mainstream parties.Policymakers have taken important steps in recent decades to prevent the federal tax code from taxing people into or deeper into poverty. This bipartisan effort has helped shape various features of the tax code including the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), a tax credit for low- and moderate-income working people. In addition to its other roles, such as serving as a pro-work wage subsidy, the EITC helps keep income and payroll taxes from pushing millions of low-wage workers into poverty.
But the commitment to keep the federal tax code from taxing low-income workers into poverty has fallen far short for one group of 7 million people: childless adults.[1] These individuals begin to owe federal income tax while earning less than the poverty line (which is now about $12,000 for a single worker).[2] The income taxes they pay taxes them deeper into poverty, as do the substantial payroll taxes they also owe. And, the EITC for which they are eligible is much too low to offset more than a very small share of their income and payroll tax liabilities.
In 2012, federal income and payroll taxes pushed 1.2 million childless workers into poverty and another 5.8 million deeper into poverty. (See Figure 1.)
Increasing the EITC for childless workers, as the President and many in Congress have proposed, can help address this problem. Making more childless workers eligible for the EITC — including those working full time at the minimum wage — and boosting the credit for workers currently eligible would significantly lessen the degree to which the tax code increases poverty among these workers. And, because the EITC is only available to people who work, it also serves as a work incentive. The EITC for families with children has been shown to increase employment rates markedly among low-income parents; a larger EITC for childless adults could have a similar pro-work impact on that group as well.
Childless Adults: The Only Group Taxed Into Poverty
Families with children (as well as low-income seniors who receive most of their income from Social Security) do not start to owe income tax until their earnings are above the poverty line. And, working poor families with children can qualify for an EITC and Child Tax Credit (CTC) that together offset their substantial payroll tax liability and help supplement their earnings.[3]
The situation for low-wage earning childless adults is very different. Single childless adults begin to owe income taxes when their earnings reach just $10,000,[4] some $2,000 below the poverty line for a single adult. A childless worker with earnings equal to the poverty line — $12,119 in 2013 — has an income tax liability of $212 (before the EITC) and owes $927 in the employee share of payroll taxes. (The employer owes another $927 in payroll taxes, the burden of which, most economists agree, falls on workers in the form of lower wages.) While the worker thus has a combined income tax and payroll tax liability of $1,139 (counting only the employee share of the payroll tax), she receives an EITC of just $169. This tiny EITC is less than her income tax bill alone. (See Figure 2.)
The combined effect of the income tax, including the EITC, and just the employee share of payroll taxes pushes this worker $970 below the poverty line.
Data from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey provide a comprehensive picture of how many childless workers are taxed into or deeper into poverty by their federal income and payroll taxes. A CBPP analysis of these data shows that in 2012, federal income and payroll taxes pushed 7 million childless workers into or deeper into poverty, as measured using the Supplemental Poverty Measure.[5] (See Figure 1, above.)
Current EITC Is Too Small to Offset Childless Workers’ Tax Liability
The design of the current EITC for childless workers means that many low-wage workers are entirely ineligible, while others receive a credit too small even to offset their income tax liability, let alone the far larger payroll tax.
Under current rules, the EITC misses low-income childless workers under the age of 25 entirely; young workers and those over 64 are ineligible.[6] For those who are eligible, the credit is very small. The EITC for childless workers phases in at a rate of 7.65 percent; in other words, a worker receives an EITC of 7.65 cents for each dollar of earnings until the credit is fully phased in at earnings of about $6,350. Workers with earnings between $6,350 and $7,950 receive the maximum credit of $487. The EITC for childless adults then begins phasing out when earnings exceed about $7,950 — just 66 percent of the poverty line for a single, childless worker. In 2012, the average credit for eligible workers between ages 25 and 64 was only about $270, or less than one-tenth the average $2,900 EITC for tax filers with children.
In large part due to its meager size for childless workers, the EITC does far less to lift out of poverty childless families than families with children. The EITC lifts well over 10 percent of all poor families with children out of poverty, according to the Congressional Research Service, but does so for less than 1 percent of families without children.[7] (See Figure 3.)
Regressive State and Local Taxes Add to Tax Liability Low-wage workers also pay state and local taxes, which tend to be regressive, meaning low-income people pay a higher share of their income in these taxes than higher-income people do. Many states rely on regressive sales taxes, which can significantly affect low-income people who spend (rather than save) most of their income to make ends meet. Half of all states plus the District of Columbia have enacted their own versions of the EITC, which help to reduce the state and local taxes that low-income working families face. But those state credits do little to lower state and local taxes for low-wage workers without children, because they are typically set as a percentage of the federal EITC, which as noted, is very small for these workers. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) estimates that the bottom fifth of taxpayers paid 11.1 percent of their incomes in state and local taxes in 2013, well above the 5.6 percent average rate that the top 1 percent of households paid.a On average, the bottom fifth of filers had incomes of $10,700 and paid state and local taxes of $1,188. aCarl Davis et al., “Who Pays? A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All 50 States,” 4th Edition, Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, January 2013, http://itep.org/itep_reports/2013/01/who-pays-4th-edition.php.
Strengthening the EITC Would Reduce Poverty and Provide a Positive Work Incentive
Strengthening the EITC for childless workers, as the President and many in Congress have proposed, could further encourage work, subsidize very low wages, and bolster child support from non-custodial parents. In addition, leading experts believe that an expanded credit could help address some of the other challenges that less-educated young people face, such as high incarceration rates and low marriage rates.[8]
Increasing the EITC for childless workers would reduce the number of people in poverty and make poverty less severe for millions more. For example, the President’s proposal to strengthen the credit, which would roughly double the maximum EITC for childless workers to about $1,000, would enable a childless worker with poverty-level wages to receive an EITC of $841 in 2015.[9] (See Figure 4). That would offset over 70 percent of the worker’s federal income tax and the employee-share of his or her payroll tax liability.[10]
Among the proposal’s many benefits is that it would lift about half a million people out of poverty and reduce the depth of poverty for another 10 million people, according to Treasury estimates.[11] Similar proposals from members of Congress would also bolster the credit for childless workers.[12] Because they expand the EITC by a larger amount than the President’s proposal, those Congressional proposals would have even larger anti-poverty effects.
The EITC has enjoyed broad bipartisan support over the years because it helps low-income people struggling to make ends meet, while encouraging work and personal responsibility. In this spirit, policymakers should once again advance the bipartisan principle that people should not be taxed into poverty, and should increase the EITC for childless workers.First of all, I'm still shocked. When I was a recruiter, we knew judges routinely threw out non-competes for anyone who wasn't a strategic employee -- because a non-compete for a low-level employee was considered coercive and an improper restraint of employment. So I can't believe that so many judges are now actually holding people to these. Given my druthers, I'd turn down a job from any place that made me sign one. But we don't always have a choice, do we?
So I'll share a little tip with you about what I'd do whenever I was given a non-compete. (Because I'm anti-authoritarian that way!) I'd tell the HR person I misplaced the paperwork, and then I would hand it in a day later -- unsigned. No one ever noticed. Via Danny Westneat at the Seattle Times:
To get the $15-an-hour job last spring, Almeida was required to sign a “restriction on competition” clause that said if he leaves, he can’t work for two years for any firm doing similar work in ServiceMaster’s “geographic area” — which the company’s lawyer told me means King, Snohomish, Island, Yakima and Kittitas counties.
ServiceMaster of Seattle, a franchise in a $3.4 billion national corporation, now is trying to force Almeida to forfeit his $18-an-hour job at Superior Cleaning of Woodinville.
The noncompete clause would mean Almeida also couldn’t work in any water- or fire-damage job, janitorial, office cleaning, window washing, floor or carpet cleaning or other job ServiceMaster does.
“ServiceMaster of Seattle hereby demands that you immediately cease all employ with Superior Cleaning,” reads a “notice of violation” letter the company’s law firm wrote to Almeida (who lives with his aunt in Lynnwood).
“Failure to do so will require (ServiceMaster) to initiate a legal action against you to obtain a court order enjoining you from working for one of (ServiceMaster’s) direct competitors.”
When I got the lawyer who wrote that on the phone, my question was admittedly not very nuanced: “Seriously? You’re going after a $15-an-hour worker over a noncompete clause?”
Brian Boice said employment contracts that restrict workers are common and the issue at this pay grade is training. The company spends “a lot of money and effort on training inexperienced workers, and we don’t want to end up training them for our competitors.” He accused Superior of chronic poaching of ServiceMaster’s workers, Almeida included.
↓ Story continues below ↓
Almeida says in his three months at ServiceMaster he did not get any training. He agrees he signed the noncompete clause, but says he thought it would apply to managers who are high enough to have client lists. Or to people who leave to start competing businesses.
“I’m a helper,” he says. “I come to work and get my orders and follow them. I figured I was way too far down the ladder to matter.”
Lately there is no rung too low. The New York Times reported last summer that a camp counselor and a hair stylist lost jobs due to noncompete clauses. Last month news hit that some Jimmy John’s sandwich outlets used noncompete contracts to stop sandwich makers from defecting to any business “selling submarine, hero-type, deli-style, pita and/or wrapped or rolled sandwiches and which is located within three miles of... any such Jimmy John’s Sandwich Shop.”
It’s hard to conjure what intellectual property or trade secrets are at stake in making the Turkey Tom. Or in wet-vaccing carpets. It’s one thing to make engineers or lawyers sign noncompetes. But cleaners?
“I think this is just taking advantage of blue-collar workers,” said Larry Weinberg, the CEO of Superior Cleaning, who currently employs Almeida. “It’s like we’re going back to the feudal societies of the 12th century, where the vassals are indentured to their corporate lords. We’re still in America, right?”Qantas to shed almost 300 jobs as it closes its Avalon maintenance facility near Geelong
Updated
Sorry, this video has expired Video: Qantas to close heavy maintenance facility at Avalon (7pm TV News VIC)
Qantas has announced it is closing its Avalon heavy maintenance facility near Geelong in Victoria, resulting in the loss of 300 jobs.
The airline has confirmed that the plant, which maintains its ageing fleet of Boeing 747s, will close by the end of March.
It said 53 Qantas employees and 246 contractors would be affected.
"We're gradually retiring our 747 aircraft, which means there's just not enough work to keep the base at Avalon viable and productive," Qantas Australia chief executive Lyell Strambi said.
Avalon: Key facts Boeing 747 heavy maintenance base
Commenced operation on May 13, 1998
One of the largest aircraft engineering and maintenance organisations in the Asia-Pacific region
Employs approximately 900 people
Three out of six hangars are customised for Boeing 747 use by Qantas
Was the airline's only 747 heavy maintenance base in the world
But Qantas is now moving away from Boeings, towards Airbus aircraft
"Over the next four years there are 22 months with no scheduled maintenance at Avalon for our 747 aircraft. During this time there will be no aircraft in the hangar for our employees to work on."
"When it comes to Avalon the facts are clear, we cannot keep running a facility that is inefficient now and will become more and more unviable into the future.
"That simply would not be responsible, nor would it be in the best interests of the Qantas group as a whole including the 30,000 employees across Australia."
The job losses come after 250 workers were made redundant at Avalon facility earlier this year.
Qantas says it didn't want a series of government hand-outs to keep the plant open
But Mr Trambi dismissed suggestions the closure was part of a long-term move to base the airline's maintenance operations in Asia.
Sorry, this video has expired Video: Qantas Australia CEO Lyell Strambi speaks to reporters (ABC News)
"I think that's a nonsense notion, actually," he said.
"We still have around 4,500 engineers. It's an enormous operation still that we have within Australia. And of course there are a lot of things that you must do always at your home base."
He said the Federal and Victorian governments had both offered assistance to keep the site open but said the closure was a "structural" decision.
"While we could go to the government looking for a handout, then we would be going back to the government the following year for another handout, and the following year," he said.
"We don't want to get into that cycle because I don't think it does the right thing by Qantas, nor does it do the right thing by the government and the people of Australia."
Workers 'furious' and worried there is no market for their specialised skills
Peter Ryan has been working at the Avalon maintenance facility for the past 15 years and he has decided to move out of Geelong.
"I think we're all going to struggle to find work after this. And I guess I'm the lucky one who's been in numerous industries," he said.
"There's a lot of people in there that have only worked in this industry. So I guess they'll hurt."
"At the end of the day it's not our fault. We've done nothing wrong."
Ben Davis from the Australian Workers Union says staff at Avalon are bitterly disappointed.
"We started getting phone calls as soon as management texted them to call them into a meeting [this morning]," he said.
"They're gutted and just devastated but they're furious with Qantas, and well they should be.
"They work in a very specialised trade and a very specialised profession. They will struggle to find employment in their industry in Australia."
Federal Member for Corangamite Sarah Henderson said the closure was a "black day" for Avalon and the Geelong region and called on Qantas to commit to maintaining its Jetstar operations at the Avalon airport.
"It's a very devastating day," she said.
"There are another 90 jobs out there with Jetstar. We want to see Avalon airport grow. Frankly, this has a great potential as a jobs hub, as an infrastructure hub over the next 10 years."
Victorian Premier Denis Napthine says he is "extremely disappointed" about the job cuts but there is not much his Government can do.
"We've been working with Qantas for some time, fighting hard for those jobs... but there is a clear decision from Qantas, which is a decision of Qantas that they explained to us, that there is a changing airline industry."
Unions spoke to airline for two months before today's announcement
Earlier, Steve Purvinas from the Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association said unions had been in talks with Qantas for eight weeks.
"They've put all these problems before us that are going to prevent them from keeping Avalon open," he told ABC Local Radio.
"We believe we've more than adequately answered all of those concerns that the airline have had.
"I got a letter late last night from Qantas saying they have rejected all of our proposals. It looks almost certain that they're going to close this facility sometime next year, which is a real shame."
Mr Purvinas expects some of the jobs to be relocated to a maintenance centre in Brisbane.
"But they cannot fit it in there. They're already about 500 people short-staffed in that facility. So the work is going to go offshore," he said.
"We know Qantas regularly use offshore facilities in Singapore, Hong Kong and the Philippines."
Topics: business-economics-and-finance, work, air-transport, unions, geelong-3220, vic, australia
First postedEXCLUSIVE: Paris-based Ubisoft Motion Pictures, the film and TV production arm of the French game-publishing giant, is developing 3D features based on some of its top vidgame franchises — “Assassin’s Creed,” “Splinter Cell” and “Ghost Recon.”
Launched in January, the division is headed by former EuropaCorp CEO Jean-Julien Baronnet, along with Didier Lupfer, senior VP of production and development, and Jean de Rivieres, senior VP of international marketing and distribution.
An epic action-adventure, “Assassin’s Creed” turns on the conflict between Templars and Assassins, two secret orgs with different ideologies who have influenced, according to the game, most major historical events.
An action drama in the vein of “The Bourne Identity,” “Splinter Cell” turns on an elite secret agent fighting world terrorism and struggling to protect his daughter.
“Ghost Recon,” a tech-driven war actioner set in the near future, follows a secret, elite team of soldiers fighting for world peace with cutting-edge military technology.
Related The Best Fashion at Cannes 2018 Alejandro G. Iñárritu Named Cannes Jury President
Baronnet said Ubisoft Motion Pictures has been working with the games’ producers and Ubisoft’s marketing team to identify the DNA of each game and come up with storylines that are consistent.
“Assassin’s Creed,” “Splinter Cell” and “Ghost Recon” are Ubisoft’s hottest vidgame franchises and have sold 28 million, 22 million and 17 million units worldwide, respectively.
“Our strategy is not to diversify but to bolster the appeal of our franchises — that’s why we want to make sure our films will reflect the brands accurately and consolidate our fan base while expanding beyond the games’ primary target audience,” de Rivieres said.
Baronnet said, “We want to keep ownership, retain control over the film content, and we’re open to work with studios on the development of our projects, and eventually collaborate on the pre-casting, pre-budget and script.”
The group’s projects have drawn great interest from U.S. studios and screenwriters, he said.
Baronnet, Lupfer and de Rivieres will travel to Los Angeles in June to meet with studios and agents.
“We will have a script ready by the end of the year,” de Rivieres said.
Ubisoft Motion Pictures will tap into the resources of the game publisher and work with some of its 23 studios, which include Ubisoft Digital Arts and Hybride Technologies.
Ubisoft Motion Pictures is also developing “Raving Rabbids,” a gag-laden, CGI 3D toon series based on the hit vidgame and comprising 78 episodes of seven minutes.
Baronnet said the company was in advanced negotiations with a French TV broadcaster and in talks with a U.S. net for distribution.With the launch of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare happening next week on November 4, Activision and Infinity Ward have offered up more details on the Season Pass and Jackal Assault VR Experience for PlayStation VR.
The Infinite Warfare Season Pass – which is $49.99 USD on its own through the PlayStation Store, or you can get it in the $99.99 USD Digital Deluxe Edition or $119.99 USD Legacy Pro Edition along with Modern Warfare Remastered – includes four “epic map packs.” Packing in all-new multiplayer maps and zombies content, the map packs will release throughout 2017.
By picking up the Season Pass, you’ll also receive 10 Rare Supply Drops on November 4 ($20 value), as well as 1,000 bonus Salvage that you can use to craft new prototype weapons in multiplayer.
Expect the DLC packs to be released first on PS4, 30 days ahead of Xbox One and PC.
Also on November 4, the Jackal Assault VR Experience will “be available to all PlayStation 4 players who purchase any version of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare as a free bonus on launch day.” Downloadable from the Infinite Warfare in-game store, here’s what to expect from Jackal Assault:
For a completely immersive adventure, the Jackal Assault VR Experience puts you in the cockpit of your very own Jackal and provides an action-packed bonus experience to Infinite Warfare. This mission takes combat to a whole new level and a whole new realm, and provides a stunning virtual reality experience for the first time in Call of Duty history.
If you participated in the Infinite Warfare beta, you’ll receive this Calling Card:
All #IWBeta players will also get this bonus Beta Calling Card in #InfiniteWarfare for participating. pic.twitter.com/KxKtpSm2z2 — Call of |
-Trump candidate in 2020 for president.Waze, an Israeli mobile satellite navigation application, is seen on a smartphone in this photo illustration taken in Tel Aviv May 9, 2013. (Nir Elias/REUTERS)
Israelis have a reputation as some of the most aggressive drivers in the world. The tanned guy with the shaved head and wraparound sunglasses leaning on his horn, three inches from your bumper? He’s in a hurry.
But even the most competitive lane-changers in Israel have fallen in love with a homegrown satellite navigation system for their smartphones, called Waze, that is helping them cope with traffic jams, speed traps, road hazards — and maybe one another.
Waze describes itself as “the world’s fastest-growing community-based traffic and navigation app.” It has been downloaded by 49 million people.
After weeks of rumors, Google announced Tuesday that it was acquiring Waze. Industry watchers say the price topped $1 billion, but neither party would talk numbers. An Israeli business news Web site, the Marker, reported a possible hitch: European regulators may seek guarantees that user information held by Waze not be accessible to the U.S. National Security Agency.
The voice navigation system was invented by a frustrated Israeli commuter and software designer named Ehud Shabtai, who, according to the company Web site, needed help following directions. With two partners, Shabtai founded the start-up in 2008; two years later, the Waze app was widely available for download.
Unlike traditional GPS devices, Waze is driven by “crowd-sourcing,” which creates a kind of network effect. Each phone is tracked as it travels, and the information feeds into Waze servers that analyze speed, flow and routes in real time. Or as Waze puts it: “Outsmarting traffic. Together.”
Many Israeli drivers have traditionally not been too keen on the togetherness thing. But Waze may be steering them in another direction.
“One of the features is that you can see and talk to other Wazers. There is a certain camaraderie,” said Issamar Ginzberg, a business consultant and rabbi. “It’s very interactive.”
The guidance system is popular in the United States, but here in Israel, Waze has become a kind of obsession. According to a company representative, about 90 percent of all Israeli drivers have downloaded the app. More than 1.7 million Wazers were out on Israel’s roads last month. This is a country with only 2.5 million vehicles.
“You use Waze, okay? It’s free. It’s Israeli. No problem,” said Yossi Laor, who sells electronics in West Jerusalem, adding helpfully: “Everything else is garbage.”
He had fancy GPS units for sale in his shop but essentially said: Why bother?
Newcomers to Israel are advised by friends — and complete strangers — to immediately download the app. “Waze it” has replaced “Google it” as a shorthand for getting driving instructions.
“I was used to the old Israeli method of pulling over, talking to three different people and getting three different sets of directions,” said Jay Ruderman, a former Bostonian who is now a resident of the southern Israeli town of Rehovot. “I will never go back to the old method.”
The more Wazers on the road, the better and more accurate the navigation and real-time information about traffic conditions. Waze takes this information and offers alternative routes.
The algorithms are sophisticated enough that Waze knows when cars are stopped at traffic lights versus stuck in traffic. The software speaks dozens of languages and does several accents, including an Elvis impersonation.
Wazeniks may also share real-time information to help other drivers on the road, allowing them to touch their screens when they see accidents, police or hazards. The company awards status for miles driven using the app — from “Waze Baby” to “Waze Royalty.” The app speaks both Hebrew and Arabic, and Arab Israelis use it. It also works in the West Bank — but coverage in the Palestinian territory feels spotty and less detailed, users say.
The U.S. State Department, in its travel advisory about Israel, warns that “aggressive driving is commonplace, and many drivers fail to maintain safe following distances or signal before changing lanes or making turns.” Highway safety experts here say that a hands-free sat-nav system such as Waze might help Israelis drive better.
Sure, on the downside, they might focus on the dash-mounted phone inside their car and ignore the road. But there are upsides, too.
“An Israeli guy is always searching for the fastest way, but with Waze, you’re not as aggressive. Waze tells you there’s a traffic jam? Okay, you can relax. You’re going to be 30 minutes late, like everybody else, and there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s not your fault,” said Yaakov Sheinin, director of the National Road Safety Authority and an economics professor at Tel Aviv University, who is also a Wazenik.
Sheinin speculated that Waze has contributed in some way to the dramatic improvement in road safety in Israel. Eight years ago, Israel was ranked No. 22 in fatalities for billion kilometers driven. Last year, it had reduced road deaths enough to be considered the 10th safest in the industrial world.
The gizmo might calm drivers down and make the road warrior less “me versus you,” Sheinin said.
“It’s full-on social networking on the road,” said Tal Samuel-Azran, a lecturer at the Sammy Ofer School of Communications at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center, joking that he has heard of users employing the app to meet members of the opposite sex in traffic — by revealing their avatars to other commuters.
Part of the attraction for Israelis, Samuel-Azran said, is that apart from being free, it’s perfect for those me-first drivers who always have to get to their destination first.
“Using Waze gives you a competitive advantage,” he said.
Booth reported from Jerusalem.Your Bitcoin transactions The Ultimate Bitcoin mixer made truly anonymous. with an advanced technology. Mix coins
Advertised sites are not endorsed by the Bitcoin Forum. They may be unsafe, untrustworthy, or illegal in your jurisdiction. Advertise here.
Alphi
Offline
Activity: 798
Merit: 1000
Hero MemberActivity: 798Merit: 1000 Re: [XPM] [ANN] Primecoin Release - First Scientific Computing Cryptocurrency July 07, 2014, 05:27:31 PM #3544
I am unable to sync to the network and I have added all the addnode IP addresses that I could find on the forums and checked my firewall.
not working
seednode=primeseed.muuttuja.org
addnode=208.68.37.41
addnode=129.7.204.114
addnode=198.199.100.118
addnode=87.98.146.72
addnode=88.190.56.58
addnode=78.31.111.116
addnode=198.199.84.246
addnode=197.96.138.8
addnode=96.126.103.94
addnode=192.81.212.113
addnode=198.199.112.141
addnode=192.34.58.127
addnode=31.25.188.219
addnode=54.235.231.242
addnode=175.41.200.152
addnode=107.20.202.112
addnode=54.225.123.87
addnode=54.224.142.224
addnode=184.72.193.229
addnode=23.20.77.101
addnode=54.224.95.193
addnode=54.234.90.173
addnode=23.21.2.143
addnode=23.20.0.137
addnode=50.16.112.122
addnode=50.112.197.152
addnode=68.226.25.44
addnode=137.116.230.21
addnode=94.23.215.174
addnode=87.98.146.72
connect=208.68.37.41
connect=129.7.204.114
connect=198.199.100.118
connect=87.98.146.72
connect=88.190.56.58
connect=78.31.111.116
connect=198.199.84.246
connect=197.96.138.8
connect=96.126.103.94
connect=192.81.212.113
connect=198.199.112.141
connect=192.34.58.127
connect=31.25.188.219
connect=54.235.231.242
connect=175.41.200.152
can someone please post a working peers.dat fileI am unable to sync to the network and I have added all the addnode IP addresses that I could find on the forums and checked my firewall.not workingseednode=primeseed.muuttuja.orgaddnode=208.68.37.41addnode=129.7.204.114addnode=198.199.100.118addnode=87.98.146.72addnode=88.190.56.58addnode=78.31.111.116addnode=198.199.84.246addnode=197.96.138.8addnode=96.126.103.94addnode=192.81.212.113addnode=198.199.112.141addnode=192.34.58.127addnode=31.25.188.219addnode=54.235.231.242addnode=175.41.200.152addnode=107.20.202.112addnode=54.225.123.87addnode=54.224.142.224addnode=184.72.193.229addnode=23.20.77.101addnode=54.224.95.193addnode=54.234.90.173addnode=23.21.2.143addnode=23.20.0.137addnode=50.16.112.122addnode=50.112.197.152addnode=68.226.25.44addnode=137.116.230.21addnode=94.23.215.174addnode=87.98.146.72connect=208.68.37.41connect=129.7.204.114connect=198.199.100.118connect=87.98.146.72connect=88.190.56.58connect=78.31.111.116connect=198.199.84.246connect=197.96.138.8connect=96.126.103.94connect=192.81.212.113connect=198.199.112.141connect=192.34.58.127connect=31.25.188.219connect=54.235.231.242connect=175.41.200.152 KARMA: KSc9oGgGga1TS4PqZNFxNS9LSDjdSgpC1B VERT: VgKaooA5ZuLLUXTUANJigH9wCPuzBUBv9H
DOGE: DRN7pXid34o6wQgUuK8BoSjWJ5g8jiEs4e
Koooooj
Offline
Activity: 75
Merit: 10
MemberActivity: 75Merit: 10 Re: [XPM] [ANN] Primecoin Release - First Scientific Computing Cryptocurrency July 11, 2014, 03:40:34 AM #3546
You might try contacting
If that isn't possible then the community might be able to throw together a server that can handle the API calls you need. I moderate the Primecoin subreddit and would be willing to help promote a search on that forum for a developer willing to put together such an interface.
You would also be well served looking around on ppcointalk.org, which serves as the main forum for discussion of both Primecoin and Peercoin. Hivewallet:You might try contacting https://coinplorer.com at contact@coinplorer.uservoice.com. They run the most feature-rich block explorer for Primecoin that I'm aware of, although I don't know that they provide an API. You might be able to work with them to get the interface you need.If that isn't possible then the community might be able to throw together a server that can handle the API calls you need. I moderate the Primecoin subreddit and would be willing to help promote a search on that forum for a developer willing to put together such an interface.You would also be well served looking around on ppcointalk.org, which serves as the main forum for discussion of both Primecoin and Peercoin.
Alphi
Offline
Activity: 798
Merit: 1000
Hero MemberActivity: 798Merit: 1000 Re: [XPM] [ANN] Primecoin Release - First Scientific Computing Cryptocurrency July 16, 2014, 07:36:25 PM #3548
i guess ill just have to let my coins get stolen from the exchange because nobody bothered to give me a working node.
looks like primecoin is dying.. nobody is willing to help new users join the network.i guess ill just have to let my coins get stolen from the exchange because nobody bothered to give me a working node. KARMA: KSc9oGgGga1TS4PqZNFxNS9LSDjdSgpC1B VERT: VgKaooA5ZuLLUXTUANJigH9wCPuzBUBv9H
DOGE: DRN7pXid34o6wQgUuK8BoSjWJ5g8jiEs4eSfC Home > History >
"We Didn't Start the Fire" (Facts) History Summary from 1949-1989
by Ron Kurtus (revised 18 Janaury 2019)
The lyrics to the song We Didn't Start the Fire by Billy Joel list historical personalities and events from 1949 until 1989.
This lesson lists those people and events and gives a short explanation of their role in history.
1949
Harry Truman
Harry S Truman became U.S. President when President Roosevelt died in 1945. He was responsible for dropping the atomic bombs on Japan and ending World War II. Truman initiated the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after the war.
Note: Truman's middle name is the letter "S", such that there is no period after the letter.
He started his second term in 1949, defeating Thomas Dewey. A famous picture shows him smiling and holding up the Chicago Tribune newspaper with the headline "Dewey Defeats Truman".
During his second term, he brought the United States into the Korean War.
Doris Day
Doris Day was born in 1924. She started singing and touring with the Les Brown Band at age 16. She made her first movie in 1948 and soon became a popular movie star and singer.
Red China
Communists took control of China after a struggle that started before World War II and renamed the country the People's Republic of China. It was called Red China by the United States to indicate they were Communists.
Red China entered the Korean War in the 1950s, when it looked like the U.N. forces would defeat Communist North Korea.
Johnnie Ray
Partially deaf singer, whose song Cry was a number-one hit, Johnny Ray actually cried in performing the song. He was a top star in 1949 and 1950 with his other hit songs The Little White Cloud that Cried and Walking in the Rain.
South Pacific
South Pacific was a highly popular Broadway musical composed by Richard Rodgers, with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein. It was later made into a hit movie in 1958.
Walter Winchell
Walter Winchell was a top gossip reporter, whose newspaper column and radio show could make or break a celebrity.
Joe DiMaggio
Joe DiMaggio was a popular baseball player for the New York Yankees. In 1941, he set a Major League record of hitting safely in 56 straight games. He was affectionately known as "Joltin' Joe" and "The Yankee Clipper" until he retired in 1952. DiMaggio married actress Marilyn Monroe in 1954, but the marriage lasted only 9 months.
In the 1980s, he became known as "Mr. Coffee" because of his TV ads for that brand of coffee maker. He was also mentioned in the song Mrs. Robinson by Simon and Garfunkel.
1950
Joe McCarthy
Joe McCarthy was a Senator from Wisconsin. He was best known for his work chairing the Senate Committee on Government Operations, which focused on suspected communists in the government. He even investigated the Voice of America,
He was known for his brutal interrogations of suspects, resulting in ruining the lives of both guilty and innocent people. It was later noted that McCarthy would be careful not to interrogate suspects who might resist his efforts. Usually, he picked on people with weak personalities.
While investigating possible communists in the U.S. Army, the Army's attorney general Joseph Welch responded to McCarthy's interrogation of a young soldier. He told McCarthy, "Let us not assassinate this lad further, senator. You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" Since the hearings were broadcast on national television, millions realized that these interrogations were not right. The hearings soon ending and McCarthy was left in disfavor.
Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon was a member of the House of Representatives from California when he became involved in the trial of Alger Hiss, who was accused of being a Communist and a spy. Nixon presented evidence that help prove Hiss guilty in 1950. This advanced Nixon's political career, and he soon ran for the Senate and won. Nixon later became Vice-President under President Dwight Eisenhower. Years later, he became President of the United States.
Studebaker
Studebaker was a popular car in 1950. The styling consisted of a torpedo front end and read window. People joked that the car looked like it was going backwards. The company went out of business in 1966.
Television
Television became popular in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Most large cities had only one station. Sets in those days had 10 inch screens and were in black and white. Color was introduced in 1951, but it was years later until color television became universally popular.
North Korea / South Korea
Korea was split into north and south after World War II. North Korea became established as a Communist dictatorship by Soviet Union and Red China, after Japan was defeated.
In 1950, North Korea attacked South Korea, starting the Korean War. The United Nations entered the war to defend South Korea. The Soviet Union made the mistake of walking out on the U.N. vote, allowing the measure to pass. Since declaring war was not acceptable without the approval of Congress, President Harry S. Truman declared the fighting a "police action" to allow the entry of American troops. The war resulted in a stalemate, and Korea is still divided to this day.
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe was a popular "sex symbol" movie star. She was married to baseball hero Joe Dimaggio and later author Arthur Miller. She also was rumored to have relationships with President John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy, as well as mafia boss Joe Gianconna. She died under suspicious circumstances.
1951
Rosenbergs
The Rosenbergs were a husband and wife who were arrested and executed for selling secrets of the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union.
H-bomb
The hydrogen bomb (H-bomb) was developed under the guidance of Dr. Edward Teller. It was many times more powerful than an atomic bomb and in fact required an atomic bomb to detonate. The United States exploded the first H-bomb and a few years later the Soviet Union then exploded their version of the bomb.
Sugar Ray
Sugar Ray Robinson was the middle-weight boxing champion of the world. At the time considered pound-for-pound the best boxer ever. He was also highly personable and popular.
Panmunjom
Panmunjom, Korea is where negotiations between the United Nations—led by the United States—and the Communist North Koreans to end the Korean War took place. The separation between North Korea and South Korea was originally the 38th Parallel, but the new truce decided on a boundary between the countries that was more defensible. The countries also exchanged prisoners-of-war as a result of the Panmunjom negotiations.
Brando
Marlon Brando became a top movie actor when he received an Academy Award nomination for the role of Stanley Kowalski in the 1951 film adaptation of Tennessee Williams' play A Streetcar Named Desire.
He was famous for his brooding and mumbling acting style. He received an Academy Award for his role in On the Waterfront that brought him to be a top box-office draw. Many years later, he starred in the Godfather movie.
The King and I
The King and I was a popular Broadway play and later turned into a movie starring Yul Brunner and Deborah Kerr.
The Catcher in the Rye
The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger was an extreme popular book among teens, as it epitomized their attitudes and feelings.
1952
Eisenhower
Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower ("Ike") had been Supreme Commander in the World War II fight against the Nazis. He later became a popular president of the United States. "I like Ike" was the motto of his followers.
Vaccine
The vaccine to the dreaded disease polio was discovered by Jonas Salk and distributed to the world.
England's got a new Queen
On February 6, 1952, Queen Elizabeth 2 ascended to the throne upon the death of her father, King George 6. Her coronation didn't take place until June 2, 1953. This was a great event, not only in Britain but in all the countries of the British Commonwealth. It was also big news in the United States and many other countries as well. Filmed documentaries of the event circulated in Commonwealth countries for a long time after the event and every school child was taken to organized cinema screenings in school time.
(Thanks to Jim Cable of New Zealand for his input)
Marciano
Rocky Marciano was the heavyweight boxing champion of the world. He retired undefeated.
Liberace
Liberace was a popular pianist and entertainer, who had his own TV show in the 1950s. He was known for wearing sequined tuxedos and having a candelabrum on his piano. He is credited with advising singer Elvis Presley to also wear "fancy clothes" during his performances. Women adored Liberace, because of his sweet smile and wavy hair.
Santayana good-bye
Famed philosopher George Santayana died in 1952. He was popularly known for aphorisms, such as "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
(Thanks to Glenn Todd for providing that aphorism)
1953
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin was the dictator of the Soviet Union. He was a harsh leader who had millions of his people executed or sent to labor camps in Siberia. On his way to political power, he changed his name to Stalin, which means "steel" in Russian.
Malenkov
Georgy Malenkov was a Soviet politician and Communist Party leader, and a close collaborator of Joseph Stalin. He briefly became leader of the USSR (March 1953-February 1955) after Stalin's death.
Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser was the second President of Egypt after Muhammad Naguib. He was considered one of the more influential Arab leaders in history.
Prokofiev
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev was the most prolific Russian composer, pianist and conductor of the twentieth century. His works include such widely heard works ballets from Romeo and Juliet and Peter and the Wolf. He died in 1953.
Rockefeller
Nelson and Winthrop Rockefeller were grandsons of oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller.
In 1953, Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed Nelson as chair of the President's Advisory Committee on Government Organization. He served as Governor of New York from 1959 to 1973. He was the 41st Vice President of the United States of America from December 19, 1974 to January 20, 1977.
Also in 1953, Winthrop Rockefeller—who was known as a playboy and hard drinker—moved from Florida and New York to Arkansas. It was jokingly said he moved there because he loved playing the banjo. Winthrop became Governor of Arkansas in 1966 and was said to be a great influence on future Arkansas Governor and U.S. President Bill Clinton.
Winthrop was probably the Rockefeller that Billy Joel was referring to, since his playboy antics were more in the news than things that Nelson was doing.
Nelson and Winthrop Rockefeller were the only brothers in U.S. history to serve as governors at the same time until the late 1990s when George W. Bush and Jeb Bush became governors or their states.
Campanella
Roy Campanella was the all-star catcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team. His career was cut short by a paralyzing car accident.
Communist bloc
USSR and their satellite countries formed what was called the Communist bloc.
1954
Roy Cohn
Roy Cohn was the advisor to Senator Joseph McCarthy during the McCarthy Hearings on Communists in the movie industry and government.
Juan Perón
Juan Perón was a popular leader in Argentina, elected first in 1946 and then again in 1952. Perón pursued social policies aimed at empowering the working class. His wife Evita was known for helping the poor. He was strongly anti-American and anti-British, confiscating much of the British and American-owned assets in Argentina. In 1955, he was overthrown by a military coup. It wasn't until 1973 that he returned to power. He died shortly afterward in 1974.
Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini was a world-famous conductor, considered to have been one of the greatest classical conductors of all time. On April 4, 1954, while conducting a radio broadcast of the NBC Symphony at Carnegie Hall in New York, Toscanini suffered a memory lapse during the performance. That was the last time he conducted live in public. He died at the age of 89 in 1957.
Dacron
A new wonder-material Dacron hit the market.
Dien Bien Phu falls
The French lose control over Indo-China—now known as Vietnam—with the fall of the city Dien Bien Phu
Rock Around the Clock
Bill Haley and the Comets came out with what was considered the first rock-and-roll hit song, Rock Around the Clock. It was the theme music for the popular movie Blackboard Jungle.
1955
Einstein
Albert Einstein developed the Theory of Relativity in 1903 and was considered one the world's smartest scientists. He became a popular figure in the later years of his life. He died in 1955.
James Dean
James Dean was a movie star who became a symbol of young people for his role in the movie Rebel Without a Cause.
After completing his next movie Giant, Dean decided to drive his new 1955 Porsche Spyder to Salinas, California to enter in a sports car race there. His mechanic rode with him. On the way there, Dean's car was struck by another vehicle which crossed the centerline. James Dean was the only one killed in the accident. The driver of the other car had minor injuries, while the mechanic was thrown from the car and suffered some broken bones.
Brooklyn's got a winning team
The Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team finally won the World Series over the New York Yankees. They later moved to Los Angeles.
Davy Crockett
Actor Fess Parker starred in the highly popular TV series Davy Crockett. The novelty song The Ballad of Davy Crockett became the number-one song in 1955. Coonskin caps—like Davy Crockett wore—also became popular among young boys.
In the late 1950s, the U.S. military created what they called the M-29 Davy Crockett weapons system. This was a tactical nuclear recoilless gun, intended to fire at enemy troops in the case of war with the Soviet Union. They probably gave it that name as a result of the television series.
Peter Pan
Peter Pan was a top Broadway play starring Mary Martin, who flew through the air as Peter Pan.
Elvis Presley
Singer Elvis Presley became a national phenomenon with such number-one hit songs as Heartbreak Hotel, Don't Be Cruel and Hound Dog. He was called "Elvis the Pelvis" because of the way he shook his hips while dancing. Many religious leaders and school officials banned his songs, which only made them more popular. He later went on to be nicknamed "The King" as the most popular singer ever.
Disneyland
Disneyland opened in 1955 in Anaheim, California. It was a theme park, developed by Walt Disney and based around his cartoon characters. It was designated as a place for family entertainment.
An interesting and little-known fact is that although Disney forbade the serving of alcoholic beverages in Disneyland, he had a private suite in the park where bartenders would serve drinks to his personal guests.
1956
Bardot
Brigitte Bardot was a popular French "sex-kitten" movie star.
Budapest
Anti-communist riots took part in Budapest, Hungary. Soviet troops put down the revolt and arrested many Hungarians, especially students.
Alabama
In Montgomery, Alabama in 1955, African-American Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in the "colored section" to a white passenger, after the "white section" was filled, as was the law at that time. She was then arrested for her act of defiance. That arrest resulted in demonstrations and a boycott of Montgomery buses by African-Americans that lasted until December 1956.
Since the boycott was costing downtown stores and white businesses considerable money, negotiations were made to stop the action. But it took a Supreme Court ruling in November 1956 that segregation on transportation is unconstitutional to finally integrate the buses.
This event was also a starting point for the Civil Rights movement of Martin Luther King and others.
Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev emerged as a leader in the Soviet Union after the death of dictator Josef Stalin. In 1956, he advocated reform and indirectly criticized Stalin and his methods. He became the Premier of the Soviet Union from 1958 to 1974.
Princess Grace
Actress Grace Kelly left Hollywood to marry Prince Ranier of Monaco. She then attained the title of Princess Grace.
Peyton Place
The book Peyton Place became the number-1 best-seller. Teens often marked the "good parts" in the book, as they passed it among each other.
The book is quite tame according to today's standards.
Trouble in the Suez
After Britain and the USA withdrew their financial support for the Egyptian Aswan dam project, General Nasser nationalized the important Suez Canal. Egypt was then invaded by British, French and Israeli forces. Under pressure from the United States the invaders left Egypt and a UN emergency force was sent to Egypt.
1957
Little Rock
Nine African-American students enrolled at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Governor Faubus ordered the Arkansas National Guard to surround Central High School to keep the nine students from entering the school, because he believed black and whites should be segregated, despite Federal laws on integration. President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered the 101st Airborne Division into Little Rock to insure the safety of the students. The crisis gained world-wide attention.
Pasternak
Boris Pasternak was a Russian poet and writer. He is best known in the West for his monumental novel on Soviet Russia, Doctor Zhivago. The book was also made into an award-winning movie.
Although he was celebrated in Russia as a great poet, his book was banned in the Soviet Union for many years.
Mickey Mantle
Mickey Mantle was a great baseball player for the New York Yankee team. He batted both left- and right-handed, hit at a leading batting average, as well as led the league in home runs.
In 1957, he was voted the most valuable player (MVP) for the second consecutive year.
Kerouac
Jack Kerouac was the author of the best-selling book On the Road, which epitomized the Beat Generation of the late 1940s and early 1950s. Upon achieving fame, Kerouac became a serious alcoholic and died at an early age.
Sputnik
Sputnik was the name of the first orbiting satellite sent into space by the USSR. Turmoil over its launch in the United States initiated the race for supremacy in space.
Chou En-Lai
Chou En-Lai (Zhou Enlai) was the Premier and Foreign Minister of the People's Republic of China (also called Red China by Western journalists). He was a popular and practical administrator during the "Great Leap Forward" of 1958 and later pushed for modernization to undo damage caused by the "Cultural Revolution" of 1966 to 1976. Zhou was largely responsible for the re-establishment of contacts with the West during the Nixon presidency.
Bridge on the River Kwai
The Bridge on the River Kwai was a 1957 Academy Award winning movie about a World War II Japanese prisoner-of-war camp.
1958
Lebanon
U.S. President Eisenhower ordered U.S. Marines into Lebanon at the request of Lebanese President Chamoun to help stop riots that were occurring in the country.
Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle returned to power as the leader of France.
California baseball
The Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team moved to Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Giants moved to San Francisco.
Starkweather homicide
Charles Starkweather was a serial killer who made the news 1958 because of his gruesome murders. Starkweather and his girlfriend, Caril Fugate, went on a killing spree of 11 to 15 people over a span of a month and a half. They were captured and he was executed in 1959.
Children of Thalidomide
Thalidomide was a medication intended for pregnant women to combat morning sickness and as an aid to help them sleep. Unfortunately, inadequate tests were performed to assess the drug's safety. Between 1957 and 1962, children of women who took the drug thalidomide during pregnancy were born with severe deformities, including only stubs for arms. Because of this tragedy, the drug was taken off the market in 1962. Of the 10,000 children born with birth defects, only 5000 lived beyond childhood.
After years of research on the uses of thalidomide, it was allowed to be used to prevent nausea in chemotherapy patients, as well as treating painful skin conditions. In 2006, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted approval for thalidomide in special cases.
1959
Buddy Holly
Buddy Holly was a popular singer and leader of the Crickets rock group. He was killed in a plane crash, along with singers The Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens.
In 1971, the hit song American Pie referred to his death in the line "...the day the music died."
Ben Hur
Ben Hur was a spectacular movie starring Charlton Heston. It was set around the time of Christ.
Space Monkey
Starting in 1948. a number of monkeys had been sent into space in various rockets, but unfortunately all died during their flights. It wasn't until 1959 that Able, a rhesus monkey, and Miss Baker, a squirrel monkey, became the first monkeys to successfully travel in space and successfully return to Earth.
The most famous "space monkey" was Ham, who was sent up in an American space satellite for a suborbital flight, as a prelude to sending a man in space. Ham was not really a monkey, but a chimpanzee. The actual year he went into space was 1961.
Note: He was a mean little guy who would often try to bite the workers who put him in the space capsule.
Mafia
Mafia leaders met in upstate New York to get better organized.
Hula Hoops
Hula Hoops became a national fad. Everywhere, you would see children and even adults trying to spin the large plastic hoop around their waist. TV celebrities would also display their skills with the hoop. The fad peaked and died out quickly.
Castro
Fidel Castro had been a wealthy lawyer, advocating social justice and protesting the influence of the United States in Cuba. He became involved in political activism and led the revolution to overthrow Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959. He was then sworn in as the Prime Minister of Cuba. Moving toward Communism, he alienated the United States.
Castro was also known for his long-winded speeches.
Edsel is a no-go
Ford Motor Company came out with a new car, the Edsel. The car was named after Edsel Ford, who was Henry Ford's son. The car was to fit in between the Ford and Mercury, but it was the wrong car at the wrong time and lasted only a few years until it was discontinued.
1960
U-2
The United States had been sending the secret U-2 high-flying spy plane over the Soviet Union to take pictures and gather information, when one was shot down by a Russian missile. The pilot Francis Gary Powers was taken prisoner and later released in an exchange for a Soviet spy who had been arrested in the U.S.
An interesting note is that Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was stationed at the military base where Powers' U-2 took off for the flight. No connection was ever made, but it did seem suspicious,
Syngman Rhee
Syngman Rhee was the first President of South Korea, serving from 1948 to 1960. His method of rule became unpopular, and he was forced to resign by a student-led democratic movement.
Payola
Many disk jockeys were exposed for taking bribes to pay certain songs on the radio, thus biasing the record sales. Top national disk jockey Allen Freed was convicted of payola. American Bandstand TV dance show host |
wrap and chill in the freezer for at least 4 hours. (This is important for cutting and presentation–but to be honest, if you pull it out a little earlier like after 3 hours, it will taste just as delicious.)
Related: Raw Vegan Hummingbird Cake
Raw Vegan Chocolate Mousse
Vegan Banana Bread Brownies
Vegan Ginger & Green Tea Ice Cream
__
Photo: Peaceful DumplingHair Length Is Protected Religious Practice
ACLU Of Louisiana Files Appeal
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org
NEW ORLEANS, LA – In a fight for religious freedom, the ACLU of Louisiana has enrolled to represent a Native American student at Juban Parc Junior High School in Denham Springs, LA. Seth Chaisson, a member of the United Houma Nation, grows his hair long for cultural and religious reasons. Although he told school authorities of his beliefs and his heritage, Seth has repeatedly been reprimanded for the length of his hair, and on March 15, 2011 he was suspended from school and told that he would remain suspended every day until he cut his hair.
On March 15, the ACLU of Louisiana wrote to the principal of Juban Parc Junior High explaining that the First Amendment guarantee of religious freedom prohibits the interference with Seth's religious practice, including the length of his hair. Having received no reply, today the ACLU submitted a formal appeal on behalf of the student, seeking reversal of all disciplinary actions against him and demanding that his record be cleared.
“Everyone, including junior high school students, is guaranteed the right to practice his or her religion,” said ACLU of Louisiana Executive Director Marjorie R. Esman. “Schools may not discriminate against a student whose religion is not that of the majority. In fact, the schools have an obligation to protect students from religious and other forms of discrimination.”
Louisiana law provides strong protection for religious practices. Recognizing that religious training should be left to parents, schools may not interfere without a particularly compelling reason; adherence to a dress code is not a strong enough reason to override Seth's right to religious freedom. “Preventing a Native American from wearing his hair long is like preventing a Christian from wearing a cross,” Esman continued. “The law protects all faiths, including that of Seth Chaisson. Seth should be commended for his courage in standing up for his religious beliefs and cultural heritage.”The Costa Rican government will investigate undercover US programmes operated from the Central American country and using its citizens in a ploy to destabilise the government in Cuba, Costa Rica's director of intelligence and security has said.
Mariano Figueres told the Associated Press news agency on Friday that the new administration, which took office May 8, has found no records or information from their predecessors about the US Agency for International Development project, which starting in 2009 sent young Venezuelans, Costa Ricans and Peruvians to Cuba in hopes of stirring opposition to the island's communist government.
Figueres said Costa Rica's only information came from an August 4 Associated Press article, which said USAID and a contractor, Creative Associates International, used the cover of health and civic programmes, some operating out of Costa Rica, in hopes of provoking political change in Cuba.
"If we can confirm all this, of course we're not going to agree that our national territory be used to attack a friendly government, regardless of what ideological side you're on," said Figueres.
"It's a matter of sovereignty and respect... and we're very alarmed that they used Costa Rican citizens and put them at risk."
Figueres said that Costa Rica has yet to ask the US about the programme and that any findings would be relayed through the Foreign Ministry.
Risking lives
The AP found the programme continued even as US officials privately told contractors to consider suspending travel to Cuba after the arrest there of contractor Alan Gross, who remains imprisoned after smuggling in sensitive technology.
The travellers worked undercover, often posing as tourists, and travelled around Cuba scouting for people they could turn into political activists.
In one case, the workers formed an HIV-prevention workshop that memos called "the perfect excuse" for the programme's political goals - a gambit that could undermine the United States' push to improve health globally.
But the efforts in Cuba were fraught with incompetence and risk, the AP investigation found.
Cuban authorities questioned who was bankrolling the travellers.
The young workers nearly blew their mission to "identify potential social-change actors". One said he got a paltry, 30-minute seminar on how to evade Cuban intelligence, and there appeared to be no safety net for the inexperienced participants if they were caught.
In all, nearly a dozen Latin Americans served in the programme in Cuba, for pay as low as $5.41 an hour.
The Obama administration has defended its use of an HIV-prevention workshop for its Cuban democracy-promotion efforts, but disputed that the project was a front for political purposes.The official WikiLeaks account at Twitter threatened to create a new service to compete against Twitter’s “cyber feudalism” after Breitbart employee Milo Yiannapoulos (user name @nero) was “permanently suspended” from the social media service.
Twitter banned Milo Yiannopoulos without detailed explanation, but Milo had posted a fake tweet to Ghostbusters actress Leslie Jones which placed the bigoted word “kike” in her mouth. Leslie Jones left Twitter but returned to post again after Milo was suspended.
WIKILEAKS AND FOUNDER JACK DORSEY EXCHANGE
After Milo Yiannapoulos (user name @Nero) was “permanently suspended” from his account, the official WikiLeaks account (user name @WikiLeaks) with over three million followers weighed in to oppose the suspension strongly — at one point suggesting that WikiLeaks could create a rival service to Twitter.
WikiLeaks began by calling the ban “cyber feudalism,” invoking Twitter founder Jack Dorsey by his user name @Jack, and complaining that he “banned conservative gay libertarian @nero for speaking the ‘wrong’ way to actress @Lesdoggg” referring to the user name of Leslie Jones, actress in the movie Ghostbusters.
Jack Dorsey replied to WikiLeaks: “we don’t ban people for expressing their thoughts. Targeted abuse & inciting abuse against people however, that’s not allowed.” The founder’s vague comment was unsatisfactory to users who were looking to #FreeNero from the ban and to those who wanted specific information to support the ban.
WikiLeaks continued with a series of Tweets. “Who has access to justice? Many have had vastly worse. What’s the appeal mechanism? What’s the transparency of the process?” These are all very good questions that apply to all of the social networks. Unfortunately for those who would like actual transparent rules and appeals processes to prevent free speech censorship, there is no obligation for a corporation to provide such due process — no matter how important its service becomes to society or employment.
WikiLeaks then warned, “We will start a rival service if this keeps up because @WikiLeaks & our supporters are threatened by a space of feudal justice.”
Jack Dorsey responded, “all fair points. We are working to get here.” Most of the users’ replies found this response inadequate, but WikiLeaks eased off, declaring “Good news.”
WHAT MILO ACTUALLY DID
Milo Yiannapoulos, Twitter user name @nero, sent out unflattering Tweets about Leslie Jones, supporting his followers as they posted nasty comments against the actress. But one Tweet Milo sent stood out.
In this Tweet, Milo egged-on those attacking Leslie Jones by spreading a fake Tweet — a fraud — a lie — accusing her falsely of using the word “kike” to describe Jews — a well-known term of bigotry. Here is the deleted Tweet at the Internet Archive.
POOR COVERAGE OF FRAUDULENT TWEET
It is curious that neither WikiLeaks nor Jack Dorsey mentioned this Tweet in their conversation. Perhaps neither knew about it at the time. Meanwhile, at partisan sites like Breitbart.com who took the side of Milo and wanted to #FreeNero from the “permanent suspension” for the sake of “free speech,” the exact nature of this fraudulent Tweet was not disclosed.
Breitbart, the employer of Milo, attempting to minimize the “kike” Tweet, put it this way. Milo:
Shared a fake screenshot (made clear with the lack of a verification check mark) someone made to depict Jones tweeting insults like ‘kikes.’
Since it was “made clear” that the Tweet was fake, Breitbart is admitting that “reporter” Milo either deliberately shared a fake Tweet or Milo missed the obvious clarity — wrongdoing or incompetence.
RISK TO THE FREE SPEECH OF WIKILEAKS
In a side conversation, user @kadybat noted, “Keep in mind that WikiLeaks is defending someone who has consistently insulted Chelsea Manning in his reporting.” Chelsea Manning, formerly known as Bradley Manning, was responsible for releasing the notorious video of “collateral murder.” For this leak, Manning received a 35-year prison sentence. WikiLeaks supported Manning.
WikiLeaks responded, “We’re not defending @Nero. We’re defending ourselves. If @Twitter is a place of censorship @WikiLeaks will be censored.”
This is precisely why Twitter needs to implement some sort of transparent standards, equally applied, with some form of due process when users are suspended. If it turns out that Milo was suspended for his fraudulent Tweet, WikiLeaks has nothing to fear.Sometime in 2010, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will stop swiping airline passengers' bottled water and cups of coffee at security checkpoints. Instead, the agency will once again permit us to carry liquids and gels aboard planes.
It's not that the TSA has finally realized mouthwash and moisturizer really can't explode, not even at 30,000 feet. Rather, it claims it has a combination of new contraptions to prove that. Advanced Technology X-ray machines, bottle scanners, and spectrometers will confirm that your unopened, factory-sealed Listerine is, well, Listerine.
The ban on liquids and gels has plagued passengers for over two years now, ever since British police insisted they had foiled a plot for bombing jetliners en route from London to the US and Canada. Supposedly, terrorists planned to smuggle the ingredients of an explosive elixir aboard their flights in soft-drink containers, then combine them to blow the planes sky-high.
Horrific, murderous – and virtually impossible. The TSA makes it sound as though anyone with a year of high-school chemistry and some hydrogen peroxide can whip up explosives in an airplane's restroom. But mixing a truly explosive bomb is a delicate operation. It requires exact temperatures, precise measurements and methods, and specialized equipment – all more commonly found in laboratories than lavatories. The procedure takes a while, too. And the fumes are likely to alert the passengers shifting from foot to foot in the aisle as they await their turn in the washroom.
In fact, chemists worldwide doubt that even the most accomplished terrorist can concoct such a combustive cocktail high above the Atlantic. A British jury this summer didn't buy the allegations, either. Due to lack of evidence, only eight of the plot's original 25 suspects finally made it to trial. As it turns out, police should have freed all the defendants: jurors refused to convict anyone of terrorism. They exonerated one man, returned no verdict on four others, and settled on lesser charges for the remaining three.
But none of these facts seem to matter to the TSA. It needs something to justify its existence: Despite six years of patting down passengers, it hasn't reported uncovering a single terrorist. No wonder it latched onto the nonsense about liquid bombs. Ferreting out and confiscating everyday substances not only makes work for 43,000 screeners, it also fools us into thinking this protects us.
The TSA has always been a political, not practical, response to 9/11. It hassles us at checkpoints not because of penetrating insights on security or some brilliant breakthrough, but because politicians handed it power. Specialists in security didn't invent the TSA; the Bush administration imposed it on us. So we might hope the incoming president would abolish this absurd agency.
Unfortunately, Barack Obama wants to improve the TSA rather than send it packing. His suggestions for that improvement? Passengers still aren't screened against a comprehensive terrorist watch list, his website proclaims. Such a list must be developed.
Why? The watch list has already kept Rep. John Lewis (D) of Georgia and Sen. Ted Kennedy (D) of Massachusetts off planes: Will a comprehensive list bar Republican congressmen, too? That'll protect us about as well as unionizing screeners will – another change the campaigning Obama said he favors.
An administration serious about preserving passengers' lives rather than screeners' jobs would dismantle the TSA. Experts in the field, not the government, should design security. And it's senseless to fear that without the TSA airlines won't protect us. Businesses never willingly risk their inventory or customers; the aviation industry is no exception.
Eliminating the TSA allows airlines to protect their customers and multimillion-dollar jets with real security, tailored to each company's needs. AirTran, for instance, confronts different challenges from Air Jamaica, just as banks in midtown Manhattan deal with different dangers than do those in suburban Sioux City. In a world free of the TSA, an airline might arm its pilots or hire private security firms.
More likely, ideas and options we nonexperts can't imagine would render aviation's security as unobtrusive and effective as it is in other industries. There's no limit to human ingenuity and innovation – until the government stifles them with one-size-fits-all regulation.
Unfortunately, we can expect the airlines to fight as hard as the TSA for its survival: requiring security and establishing a bureaucracy to run it sticks taxpayers, rather than airlines, with the bill.
We've paid aviation's operating costs long enough. It's time to bring down the curtain on the TSA's security theater.
Becky Akers, a freelance writer and historian, is finishing a book about the TSA.A six-month-old child was allegedly kidnapped from north Delhi’s Hindu Rao Hospital Saturday morning and later found at a bus stand near Model Town Metro station.
Advertising
According to police, the child’s mother filed a complaint, saying her daughter had gone missing from the hospital at 8.15 am. At about 2.30 pm, a woman spotted the infant crying at the bus stand and took her to the Model Town police station. Police said the SHO took a photo of the girl and sent it to the Subzi Mandi police station for confirmation, after which the girl was reunited with her mother.
According to police, the mother, Rehana, had taken the baby and her elder daughter to the hospital for a blood test. Additional DCP (north) Esha Pandey said, “As the baby was crying, the lab assistant said she could give the child to the woman in front to handle. The mother did the same. Within a few minutes, she found that the woman and her daughter were missing.”
She added that police are on the lookout for the woman. “We have flashed the information at all Metro and railway stations, and ISBTs. We have also formed teams to help identify the woman,” said the additional DCP.
According to Rehana, the woman who kidnapped her daughter was wearing a red bindi and a huge nose pin.
Advertising
Police said they could not get any CCTV footage from the hospital as the cameras were “not functioning”. However, North Delhi Municipal Corporation Mayor Sanjeev Nayyar said, “The CCTV cameras in the hospital are functional,” Nayyar told PTI.By: Santino Filoso
For this week’s Throwback Thursday interview, I chatted with former Ottawa Renegade DB Korey Banks. Banks, an eight time CFL All Star, racked up 37 career interceptions, 22 sacks, 14 fumbles, 442 tackles, 7 touchdowns and two Grey Cup rings.
RR: As an American coming to Ottawa, what was your first impression of the city?
KB: It was unreal. It was my first time out of country and I was so excited. I entered the league in 2004 after being cut from the NFL. At first I hated living in a hotel without a vehicle and not really making any money, but I loved the atmosphere, vibe and people in the city. Ottawa was great to me man, I loved everything about it.
In 2005, your second year in the league, you quickly became a fan favourite, leading the league with 10 interceptions. How were you so successful so early in your career?
I actually predicted I’d get 10 picks in pre-season interview. My confidence was high because I knew I almost made it in the NFL and that as a young guy they’d throw the ball at me to test me. By the time QBs knew I could play, I already had 7 or 8 picks. After the season I had a few NFL teams come sniffing but they weren’t offering a lot of money up front and Ottawa put a big offer on the table, so I couldn’t pass it up.
A lot of people blame the Renegades ownership for being a distraction to the team, did you ever feel that way?
I was too young into my career to really understand that part of the business. I didn’t look at it like other people, I just looked at it like there’s an owner and I’m a player and we had a mutual respect. If I saw him I’d say hello but not much else because I knew that to keep my job I had to perform at a high level.
When the Renegades folded in 2006, did you have any idea where you would end up?
I was getting calls from Ticats at the time but in the dispersal draft they traded with Saskatchewan, and I knew I wasn’t going there as they already had guys like Omar Morgan and Eddie Davis. BC really came out of nowhere but it was a good change for me, I went from from shit to sugar, last place to Grey Cup. I wasn’t used to losing and only ever had a losing season when I was in college at Mississippi State. Losing was killing me but the most disappointing thing about the Renegades folding was that us players felt like we were about to turn things around. When Ottawa went under the best players were scooped up but a lot of good friends lost jobs.
I’m sure every interception is satisfying but did you enjoy picking off certain QBs more than others?
I loved picking off Anthony Calvillo or Ricky Ray, when you got those guys, you knew you were really doing your thing. But now that I think about it, the most satisfying interceptions were when I got Dave Dickenson in practice, because he knew the all angles. Dickenson didn’t have the strongest arm but his ball placement was perfect.
Were you a big trash talker?
Early in career I was, but I did it to get noticed and make a name for myself. Where I’m from that’s how you got noticed. Later on in my career I matured and didn’t need to do it as much. I mean of course I still did it, but I didn’t waste time trashing talking guys I played three times a year. I knew to save it for the playoffs.
How did you pump yourself up before a big game?
I had a routine to do the opposite actually. I listened to slow music because I had to mellow myself out. I knew the next couple hours would be high pressure with me flying around so basically I had to meditate and get my mind right.
Who was the toughest receiver you ever had to cover?
I played against a lot of great wide receivers. I think I had tough match ups every week, going head to head with guys like Ben Cahoon, Jason Tucker, Milt Stegall, Geroy Simon, Fred Stamps, Nik Lewis, DJ Flick, and Jeremaine Copeland. Week after week they kept coming and I had to come in and set the tempo. Against guys like that you have to stick your fork in the ground, stand strong and make them play your way. If you blink they’ll beat you all day.
During your CFL career you played for Ottawa, BC and Winnipeg, where was the toughest stadium to play in and why?
I wouldn’t say it was the toughest atmosphere, but in Hamilton I only ever made a few plays. After some success against them early in my career with Ottawa, once I went to BC something about that stadium just threw me off a bit. In 10 years I think I only made 5 or 6 big plays there. I’m not saying I played poorly in Hamilton, just that I didn’t have great games there, never really got my mojo going.
Obviously this season things in Winnipeg didn’t work out as you hoped, what happened there and what are your plans for next season?
I don’t know what happened there, I always respected everyone and did what I needed to do. When I came into Winnipeg they gave me a big contract, hyped me up as an impact player and everyone seemed to be on the same page. I had a great camp, picking off 8 passes in practice, was a stand up teammate and always did what I was asked. It boiled down to the fact that Gary Etcheverry had a problem with me, which I never understood since we were working towards the same goal. One day in practice I asked him a question and he just nodded and jogged off without answering me. At the next meeting he starts it off by talking about how players shouldn’t question coaches, etc. etc. This is the same guy who doesn’t use a playbook, he just writes plays on the board and then erases them. As a player you feel uncomfortable as you have nothing to reference when studying. To Etcheverry players are just horses to be run. He’s a total joke and a clown. I’m not denying he’s got a good football mind but the man’s a clown and has no relationship with his players.
When the Bombers started playing games with me, putting me on the IR and stuff, the joke ended up on them as they were on the hook for my salary this season, and with the settlement I got to stay home this year and get paid. The whole experience left a bitter taste in my mouth and made me hate the CFL. Well, actually not the CFL, just Winnipeg, I hope they never win anything again. As for my career I’m done with football.
Did you still keep in touch with any of the other guys you played with in Ottawa?
I still talk to Kyries Hebert, Jason Armstead and I recently met Quincy Coleman for some drinks. I catch up with Brad Banks once in awhile as well.
Why did you wear #24?
When I first came to Ottawa the equipment manager gave it to me. I got off to a good start using it and everyone in every pro league wearing #24 was balling, so I decided to roll with that.
What piece of football advice would you offer to young players looking to take their game to the next level?
You gotta ask yourself before you think about a career as a football player, do you have anything else to fall back on? Don’t just go into it wanting to be a football player, since you can’t control that. You’ve gotta understand the game and your opponent and then you’ll do well. If you don’t know the game you’re competing on athletics.
When CFL fans hear the name Korey Banks, what would you like them to think of or remember?
I’d like them to remember a guy who played the game at a great level. When a new DB breaks into the CFL and has sustained success, not a flash in the pan one year wonder, but success at a high level for a number of years, I’d like them to say “Man that guys reminds me of Korey Banks”. That would truly be satisfying.
Thanks for your time Korey and best of luck to you in the future!
@RedBlackGade
– Images via Scott Grant Photography
AdvertisementsVideo
It has been 30 years since a lethal gas leak from a Union Carbide India's pesticide factory in the central Indian city of Bhopal killed thousands of people.
Victims say children are still being born with disabilities because of the effects of the spill.
Scientific studies have shown that the factory site has not been fully cleaned up.
In a statement to the BBC, Union Carbide said that the government closed off the site right after the leak, and so it was only able to do some clean-up work a decade later, on which it spent $2 million (£1.28m/1.6m euros), just before it sold the factory.
The company says the plant is now controlled by the Indian government which is therefore responsible for the clean-up, and it has given $470 million (£300m/379m euros) in compensation to the victims of the leak, which was accepted by the Supreme Court of India in 1989 as a fair settlement.
Yogita Limaye visited the site of the disaster to see it now.December 1, 2012
Mitsubishi Electric was the last hold-out in the rear projection TV (RPTV) business, and now the company is dropping the line, CE Pro has learned.
Mitsubishi Electrical Visual Solutions America, Inc. (MEVSA), the group in charge of the RPTV and other video product lines for both residential and commercial markets, has sent a letter to authorized service centers (reprinted below) indicating they are “discontinuing the manufacture of 73”, 82” and 92” DLP projection televisions.”
The memo, issued by MEVSA president and CEO Junichi Nose, indicates that the move is part of an “important change in business direction, which will necessitate a corresponding restructuring of the MEVSA organization.”
Nose says MEVSA will continue to be headquartered at its current Irvine, Calif., location and adds, “We expect that these changes will have a minimal effect on you and your business.”
Reached early this morning, Max Wasinger, long-time exec with Mitsubishi’s video products and currently executive vice president of sales and marketing for MEVSA, tells CE Pro, “We are in the midst of an orderly exit from the DLP TV business. MEVSA will now focus on B-to-B (projectors, display wall, printers, digital signage, monitors, etc.) and the home theater projector business.”
TV ANALYST SAYS...
The microdisplay category had a great run and was really the first “thin” big-screen TV. Unit sales for the microdisplay RPTV category hit point of 2.2M units in 2006. The category remained significant thought 2007, and in 2008 shipments fell dramatically to a little over 500,000 from 1.3M in 2007. It was in 2008 that we really saw big-screen LCD TV take off, with sales of 52” models over 1.5M. Recently, the category has remained relevant only in the size 70” and above, with 70” struggling as well this year. Volume for 2011 fell to 210,446 units and this year we are projecting sales flat or below. The rental channel was the category’s main supporter in recent years, but as large flat-screen manufacturing prices declined, the rental channel quickly moved to LCD TVs.—Tamaryn Pratt, principal, Quixel Research.
Wasinger will take on the position of executive vice president of sales for all Mitsubishi Professional Products and solutions. Frank De Martin, vice president of sales for MEVSA, is staying with the organization, Wasinger says.
A Brief History of Mitsubishi and RPTV
Mitsubishi has a storied history in the big-screen RPTV market, launching a 50-inch HD-ready CRT for the home market in the mid-1990s (I had one of the first – see image gallery). CRTs gave way to DLP and other “thinner profile” RPTVs in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and Mitsubishi continued to lead the way.
As with the other key TV manufacturers, Mitsubishi made the shift to flat-panel displays in the early 2000’s, shipping a wide range of LCDs like the other guys. But while other TV makers were phasing out their microdisplays (DLP and LCOS), Mitsubishi continued to innovate in the category.
For example, in 2007, the company unveiled eight LCD flat panels and nine DLP RPTVs.
By 2009, the only other serious RPTV maker, Samsung, exited the category, giving Mitsubishi a virtual monopoly.
The manufacturer took advantage of that position and decided to focus on RPTVs. In early 2011, Mitsubishi exited the overcrowded LCD market and shortly thereafter announced it would cease production of all TVs smaller than 65 inches.
Frank De Martin (left) and Max Wasinger flank their biggest fan, CE Pro editor Julie Jacobson, 2011
And just after that announcement, the company unveiled a new line of really-big-screen DLPs that were substantially less expensive than any flat panels on the market. For example, the 92-inch WD-92840 retailed for $5,999 when it was introduced. Today, you can pick one up for less than $2,500.
In late 2011, at an expo presented by the buying group Nationwide/Specialty Electronics Nationwide (SEN), Mitsubishi explained its decision to move forward with RPTVs, noting that it is simply the best bang for the buck, and one of the few TV categories that could be profitable for dealers.
Back then, DeMartin discussed a competitor whose 70-inch flat screen – without 3D capabilities – retailed for $3,000
“You can get a 73-inch DLP for $1,599. And by the way, we [the dealer] can give you furniture, 3D glasses, a Blu-ray player and home theater in the box, and you’ll still pay less than $3,000.”
Mitsubishi continued to improve on its televisions with laser technology, which it was the first to introduce in 2008. The top-of-the-line “LaserVue” TVs feature much brighter pictures than traditional DLPs.
The latest model in what is largely regarded as a stunning TV line, is the L75-A96 75-inch LaserVue. It has an MSRP of $6,000 and a street price of about $4,000.
NEXT: My Life with Mitsubishi RPTVs, Memo from MEVSA president
Page 1 of 2
1 2 Next »Pasadena Mayor Terry Tornek has placed a recommendation on Monday’s City Council agenda for the City to hold a special election to repeal Measure A, the 2001 initiative ordinance which promotes completion of the 710 Freeway.
Measure A positioned the City as being squarely in favor of completing the “missing link” gap in the 710 Freeway connecting its current terminus at Valley Boulevard in Alhambra with the 210 Foothill Freeway in Pasadena, even though in recent years the Council has gone on record as being in opposition to the 710 tunnel proposal.
At the May 17 Council meeting, Tornek said that “after the November elections the City is going to get ambushed and we will be confronted with a full court press to build [the 710 tunnel]. We have got to be prepared to prevent that from happening.”
“So,” he continued then, firing a shot across the bow of the 21 cities in favor of the project, “In order for us to be ready when this hits the fan after November… we must repeal Measure A … because Measure A restricts our ability to actively oppose the completion of the freeway. And that measure can only be repealed by a vote of the people.”
A legal opinion by Pasadena City Attorney Michele Bagneris holds that Measure A precludes the City from taking any action against the 710 tunnel project. No monies may be raised or spent in opposition to the 710 tunnel by the City unless Measure A is repealed, the opinion concluded.
Yesterday, Tornek said he is hopeful the Council will vote in favor of holding the special election.
“I don’t handicap these things,” he said Thursday when asked if he felt optimistic about passage of the recommendation. “I have not polled the Councilmembers individually, as that would be a violation of the Brown Act [Legislation which prevents legislators from discussion of official business outside of a formal scheduled meeting].”
“The Council is unanimous in its opposition to the 710 Tunnel,” added Tornek “so the only question is their reaction to actually placing this on the ballot. I don’t anticipate any resistance to it, but you never know.”
“There are tremendous forces gathering to try and push this through,” Tornek said, “and we have a five-city coalition to object to it, but Pasadena is sort of participating in that process with one hand tied behind its back because of Measure A.”
Tornek is concerned that the predicted successful passage of R-2, an extension of a previous and expiring sale tax measure, would trigger a major offensive by pro-tunnel forces. R-2 would raise over $120 billion to fund Metro’s transit projects and initial polling indicates 68% of Los Angeles County voters support the idea. With a huge warchest, Metro and other cities, such as Los Angeles, will push even harder to complete the 710 tunnel project, Tornek reasons.
The Federal Highway Administration (FHA) approved a plan to complete the 710 Freeway between the 1-10 Freeway in Alhambra and the 1-210 Freeway in Pasadena back in 1998.
Work stalled when a federal judge issued an injunction as residents fought to halt the project, citing negative impacts of the planned freeway route that passed through residential areas in South Pasadena and Pasadena.
The Pasadena City Council adopted Resolution No. 7865 in April 2000, reversing prior City support for the 710 Freeway extension. An initiative petition was then circulated by proponents supporting the 710 Freeway extension. Measure A was submitted to the voters in March 2001, and was overwhelmingly approved with a 58% majority.
The FHA then suspended its support of the plan in 2003, and directed state officials to conduct a new environmental impact study of the project. Five years later, voters approved Measure R, providing the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) with new funds for transportation projects, and new interest in the 710 Freeway project.
A series of plans to close the 710 gap were created in 2012, but eventually Metro settled on a five-mile tunnel from the 710’s terminus in Alhambra to the 210 Freeway near California Avenue.
The City Council voted to formally oppose the Tunnel plan in April of 2013, and offered a package of alternatives to Metro developed by a citizen committee.
Wrote Mayor Tornek in his report to the council, “In light of the magnitude of the project and impact this will have on Pasadena and quality of life issues, the City Council must reinsert the City’s voice and legal standing to express opposition. The only way to accomplish this goal is to submit a ballot measure and repeal Measure A by a vote of the people.”
“Pursuit of this effort is consistent with the City Council’s goals to increase conservation and sustainability; improve mobility and accessibility throughout the City; support. and promote the quality of life and the local economy; and ensure public safety.”As we reported yesterday, the pro-Trump rally in Denver on Saturday March 4 was attended, but not disrupted, by European-style Antifas, or “anti-fascists”. Similar “March 4” rallies were held across the country, and Antifa groups — dressed in the same hip grungy black-masked outfits, carrying the same flags and banners — showed up at many of the other ones. These groups had no noticeable presence in the United States before Inauguration Day, and now they are being deployed everywhere to counter with their menacing presence any support for President Trump.
It’s as if they sprang into existence fully-formed, like Athena from the head of Zeus. Such uniformity of appearance and simultaneous deployments at multiple locations are further evidence that the entire operation is being funded, controlled, and coordinated internationally on both sides of the Atlantic.
The report below was sent in by an observer of the March 4th Trump Rally and Antifa protest in Nashville, Tennessee.
Antifa in Nashville
I arrived downtown at the Public Library about 10:30, parked and walked north on 6th Ave to Deadrick. There were a number of people headed for the Trump Rally, but when I went east on Deadrick towards the Court House, the Antifa meeting place, there were only a few people and they were headed uptown toward the rally at the Plaza.
At a block away from the Courthouse, I could see a small number of people standing on the perimeter of the Courthouse plaza and some others behind them. They were in dark hoodies and had scarves around their faces. I walked down the side of the courthouse and counted about 25 people who got into a formation. Then someone gave a signal and they raised their Antifa flags and marched up the hill toward Legislative Plaza. Around the corner came eight motorcycle cops who followed them. I stayed a block behind them.
When we got to the bottom of the Plaza steps on the east side, there was a line of state trooper cars with their blue lights on. The troopers formed a whole row across the steps, moving aside for rally-goers to get up. With them and below them on the steps were a row of Trump activists (see photo below) with signs and one guy on a bull horn who also held an anti-abortion sign. (he was there the whole time, talking back to Antifa, calling them cowards for not showing their faces, telling them they would be judged by God for their deeds, and leading USA, USA chants. There was a group of disgruntled veterans who stood on the sidewalk, blocking Antifa on their right.
The Antifa shouted back using two bullhorns. And of course they had their Antifa and International Workers of the World flags and signs like “Resist and replace capitalism.” The best sign was “End White Supremacy”, held up by three white people. So the whole time the rally was going on (staged on the North with the Capitol in the background) the activists on both sides were yelling at each other non-stop. Because of the steps and the layout of the War Memorial/Plaza, if you were at the Trump rally, you couldn’t hear Antifa and their nasty words: “F*** you, Trump pieces of s***,” etc.
I don’t think Antifa expected that much resistance. About 12:15 or so they called in fresh meat. Here came the LGBT crowd, a few blacks and a feminist in a pink pussy hat. One of the Antifa crowd was Hispanic who thought because she had brown skin, all the Trump people were bigots and hated her. She was masked and said she didn’t have a name. She was “Anonymous”. Most of the Antifa were young, college-age. Later their recruits were older and had bad homemade signs: like “All we need is love”. |
’ legacy.She said, “It’s so exciting to be back home in Texas, and I’m honored to continue Fred’s work with this incredible organization. I look forward to the opportunity to continue to cultivate this incredibly innovative and progressive organization as we serve our performers and their families. ”Morrison will serve in an advisory capacity through 2019 to ensure a smooth leadership transition.He said, “Having worked toward retirement for the last year or two, I am thrilled that we have found such a strong, competent replacement. There is no doubt that Natalie will build on the tradition of excellence and take the Crossmen to the next level.”Crossmen Productions, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) education and youth development organization assisting young people in becoming outstanding individuals through music and the performing arts. The organization includes the Crossmen Drum and Bugle Corps, Crossmen Winds, and San Antonio Chamber Winds – all focused on enriching the lives of participants through music education and life experiences. Learn more at www.crossmen.org Posted by on 19th February, 2019 | Comments | Trackbacks | Permalink
Tags:Kobach running for Kansas governor Copyright by KSNT - All rights reserved (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner) [ + - ] Video
LENEXA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas official who's helping lead President Donald Trump's commission on election fraud announced Thursday that he's running for the Republican nomination for governor.
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach gained a national reputation for championing tough voter identification laws and helping to draft state and local laws aimed at cracking down on illegal immigration. He's jumping into the 2018 governor's race only two days after Kansas legislators enacted a law rolling back past income tax cuts championed by Republican Gov. Sam Brownback over Brownback's veto. Kobach criticized the Legislature's move.
"Our people deserve so much better than what's happening in Topeka right now," Kobach said Thursday in a speech kicking off his campaign. "We're going in the wrong direction."
Kobach opened his campaign at a barn converted into an events center in the Kansas City suburbs of Johnson County, the state's most populous county and home to about 22 percent of all Kansas voters. It's crucial, vote-rich territory for any candidate for governor, and Kobach has a strong base there, though he now lives on a farm outside Lawrence, about 30 miles west.
Kobach, 51, is a strong abortion opponent and gun-rights advocate, Harvard-, Yale- and Oxford-educated former law professor, ex-U.S. Justice Department official and former Kansas Republican Party chairman. He has advised Trump for months, first on immigration, then on election fraud issues.
Before pursuing voter ID laws, Kobach was best known for helping to draft tough laws against illegal immigration, including Arizona's "show your papers" law in 2010.
Trump named Kobach vice chairman of the election fraud commission, with Vice President Mike Pence as chairman. The voter ID laws in Kansas that Kobach advocated have sparked multiple lawsuits from such groups as the American Civil Liberties Union. He has served as Kansas' elected secretary of state since 2011 and is the only chief state elections officer with the power to prosecute voter fraud — authority he sought from legislators.
"By nominating Kris Kobach for governor, the Republican Party would continue to endorse the failures of Sam Brownback," Kansas Democratic Party Chairman John Gibson said in an email statement after Kobach's announcement. "Whoever our colleagues on the other side of the aisle choose as their standard bearer, we look forward to a vigorous debate about the direction of our state."
Brownback is term-limited, and there has been speculation that he'll resign by the fall to take an ambassador's position in the Trump administration, automatically elevating Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer to governor. Colyer is considered a potential Republican candidate regardless, but Kobach brings a base of ardent conservative supporters into the race.
The contest could become crowded. A Wichita oil company owner, Wink Hartman, has been campaigning for the Republican nomination since February, and former state Rep. Ed O'Malley, CEO of the Kansas Leadership Center in Wichita, is exploring the GOP race. On the Democratic side, former Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer and former state Agriculture Secretary Joshua Svaty have announced they're running, though the GOP wields a major electoral advantage in the state.
Kobach has never been shy about weighing in on issues outside the formal bounds of the secretary of state's office.
He's recently been commenting on the Legislature's debate about raising taxes to fix the state budget and provide extra money for public schools. Many voters soured last year on the tax-cutting Brownback experiment initiated in 2012 and elected more Democrats and GOP moderates to the Legislature — setting the stage for this week's rollback.
In a tweet, Kobach labeled as "obscene" the tax increase approved by lawmakers, $1.2 billion over two years.
"It is time to drain the swamp in Topeka," Kobach tweeted Wednesday morning, after Brownback's veto was overridden, adopting a Trump presidential campaign slogan.Image copyright David Turner Image caption The picture of Donald Trump which was created by David Turner using Lego
Donald Trump's face is one of the most recognisable in the world, but a Lego artwork of the US President's teenage self still requires a double take.
The piece, entitled Space Cadet, is the creation of Belfast artist David Turner and is part of a series on political figures in their formative years.
Other portraits include Nelson Mandela and Mao Zedong.
The project includes "politicians, revolutionaries, dictators, prime ministers and presidents".
"I am looking at them in their youth, when they are all around 14 to 17 years (old)," Mr Turner told BBC News NI.
Image copyright David Turner Image caption David Turner has exhibited his work in various countries around the world
"They are captured about the time they would have been playing with Lego, I know I played with Lego when I was younger.
"The whole idea was to capture them before their destiny and when there was more a sense of innocence about them."
The Donald Trump piece, which is 30ins by 30ins, was going to be displayed at a major art fair, added the artist.
Image copyright David Turner Image caption Mr Turner has also produced a teenage portrait of Nelson Mandela using Hama beads
Mr Turner said the pictures of Nelson Mandela and Mao Zedong had been made with Hama beads due to the cost of using Lego.
He explained why he had labelled the Trump artwork as Space Cadet.
"Donald Trump is a controversial character, he gets a battering in the media," Mr Turner said.
"It is a play on his depiction in the media, rather than my personal opinion, a jab at how he is being portrayed now."
The 48-year-old said he had only started developing his art seriously when he attended the Ulster University as a mature student in 2001.
In recent years, he has moved away from painting as a medium and said his work included replicas of weapons using Lego.
"When I was at university, I was working on memory, reproducing newspaper images from the Troubles," he added.
Image copyright David Turner Image caption The artist has also created gun replicas using Lego
"Then three to four years ago, I started to use Lego, Hama beads, jigsaw pieces and Plasticine for sculptures.
"I started to make replica firearms using Lego.
"That came from being in nursery school in Belfast during the Troubles - the policy was no guns in nursery - but as soon as you went to the Lego box you made a gun.
"It is autobiographical and thinking about growing up at that time in Belfast."NEW YORK -- Johnny Depp's 17-year-old daughter has defended him after his wife raised allegations of domestic abuse.
In an Instagram post Sunday, Lily-Rose Depp calls her father "the sweetest most loving person I know." She didn't specifically reference the allegations but says Depp has "been nothing but a wonderful father to my little brother and I, and everyone who knows him would say the same."
My dad is the sweetest most loving person I know, he's been nothing but a wonderful father to my little brother and I, and everyone who knows him would say the same ❤️ A photo posted by Lily-Rose Depp (@lilyrose_depp) on May 29, 2016 at 4:57am PDT
Depp's wife, Amber Heard, is divorcing him. On Friday, she said in a Los Angeles court that Depp had been physically and emotionally abusive throughout "the entirety of our relationship." She appeared with a bruise on her right cheek.
Lily-Rose came to her father's defense yet again when she posted a screenshot from People's website on Instagram on Sunday, which quoted an LAPD officer as saying there was no evidence of domestic violence when they responded to a call on May 21.
A photo posted by Lily-Rose Depp (@lilyrose_depp) on May 29, 2016 at 2:50pm PDT
A judge barred Depp from contacting Heard until a June 17 hearing.
Lily-Rose Depp is an actress and model. Her mother is Vanessa Paradis, Johnny Depp's former partner.President Dalia Grybauskaite of Lithuania, which holds the rotating EU presidency, indicated at an EU summit in Brussels on Friday that the EU would resume its work with Ukraine, but not without conditions.
"Europe is open for [the] Ukrainian people, but not necessarily for this government. That's the message," Grybauskaite said, referring to the government of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.
"This government is not signing because it doesn't want to sign," she said, adding that its "credibility is already lost."
At later press conference in Brussels, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she would not make such a differentiation. "The door remains open without time constraint," she said.
Earlier this week, the 28-member EU bloc froze negotiations over a trade pact with the eastern European country, citing Yanukovych's refusal to reach a compromise with anti-government protesters.
Just ahead of an intended association agreement signing with the EU at the end of November, Yanukovych shelved the long-awaited deal.
The decision, which Ukrainians attributed to Moscow's influence, sparked mass protests in the capital. The EU also criticized the use of police force against peaceful demonstrators.
'We're not carpet traders'
At the summit's final day on Friday, Luxembourg's new prime minister dismissed suggestions by Ukrainian leaders that the EU should have offered more money if it wanted Kyiv to enter into a trade agreement.
"We are not carpet traders. It's not a question of offering more," Luxembourg Premier Xavier Bettel said on Friday.
Despite public outcry, Yanukovych and Premier Mykola Azarov agreed this week to a $15-billion- (11-billion-euro) loan from the Russian government on Tuesday.
That deal included a temporary discount on imports of Russian gas. The decision further fuelled demonstrations and renewed concerns that Kyiv would enter into a Russian-led customs union, which some fear would resemble Soviet-era relations with Moscow.
Responding on Thursday, Yanukovych accused foreign envoys, such as EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and US Republican Senator John McCain, of meddling in Ukrainian politics. Both have travelled to Kyiv in recent weeks, where they met with politicians and protesters.
"I am categorically against other coming to our country and teaching us how to live," Yanukovych said in a televised address.
S&P downgrade
The EU responded to the downgrade of its credit rating from AAA to AA+ by Standard and Poors on Friday.
"The Commission disagrees with S&P that member state obligations to the budget in a stress scenario are questionable," EU Economic Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said.
S&P issued its revised assessment earlier on Friday, citing deteriorating financial arrangements and "cohesion among [members states]."
kms/ipj (AP, AFP, Reuters, dpa)Brendan Schaub has spent the last few weeks of his life just waiting on the call from the UFC to give him a date on the calendar for a fight with Mark Hunt.
Unfortunately that call never came and a few days ago, Schaub came to the harsh realization that the fight with Hunt probably wasn’t going to happen and he had to move onto his next assignment inside the Octagon.
With the bulk of the top heavyweights in the UFC already wrapped up in fights or just coming out of bouts, the list seemed short of potential opponents but when Schaub’s manager gave him a ring just a couple of days ago, he couldn’t believe the name that was uttered.
Article continues below...
"My manager called me and I was actually on the beach doing a recovery workout and he goes ‘I got some news for you’. He goes ‘it’s a big one’ and I knew the Mark Hunt stuff, Mark was dragging his feet and they wanted to wait till August or September so I was like who do we got? He goes ‘Andrei Arlovski’ and you got him June 14," Schaub told FOX Sports on Friday. "I couldn’t be more excited. Andrei and I have trained together before, he trains at a world-class level. For me it’s a legend, it’s a world-class fighter. We’ll definitely be the talk of UFC 174."
So I shot for the stars and I landed on the moon with Andrei Arlovski. He’s a bigger name than Mark Hunt. He’s a legend — Brendan Schaub
As disappointed as Schaub was that he didn’t land the fight with Hunt, hearing that he was getting Arlovski instead was like waking up on Christmas morning to find the house filled to the brim with presents. Schaub looks at Arlovski as one of the true icons of the Octagon, and in name value alone this is a much bigger fight than the bout he was gunning for with Hunt.
"So I shot for the stars and I landed on the moon with Andrei Arlovski. He’s a bigger name than Mark Hunt. He’s a legend. It’s like them calling up and saying you’re pitching against Bo Jackson, he’s one of the greats," Schaub said.
"You look at the name Arlovski’s beat — Fabricio Werdum, Ben Rothwell, Roy Nelson — you’re talking about the who’s who of the sport. A big convincing win, a knockout of Andrei Arlovski, that launches me up there. It couldn’t get bigger for me. My coach asked ‘well what should we do with this fight?’ and I said line up the toughest sons of b–ches you can find because this isn’t going to be one of those quick knockouts."
Schaub has been itching to fight ever since his last bout and now he gets a main card slot against a former UFC heavyweight champion returning to the promotion for the first time in over six years.
Now the former Ultimate Fighter runner-up gets the chance to not only face one of the best heavyweights, but a legend — and that’s more than he ever could have hoped for when he started looking for his next fight.
Schaub vs. Arlovski will be a featured bout on the UFC 174 pay-per-view card featuring the main event between flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson and challenger Ali Bagautinov.We've seen a ton of patent filings from Magic Leap, covering both the tech behind its efforts and the outcome. Without going into too much detail (Road To VR breaks the hardware patents down neatly, if you're interested), the company is working on a lightweight wearable display system that combines sensors with a fiber-optic projection display to create the illusion of 3D. It does this by detecting what you're focusing on and layering two-dimensional images at the right depth. You'll then be able to interact with the projections using a "tactile glove" to detect movements.
In its latest patent filing, Magic Leap gives a clue as to what those interactions could look like. Business Insider has pulled loads of images from the application, which show various use cases for augmented reality, including in-store advertising, productivity and interactive entertainment. One drawing, for example, shows a "friendly monster" in a store enticing a child to interact with brands.
It seems Magic Leap will offer a cross between Google Glass, Oculus Rift and ARI from 'Heavy Rain'
If you piece the fragments together, it seems Magic Leap will offer a cross between Google Glass, Oculus Rift and Heavy Rain's Added Reality Interface (ARI). In the 2010 video game Heavy Rain FBI agent Norman Jayden can use a pair of VR sunglasses to augment his reality, switching his mundane surroundings for a beach, rainforest, or even the surface of Mars, using a glove to interact with an interface that floats in front of him. The vision laid out in patent filings suggests -- if Magic Leap can follow through on its ideas -- we're close to seeing an even-more-advanced version of ARI become a reality.Abbott says Gillard's poll 'bounce' won't last
Updated
Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says the Labor Party's boost in the latest opinion polls will not last long.
The first polls since former prime minister Kevin Rudd was deposed show Labor has a healthy lead over the Coalition.
The latest opinion polls show new Prime Minister Julia Gillard holding more than a 20-point lead as the preferred prime minister over Mr Abbott.
In the latest Herald/Nielson poll Labor's primary vote has climbed to 47 per cent, while support for the Coalition has fallen 1 point to 42 per cent.
But Mr Abbott told a Liberal party conference in Canberra that Labor still has a set of policies that Australians do not like.
"Right now the new Prime Minister is enjoying a predictable bounce in the polls that was to be expected the Government has tried to fix the headlines," he said.
"But they can't fix the problems and the headlines won't stay fixed unless they fix the problem."
Mr Abbott says he has already toppled one prime minister and he believes he can claim another scalp at the next election.
"We can do it again because the Australian people are wondering why the Prime Minister of this country should be chosen by the union and the factional warlords rather than by the people themselves," he said.
Greens leader Bob Brown says the swing towards Labor will not stay once the celebration of the first female prime minister passes.
"We're not going to see our troops brought home from Afghanistan, we're not going to see the line held on the $12 billion in the budget from the mining boom tax, we're not going to see the necessary injection of funds into mental and dental health care as the Greens proposed it," he said.
Downer slams Rudd
This weekend Ms Gillard will be consulting with her colleagues about her new frontbench.
But the former foreign affairs minister, Alexander Downer, said it would not be in Australia's best interests for Mr Rudd to represent the Government overseas.
There is speculation the Ms Gillard may want to use Mr Rudd's diplomatic experience in the Foreign Affairs portfolio.
Mr Downer says he would prefer to have Stephen Smith remain in the job.
He also criticised Mr Rudd's foreign policy record as prime minister.
"He's not trusted by the Chinese leadership, he's undermined our relationship with India I think," Mr Downer said.
"We need to leave Mr Smith and make a fresh start with Julia Gillard. I think that's the best way to improve the relationships with our key neighbours."
Topics: federal-government, government-and-politics, political-parties, liberals, australia
First postedEarlier this year I shared the good news that Richardsville Elementary School was working towards becoming the first net-zero energy public school. As you can imagine, that is quite an undertaking and will be quite an accomplishment when it opens. Well…..as good news would have it, construction is nearing completion and Richardsville Elementary is on target to be open by the end of August!
As principal architect on this project, Kenny Stanfield AIA and LEED® AP (Accredited Professional), described it:
“For our team, the goal of achieving a net zero school was simply the next step – to go from a proven, design operating facility (Plano) that requires only 28 kBtus of energy per square foot annually to a facility that needs 18 kBtus to operate.”
The design for this net zero energy school was even awarded the Green Design Concept Winner 2008 Green Education Design Showcase.
Now, if you are unfamiliar with the term “net zero building”, it basically describes a structure that generates as much (or more) energy than it needs to operate. It does that through renewable energy resources such as wind and solar. This doesn’t mean it isn’t connected to the electric grid, but it does mean the building itself generates more energy than it consumes.
Besides the fact that it completely generates its own energy, Richardsville Elementary is a relatively “typical” school in that it has classrooms, a gymnasium, cafeteria, library, etc. Another difference though is that it was designed and built as a tool to educate students on the value of energy conservation, solar, water conservation, recycling and more.
Let’s take a look at some of the features that take Richardsville Elementary up to the next level in educational building standards.
First there is the design layout of the school property:
As you can see, it includes a full array of solar panels on the main building as well as the covered drop-off/pick-up area in the parking lot. Renewable materials were used during construction whenever possible and ICFs (Insulated Concrete Forms) were used as a green construction measure to provide smart insulation. Additionally the building was laid out in a north-south site orientation in order to increase solar output and naturally conserve energy.
As you can tell from this picture of the front entrance, the building has a clerestory spine running down the middle of the building. This was designed to allow for maximum natural daylight and minimal lighting costs. The windows themselves are made from Nanogel® filled sandwich panel glass to provide a nice aesthetic for the building without lowering energy efficiency.
This photo shows the rear of the school building, with the media center on the second floor and a covered outdoor classroom below it. The stair towers to the left and right are encased by windows and decorated by sunshades at each level to minimize heat/glare.
The south facing facade (classrooms) clearly shows the use of daylighting as well as the incorporation of sunshade devices in the design and practicality of the building.
The new gymnasium floor was made mostly from bamboo with the dark hardwood sections salvaged from the old gymnasium. Acoustical wall panels were added to give the room optimum acoustics. You can also see a bit of the clerestory daylighting in place here as well.
With regard to the kitchen area, Energy Star rated equipment was used and combi-ovens were chosen as a healthier option to traditional fryers and skillets. So not only will the cafeteria be energy-efficient, it will be able to provide healthier food choices to the students as well.
In terms of overall construction costs, the building and site itself ran about $12,160,000 with the solar/Photovoltaic costs adding an additional $2,753,124. Bringing the total construction costs to a little under $15 million. As the building is 77,466 sq ft, that breaks down to approximately $193 per sq ft.
One note though, as this is a net zero building, the project was able to get a federal bloc grant through the Kentucky Dept of Energy for 50% of the solar costs.
If you are interested, you can follow some of the final construction via the Warren County Public Schools’ webcam.
A special thank you to Kenny Stanfield from Sherman-Carter-Barnhart for providing me with photos and additional information on this great accomplishment of the first net-zero energy school – Richardsville Elementary in Warren County, Kentucky. For more information on Sherman-Carter-Barnhart’s other green projects, you can check out their website.
Congratulations to all involved! Building the first net zero energy school is definitely a historical moment and hopefully there will be many more schools following suit. I can’t wait to hear more about Richardsville Elementary once school is in session.A Stock Market For Real Estate?
A stock market for real estate?
Last week, a company called Point raised an additional $8.4 million in their efforts to make residential real estate liquid and tradeable, bringing their total funding to $15.4 million in only eleven months.
A competitor of Point with a similar business model is preparing to launch in the next few months as well. The collection of VC firms funding that one are THE SAME COLLECTION OF VCS WHO ORIGINALLY FUNDED UBER.
????
The real estate industry is definitely getting the attention of the folks in Silicon Valley.
Fractional home ownership is nothing new. An open marketplace where people can buy and sell portions of single family homes? That’s worth watching. (You can read Marc Andreessen’s take on it here).
Smaller, private equity-sharing arrangements are common in the most expensive parts of the US. In places like the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City, it is a regular occurrence for parents to loan their children a down payment for a home because of the big price tags. Taking that investment approach with institutional money and a big marketing push might be enough for them to reach a tipping Point. (Get it?)
On a large enough scale, this model could be disruptive to the real estate industry AND the banking industry.
Risk to real estate agents
If homeowners can get some liquidity without refinancing or selling their home, they may not need to sell as often (or ever). That would affect real estate agents, who make their living from real estate transactions. If there are fewer transactions, there are fewer commission dollars available.
Risk to banks
Banks would also feel the pinch if this model gets some traction. If homeowners don’t need to refinance or get a home equity loan in order to get some money out of their property, they won’t be paying fees and/or interest to the banks.
Risk to homeowners
The upside potential for Point is capped at 20% (to keep the regulators happy), but giving up equity in your home could still end up being very expensive. The obvious risk is the ten-year term for the arrangement–either you have to sell by then OR you can buy-out the investor at the current market value of your home after ten years.
What happens if you aren’t in a cash position to buy-out the investor and the housing market has not worked in your favor at the ten year mark? Bad things, that’s what.
I’m certainly not panicking (yet) because there are many more failed startups who wanted to disrupt the real estate industry than there are successful ones. I’m certainly paying attention, though.One of the hardest decisions when modifying your WRX or STI is whether or not to use cobb accessport or open source tuning. The stock tune for a wrx or STi leaves some power on the table but when the restrictive down pipe and cat back are replaced there is even more power left on the table. Each of these engine management options has positives and negatives. First lets look at the accessport.
The accesport is priced locked at 595 and used ones go for 500. If you shop around you can find vendors on NASIOC giving away stuff with an accessport to entice the deal a little. Included are two off the shelf maps stage 1 and stage 2. 91 octane maps and a few other maps can be downloaded as well from cobb tunings site for free. These maps are great for owners who are do not live near a reputable Subaru tuner or who do not plan on modifying past stage two and want a set and forget it approach.
The cobb accessport also has a nifty little boost gauge and shows some other parameters too. However these gauges are what the ECU sees and may be in accurate compared to a real dedicated gauge.
Open source tuning is more complicated. For the technology challenged it is definitely not recommended.You need a tactrix cable ECU Flash and Romraider. You also MUST have a boost gauge and a Wide-band gauge if you plan on tuning the car yourself. If you plan on bringing the WRX to a dyno where a reputable tuner is then I think you could get by with just a boost gauge. I would only recommend going open source if you contact your tuner and you are having it dyno tuned.
Tuning on the street is illegal because of the speed you have to reach to do a proper log. Most e-tuning services require a log of your car doing a third gear pull which puts you in excess of the speed limit.If you are going to go open source be sure you have a laptop that is capable of flashing the ecu map in case you need to re flash the tune.
I would choose cobb tuning accessport mostly because dyno time is expensive and while a dyno tuned stage 2 is better than an off the shelf map I would rather get a tune after changing the turbo and getting the cobb accessport would save me money in the long run.Happy New Years Quakes Fans!
As I look forward at the coming year of 2014, I could not be more excited and optimistic about the direction of the San Jose Earthquakes. 2014 is the 40th anniversary of the club and we have several huge time events that will celebrate and honor our heritage while charting our course for the next 40 years. These include the completion of our new stadium near the end of the year, the inaugural event, Quakes vs. Sounders FC, at Levi’s Stadium on August 2, the California Clasico at Stanford Stadium and large scale World Cup viewing parties. To start off the festivities for the 40th birthday bash, we are re-launching the San Jose Earthquakes brand and unveiling a new logo that represents what this club is all about.
That is correct. We will have a new logo and brand identity for the 2014 season and beyond. It is no small undertaking to embark on a rebranding of any product. Rebranding a professional sports team brings with it even more challenges. You must balance the emotional connection that a team’s mark has on fans as well as the community at large with the desire to create a new mark that better reflects the direction and identity of the club and the sport at the current time and into the future. This has been done well and very poorly.
When we studied other situations of pro sports teams re-branding, we realized that unless you can answer one key question then the rebrand is likely a mistake. The key question is “why?” Why change anything? We felt that we needed a good answer to that question before we could entertain moving forward with any type of rebrand.
So with that backdrop, we started a 14-month exploration of the brand identity of the San Jose Earthquakes. We hoped that by better understanding the way that various stakeholders viewed and experienced the club that we as a front office and the current curator of the brand could set the appropriate direction on a go forward basis.
What followed were scores of interviews, focus groups and primary research on the San Jose Earthquakes dating back to the club’s origins in 1973-74. We spent time curating the items from History San Jose to learn more about the NASL era. Newspaper articles, programs, and even personal interviews with individuals like Milan Mandaric – the founder and initial owner of the Quakes – formulated our views on the early Quakes. Those same sources as well as other former players and long time fans provided great insight into the 1980s WSA Quakes as well as the rise and fall of the San Francisco Bay Blackhawks in the so called “middle ages” of US pro soccer.
The rich treasure trove of info extended into the MLS era starting with the impact of the 1994 World Cup on Bay Area soccer. We continued the primary research through conversations with members of the team from 2001-2005 when the team won two MLS Cups and a Supporters’ Shield. We paid special attention to the feedback from fans about the Houston relocation and the strong community effort led by Soccer Silicon Valley to lobby for a new team here in San Jose with its history intact.
Fan and community input was especially important to this process from the beginning. The collective resolve and devotion of the fan base through numerous fits and starts as a club, including the terrible exile to Houston, was striking. The fact that fans were so devoted to the club in spite of these tragedies helped define what it means to be a member of Quakes nation.
Through this process, we made a very simple observation. The current mark and team brand identity did not properly reflect the values and heritage that the San Jose Earthquakes have here in our community dating back 40 years. This was a theme that many stakeholders from former players to supporters group members touched upon. It was at that point that we had an answer to our question of “why change anything?”
As the stewards of the Quakes brand and identity at this critical chapter in our club’s history, we felt an obligation to re-unify the brand and team identity to better reflect our values of unity, devotion and heritage that so clearly presented themselves through the exhaustive and comprehensive process of reflection and enlightenment.
The end result of this journey is not just a new crest, but rather a reunification and rebirth of the Quakes nation. It is a mark that we can be proud of and can propel the club to greatness both on and off the field. It is our future and it is now.
I look forward to seeing you on January 30 at San Pedro Square Market, as we unveil the next step in our journey.
GO QUAKES!The Beijing World Robot Conference (WRC), sponsored by Beijing City, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the China Association of Science and Technology, was held October 21-25. It was big, long, ran over a weekend, and gave a run-down of the breath of China's fast-emerging robotics industry.
More than 145 vendors filled the exhibition hall which was separated into international and domestic industrial robots, and service and special purpose robots. In the main forum, 45 sessions comprising individual and panel presentations took place in the main auditorium with seating for 1,000 over three of the five days of the event. Rodney Brooks described how collaborative robots are helping bring flexibility to electronics manufacturing; KUKA's Bernd Liepert described how manufacturing benefits through the use of robotics; and IBM's Grady Booch and many others discussed the future of AI in relation to robots, manufacturing, self-driving cars and cloud processing and connectedness; to name just a few of the Western speakers.
The audience consisted of business executives, government personalities, academics of all types and from all across China, Korea, Japan and the EU, robot manufacturers and their sales staffs, and, particularly on the weekend, whole families – from children to their great grandparents.
A variety of contests and challenges focused on young people peppered the event: an unmanned driving challenge, an underwater robot competition, a RoboCup Challenge of robots playing soccer, and a youth challenge to work with other kids to get a robot to shoot hoops. There was even Star Challenge, a reality show about robotic startups and their key people, that will soon be broadcast on Chinese satellite and network TV.
Most of the WRC reviews that appeared in Chinese and international media emphasized the abundance of human-like robots such as JiaJia, a super realistic robot capable of micro facial expressions and basic conversation, from the University of Science and Technology of China. She was the media hit as can be seen in this video which shows JiaJia, an old man in traditional Chinese clothing drawing Chinese characters with a brush, and a few other mobile robots.
Other media showed a man flying a bionic butterfly drone, a badminton-playing robot that took on the crowd, and SmartTuna, a swimming industrial robot that finds leaks inside underwater pipelines which swam through clear plastic pipes for all to see.
Business executives from companies that were users or candidates to use robots in their businesses were exposed to a wide range of applications and uses throughout the conference and by demonstrations on the exhibition floor. The conference program was forward-looking and addressed subjects such as Russian and Israeli co-operative partnerships, healthcare and surgical developments, collaborative robots, self-driving vehicles, drones, and research challenges that must be met for the industry to progress and succeed.
About 40% of the robots on display at the show were industrial, while the rest were service and specialized robots.
According to the China Robot Industry Association, 68,000 industrial robots were sold in China in 2015, up 20% compared to the same period of 2014. China accounted for about a quarter of robot sales globally in 2015, making the country the biggest market for industrial robots for three consecutive years. 32,996 industrial robots were manufactured in China last year, up 21.7% year on year.
China has set goals to be able to make in-country 150,000 industrial robots in 2020, 260,000 in 2025 and 400,000 by 2030 and Shenzhen-based Siasun Robot & Automation, China's largest domestic robot manufacturer, had the largest exhibition space to show their full range of robotic products.
In April, the Ministry of Industry, the Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Finance and other ministries jointly issued a development plan for the next 5 years which included these goals and stressed the need for service robots as well as industrial ones, hence the emphasis at the show and in the conference program of the growing importance of non-industrial robots as consumer and entertainment products, social assistants and helpers and for all manner of use in business.
The Chinese government is determined to stimulate robot development in China. According to statistics released by the Qianzhan Industry Research Institute, China’s domestic robot industry in 2015 was just $243 million, albeit a year-over-year increase of 55%.
At the conference, Vice Premier Liu Yandong urged enhanced research and development of the industry. She said related policies should be improved, human resources should be developed, and global communication should be enhanced.
According to Ms. Yandong, the development of robotics technology plays an important role in supporting intelligent manufacturing, enhancing production efficiency and improving the people’s well-being, which ushers in a new era of economic and social development. She also said:What do tobacco, food additives, chemical flame retardants and carbon emissions all have in common? The industries associated with them and their ill effects have been remarkably consistent and disturbingly effective at planting doubt in the mind of the public in the teeth of scientific evidence. Call it pseudoskepticism.
It began with the tobacco industry when scientific evidence began to mount that cigarettes cause lung cancer. A 1969 memo included this statement from an executive at the Brown & Williamson tobacco company: “Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’ that exists in the minds of the general public.” In one example among many of how to create doubt, a Philip Morris tobacco executive told a congressional committee: “Anything can be considered harmful. Applesauce is harmful if you get too much of it.”
The tobacco model was subsequently mimicked by other industries. As Peter Sparber, a veteran tobacco lobbyist said, “If you can ‘do tobacco,’ you can do just about anything in public |
It’s to catch fish,” said Michael Fogarty, the chief of the ecosystem assessment program at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal agency that monitors sea life. “The world they see is a different world than we see in the surveys.”
That said, much about warming’s effect on the gulf remains unclear. Years of overfishing have winnowed some fish populations, muddling efforts to measure climate change’s impact. Fishermen, scientists and regulators often disagree over whether the current changes are temporary or the new normal.
And in fact, the latest warming is not unprecedented. Weather records document a steady, if slow warming of the region’s waters since the 1850s, and a 50- to-70-year climatic cycle set off unusual ocean warming in the 1950s. A similar cycle is believed to be heating up the northwest Atlantic today.
But scientists say those cyclical effects are now being turbocharged by human-caused climate change. The gulf has been at least two degrees warmer than its historical 50-degree average in each of the last five years. In 2012, it measured four degrees higher, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. If that is a clear win for sea bass, and a loss for cod, the consequences for some species are not so easily tallied.“There is no question that the law is unusual for a country that is not as secular as Western European democracies,” said Javier Corrales, a political science professor at Amherst College. “There’s a clear conflict with the church. Very seldom do we see presidents willing to fight the church so strongly on this particular issue in Latin America,” even in countries led by left-leaning governments.
Argentina’s new law will give gay people the same marital rights as heterosexuals, including adoption and inheritance rights, and reflects the broadening legal recognition of same-sex relationships across Latin America.
Last year, Mexico City became the first jurisdiction in the region to legalize gay marriages. The conservative federal government has challenged that move in the Supreme Court, but weddings have continued and the city has married more than 270 couples.
Three other countries in the region — Uruguay, Colombia and Ecuador — have recognized civil unions for same-sex couples in recent years, as have various cities and states.
But the trend is not universal. Honduras barred gay couples from marrying or adopting children in 2005, and refused to recognize same-sex marriages from other countries. The anti-gay atmosphere in Honduras is so intense, human rights groups say, that more than 20 gay and transgender people have been killed there in the past five years.
Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content, updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters.
“This inspires us to fight even more,” Óscar Amador, a spokesman for Violet Collective, a gay rights group in Honduras, said of Argentina’s law. “Maybe one day, we’ll have the same.”
In Guatemala, President Álvaro Colom said of gay marriage during his 2007 campaign that “God said ‘Adan and Eva,’ not ‘Adan and Esteban.’ ”
Once elected, though, Mr. Colom agreed to support civil unions and invited gay leaders to the National Palace. “Esteban,” the president said, according to news reports, “I ask you in the name of the Guatemalan state and in my own name to pardon us for centuries of mistreatment and discrimination.”
Advertisement Continue reading the main story
Argentina had a history of granting labor rights in the 20th century, and Mrs. Kirchner and her husband, former President Néstor Kirchner, have sought to satisfy the demand for human rights that has followed the country’s return to democracy in 1983. Under the Kirchners, the government has marginalized the military and now the Catholic Church, both of which once held greater political sway here.
The government “committed treason against public opinion by not holding a plebiscite on the issue,” said Eduardo Bieule, president of the Corporation of Catholic Lawyers in Buenos Aires, noting that tens of thousands of people demonstrated against the law. “I don’t want to think about the legal problems this is going to bring.”
Some political observers saw the Kirchners’ strident support of same-sex marriage as opportunistic. Mr. Kirchner, now a congressman, hopes to run for president again next year, and the issue gives him a chance to appear more liberal, especially in Buenos Aires, a city where he has lost support and that has become a destination for gay tourism.
“This helps the Kirchners politically,” said Michael Shifter, the president of the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington. “But to reduce it to political calculation is not entirely fair. This reflects the socially liberal culture in Argentina today.”
The Senate debate stretched into the early morning on Thursday, touching on homosexuality, religion, the composition of families and discrimination. Those against the law said the “rules of nature” needed to be preserved, while others spoke passionately about how times were changing.
“The vote came despite a lot of pressure” from the Catholic Church, said Fortunato Mallimaci, a sociologist at the University of Buenos Aires. “In the past, this would have influenced the votes of the senators. But not now.”The Five Nutrients
Food is composed of five types of nutrients and they are: proteins, fats, sugars, starches and acids. Every type of food we eat is composed of all five, but one of these is dominant in each food type. The dominant nutrient is in greater proportion than the other nutrients contained in that particular food type. For example the dominant nutrient in steak is protein. Therefore, steak is considered a protein when being classified as a food type. It is the nutrient that is in the greatest proportion in that particular food type that programs the entire digestive process after you eats. Therefore, the protein in steak would be what determines which enzymes will be needed in order to digest the steak properly.
It is essential to know which one is the dominant nutrient in each of the food types we consume, in order to know how to combine it correctly with other food types and this way we can assure ourselves, we have an optimal digestion.
Listing of the Five Nutrients and How They are Processed by the Digestive System
Proteins: Proteins are polymers and they consist of the twenty amino acids. The number of different proteins derived from amino acids is quite high. There are eight amino acids that we do not manufacture in our bodies, therefore is essential that we consume foods that supply us with these needed amino acids. For a food to be considered a protein, the proportion of protein to other nutrients in that food type must be at least ten percent.
Fats: Include most substances that are insoluble in water and are present in all cells. In most foods, proteins and fats are usually contained together. Proteins tend to dominate when in conjunction with fats; fats are normally a subordinate to proteins.
Sugars: Are divided into milk sugars and vegetable sugars. Sugars as well as starches are carbohydrates. Although, sugars behave differently when combined with other foods than starches do. Fruits generally have a sugar content of twelve percent; therefore sugars are a dominant nutrient in fruits. Milk sugars, on the other hand, have a lower percentage than the sugars in fruits.
Starches: Starches belong to a group known as polysaccharides or complex sugars. This is an important form of sugar found in plant cells. It is a dominant nutrient in seeds and grasses like buckwheat. Starches are of the highest importance in terms of the food we consume. A large proportion of the world’s staple diets consist of mostly starches.
Acids: They normally have a lower ph value due to their higher degree of acidity. These are the acids that can cause the salivary enzyme ptyalin to slow down and cause the body to produce more gastric juices. Acidic foods include vinegar, wine vinegar and brewer’s yeast.
How Digestion Works
The digestive system is comprised of the alimentary canal, which is the long track that begins at the mouth and ends at the anus. The process of digestion is basically one of decomposition. It is the process of breaking down various substances into their basic constituents. Digestion takes place with the aid of enzymes that are the catalyst that promote the biochemical process of breaking down the food and turning them into you. Digestion begins in the mouth, aided by the salivary glands. From the mouth the food goes down the tubular passage, referred to as the esophagus. The food then travels from the esophagus to the stomach. The stomach is a J shaped organ that fills gradually and the food is then layered in the stomach, the bottom layer is composed of what you eat first, and each subsequent layer is composed of the rest of the food you eat. Here in the stomach the food is mixed with gastric juices and kneaded by the muscles of the stomach wall. Bile is secreted by the gallbladder in order to emulsify fats. The pancreas also secretes three fluids that are for digesting fats, carbohydrate and proteins. The food then goes to the small intestine, here the elements are broken down and absorbed through the intestinal wall, leaving waste matters and water to go further. The absorbed nutrients are taken to the bloodstream to the liver, where they are further processed.
The function of the large intestine is critical for completing digestion. In the large intestine water and other fluids are removed from the waste matter, and feces are formed and compacted and finally extracted through the anus. There you have the digestive process, in a nutshell.Ethologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
Citizens for Responsible Animal Behavior Studies Marc Bekoff and Jane Goodall (co-founders) Mission Statement Our purpose is to develop and to maintain the highest of ethical standards in comparative ethological research that is conducted in the field and in the laboratory. Furthermore, we wish to use the latest developments from research in cognitive ethology and on animal sentience to inform discussion and debate about the practical implications of available data and for the ongoing development of policy. Scientists, non-scientists, teachers, and students are most welcomed to join. Welcome Welcome to EETA. We are absolutely thrilled with the international response by people from a wide variety of disciplines - scientists and non-scientists alike. Our goal is to stimulate wide-ranging discussion so as to have people think deeply about what they are doing in their respective research projects with diverse species. Bringing together people from various fields, with different backgrounds and interests but with shared visions, will raise awareness and foster communication so that ethological research will come to be conducted more ethically and responsibly, and alternatives to routinely invasive methods will be developed and implemented. Also, people will be made aware as quickly as possible of approved alternatives. We recognize that ethological research will continue in the future and that we are accountable for how we study other animals. As we learn more about the cognitive and emotional lives of other beings, and this information is shared widely, windows into their lives will be opened and a deeper understanding of their minds and emotions will help us develop more ethically sound, noninvasive methods. Thank you for your support. Marc Bekoff and Jane Goodall, 5 July 2000
Publications Read Marc's essay "Animal emotions and animal sentience and why they matter" [pdf]
For more information on the book in which this essay and one by Jane Goodall appears please see the Earthscan website Marc interviewed by Vegan Magazine Jane Goodall and Marc Bekoff [ photo by Mike Weddle ] Websites for Marc's and Jane's publications can be found at http://literati.net/Bekoff and http://literati.net/Goodall/. We encourage people to bring relevant books and articles to our attention. Send mail to marc.bekoff@gmail.com with questions or comments about this web site. EETA/CRABS © 2007 All rights reservedOverview Started every game and led the team in tackles in 2014 and 2013. Selected first-team All-SEC and second-team All-American in 2014. Selected to Freshman All-SEC Team in 2012 and took a redshirt in 2011. Was starting quarterback for Rosa Fort High School (Miss.) his senior season, finishing with 15 touchdown passes and 7 rushing touchdowns. He also finished with 34 tackles and was the team's punter.
Analysis Strengths Tall, proportionally built inside linebacker with ability to play outside. Has thick, powerful legs. Good straight-line speed to chase. True take-on linebacker who can meet linemen head-on or beat them to the spot and leverage his gap with above average play strength. Scrapes and stalks while using length and powerful hands to keep himself free and clear of blockers. Steps into hole and fires into running back, finishing with wrap-up tackle. Able to run downfield in seam with tight ends. Aware of cutback lanes and rarely runs himself out of the play. Shows very good attention to assignment. Seems to have a nose for the play and is frequently in the mix. Has value on special teams and as a blitzer. Has adequate football intelligence. Weaknesses Plays high and is lacking suddenness. High center of gravity causes clunky change of direction in space. Foot quickness in tight quarters is below average and limiting. Instincts against run are there, but tends to fight his feet and marginal agility. Has trouble clearing the trash near his feet and labors against cut blocks, losing lateral momentum. Potential liability against the pass. Looks stiff when asked to cover in space and gives away too much separation to routes in his area in zone coverage. Draft Projection Round 2 NFL Comparison Brian Cushing Bottom Line Productive, steady performer in the middle with above-average size and length for the position but below-average agility. McKinney plays within the scheme and finds himself near the play frequently. He plays with strength and has an ability to take on offensive linemen and get downhill to finish his tackles. McKinney looks like an above-average NFL inside linebacker who could become part of a really good defense. He lacks star-making talent, though. Related Links -Lance ZierleinThe U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has approved the final easement needed to finish construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline.
In a letter to Congress, the agency said it approved a section of the pipeline that will run under Lake Oahe in North Dakota, clearing the way for the completion of the four-state, 1,170-mile pipeline.
The Army Corps said it would waive the 14-day wait period required after notifying Congress of the approval to officially grant an easement to Energy Transfer Partners, the builder of the $3.8 billion pipeline. This means the company can restart construction in 24 hours.
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has said that they would “vigorously pursue legal action” if the easement was granted.
The months-long protests against the pipeline became a flash point for Native Americans, leading to the largest indigenous movement in modern history.
The pipeline was scheduled to be completed and operational last year until protesters,including environmental and indigenous activists, descended on the rural North Dakota site to delay the project. The pipeline’s path ran north of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe reservation.
The tribe protested the pipeline for months, citing concerns over contamination of the Missouri River water supply and damage to cultural sites on their land. Energy Transfer said the pipeline was safer for transporting oil than rail or trucks.
The Dakota Access Pipeline and Keystone XL Pipeline were put on hold during the Obama administration. But new executive orders by President Trump begin putting them back on track, as part of efforts to undo former President Obama’s legacy. How do these moves fit into the broader Trump agenda for energy and the environment? William Brangham talks with Valerie Volcovici of Reuters.
In December, the Army Corps halted construction, saying it wouldn’t green-light the final permits for the project until further environmental review was provided. In today’s letter, however, the corps proposed terminating the Environmental Impact Statement that was in progress.
After taking office, President Donald Trump signed executive actions that aimed to curb these type of reviews and sought to lift projects that were once stopped or delayed under former President Barack Obama. The Army said late last month it had been directed to expedite the review of the Standing Rock route.
A notice in the Federal Register on Jan. 18 said the Army would gather comments on the project through Feb. 20 as it prepared an environmental impact statement. The final easement appears to shorten that period for comments.
The documents below were filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Washington D.C.
DAPL notice by PBS NewsHour on Scribd
WATCH: Seeing impediments to jobs, Trump prioritizes pipelines over environmental protectionsThis article was contributed by Ross Barber, a web designer who specializes in design for bands and musicians. With his company Electric Kiwi he has worked with many independent and unsigned artists to enhance their online presence.
This article discusses options for selling music via your WordPress website. This list is by no means conclusive – there are a huge number of plugins and options out there and this article covers some of the more widely used methods.
If you don’t use WordPress, there are still many direct-to-fan options available, such as Bandcamp, Bandzoogle, ReverbNation and Topspin. Whatever your website platform, the right solution is out there!
Why should I sell via my website?
1. Your website = the epicentre of your online activity.
Your website should be the central hub of what happens with your music online, and it should be generating money for you. Displaying your products on your website, rather than directing fans and potential customers to an external store offers a more engaging and consistent experience. You wouldn’t send people away from your show to another venue to purchase merchandise, so why would you do the same on your website?
2. You keep more $$$
Selling your music and merchandise directly from your website means that you have control over the pricing. Of course, most external stores allow you to set the pricing too, but with your own website you are more in control of what you actually make per sale because you’ll have less fees to pay – which is always a plus! If you’re using PayPal as your payment method, then there will be a small transaction fee to pay (approximately 5%), but you can always work this into your product cost. To do the same on an external store, you may need to increase your costs by 10 or 15% just to keep your margins the same and your finances afloat. Using a store built into your website means that you can keep the prices lower, but without sacrificing your profit.
3. You also have the opportunity to be creative.
You don’t necessarily need to sell the standard CDs or t-shirts that every other musician is selling. Create experience packages and sell them to your fans. Are you an awesome guitarist? Offer a 45 minute lesson via Skype. Do fans always ask you for you lyrics? Offer a handwritten copy of your lyrics accompanied by a personal message. When you’re selling products on your own store, you have the freedom to sell whatever you want, and that means you can get creative – in many cases more-so than you can with an external platform.
4. Your products can (and should) tell a story…
and where better to do that than on your website? Don’t just list your products for sale – talk about them, give your fans a backstory… make them care about what you’re selling, and get closer to them as a result.
5. Email addresses!
One big bonus with managing your own store via your WordPress website is that you can see the email addresses of those who are buying from you. Now, you can’t just add these to your mailing list without asking, but what you can do is send out a personal message to those who have purchased your music or merchandise. A personalized thank you can go a long way – it could turn a passive fan into a super fan…and we LOVE super fans! Ask them if you can add them to your mailing list so they can keep informed about your latest releases. You might be surprised at the response, and you might just make someone’s day. You may not have time to do this for everyone, but if you find yourself at a loose end, take advantage of it and make a connection. It could be the start of something beautiful.
Before making any decisions…
Create a list of what you would like your store to do and separate that list into essential and desirable features. Consider:
1. WHO your audience is
2. WHAT you’re selling
3. HOW your music or merchandise should be delivered
4. GIVING your fans the best experience possible
5. GENERATING income for you as an artist
E-Commerce Plugins
There are a multitude of e-commerce plugins available for WordPress. The features will vary between them, but for the more advanced options will include features like stock control, coupon codes, product variations and different shipping options.
Before deciding on whether an e-commerce plugin is right for you, think about what you want to offer on your store; do you want to sell physical merchandise? Do you want to offer digital downloads? Do you want to offer coupon codes as a reward/incentive for your existing fans to purchase your new line of t-shirts? Do you want to offer different shipping rates for domestic vs international destinations? These are all important things to consider when making a decision on store plugin for WordPress, as each plugin has different capabilities.
#1: WooCommerce
One of the big players is WooCommerce. Created by WooThemes, WooCommerce, for most, is an out-of-the-box solution. If you’re at the point where you need a full e-commerce solution, then WooCommerce may be the option for you.
Pros
Free.
Relatively easy to set up.
PayPal integration, with options for additional payment gateways available as add-ons.
Stock management (i.e. you can tell WooCommerce how many of those awesome new t-shirts you have in stock, and it will automatically tell fans when stock is low, or you’re out of stock – no more awkward emails!)
Options for physical and digital products – that’s right, you can offer secure downloads direct from your website, as well as selling physical CDs. It’s like iTunes, but without the middleman.
Product variations – do you have 5 different sizes of t-shirt, or want to offer a choice between signed and unsigned copies of your latest CD? No problem!
Options for regular and sale prices – great for offering holiday discounts.
Large repository of additional extensions and features.
Styles can be customized from the options menu.
Cons
While there are options for basic customization, depending on your theme, further customization may be required. Generally speaking if you’re using one of the default WordPress themes, or a well recognized theme, WooCommerce should work as is, but if you’re using a custom theme then you, or your developer, may need to spend some time tweaking things to get things looking just right.
Extensions may need to be purchased if you require more advanced shipping options.
So many options can be overwhelming and cause confusion when adding items, or initially setting up the store.
#2: Ultra Simple Paypal Shopping Cart
For many, a full e-commerce solution like WooCommerce is too large an undertaking. After all, if you’re only selling a small number of products, or don’t require features such as stock management or digital downloads, then you may be better going for a simpler store. The name really does say it all in this case.
Many artists already use Paypal to sell their products. It’s a simple way to sell your music direct to your fans. It’s not always the most attractive solution – however, when styled to be consistent with your website (and not just using Paypal’s standard buttons) it can look like a higher end solution.
For artists who don’t want all of the additional features that some of the larger e-commerce plugins offer, Ultra Simple Paypal Shopping Cart is one viable solution.
Pros
Free.
PayPal integration.
Simple to set up: you could have your products for sale within an hour, if not less.
Ideal for artists who just want to sell a small number of products directly from their website.
Cons
Will require some development work to make the store operate like a higher end e-commerce solution.
No alternative payment options – must use PayPal.
Less flexible than a plugin like WooCommerce.
Not ideal for digital downloads (as cannot generate individual URL for each download link), so would be limited to physical products only.
No coupon codes or discount rates available (at time of writing).
#3: Easy Digital Downloads
If you’re only looking to sell digital downloads, then Easy Digital Downloads is the solution for you. It’s lightweight and simple, offering only the functions needed to operate a digital-only store.
Pros
Sell digital downloads direct from your website – keep all of the profits without paying out to iTunes/Bandcamp etc.
Promotional codes available.
Create product bundles.
Add ons available to improve functionality.
PayPal integration included – other payment gateways available via paid add-ons.
Since it’s digital-only, you don’t have to worry about making trips to the post office 😉
Mailing list add-ons available to merge email addresses provided during purchase with your existing mailing list database.
Cons
Digital only – no physical sales can be made via this plugin.
What if I don’t use WordPress, or want an easier solution?
If you don’t use WordPress, or don’t want to set up an integrated store, there are plenty of other options. At the end of the day, you want to be able to make money from your music, and part of that is about making your music readily available, keeping prices low for fans, and keeping profits high (or at least sustainable) for you.
You should ensure that fans have an option to buy your music directly via your website in some way or another. If this is simply a link to an external store, then so be it, but an integrated store is preferable.
Bandcamp
Bandcamp is a great solution for many artists as you can create a storefront within minutes, and can also easily embed it within your website (WordPress or not). Bandcamp takes 15% of your digital sales revenue, and 10% on merch (dropping down to 10% on digital sales once you’ve reached $5,000 USD and stays at that level as long as you make that amount within the previous 12 months, too). Processing fees are (like Paypal’s) somewhere between 4 and 6%.
Bandcamp’s players are relatively customizable (although do lack in color and font options – hopefully something that will be expanded on in the near future), and Bandcamp is a trusted retailer by many. Embedding a Bandcamp widget onto your website is simple to do, and will allow people to make a decision without leaving your website.
Ecwid
Ecwid is a new storefront, which is free if you’re selling less than 10 items on your store. You have the freedom to set your own prices and shipping details, and you can embed the storefront onto your existing website with relative ease.
Granted, the appearance isn’t exactly beautiful, but it’s very functional and for artists on a budget who want to get a working store online and sell direct-to-fan, it’s a very reasonable solution.
Others
Of course, there are many other direct-to-fan outlets available. The most important thing is that you do your research and compare them to find out which one suits YOUR needs best. Don’t be afraid to seek out feedback from other artists to find out what has worked for them, and what hasn’t.
In closing…
Ultimately, when it comes to selling your music or merchandise via your website, the decision is in your hands. There’s no correct answer, and no solution that is going to be right for everyone. The way that you sell your products to your fans will depend on:
What you’re offering (physical or digital, or both?)
How many products you’ll be listing at one time
Whether or not you need stock control or the ability to create bundles and/or coupons
What payment options you require
If you need to offer different shipping rates for domestic vs international
If you want to sell more creative/non-standard products
In other words, there are a lot of factors to consider before making a decision.
A fully integrated store solution is, in my opinion, the ideal option. Something that blends seamlessly into your website, and provides your fans with a consistent and smooth experience is a winner in my book.
Setting up your online store should be an exciting time. To ensure it’s a smooth process, consider hiring or collaborating with a designer/developer to get the best results from your new store. That will also free up some time to create some new music and packages that your fans will love. You’ll also have the benefit of drawing from a professional’s experience to help make your new store the best it can be.
If you lack the experience, budget or need for one of the more advanced, all-encompassing solutions, then an external storefront embedded onto your website may be right for your needs. It’s all about doing what’s right for you and your career at this point in time. Remember that things can always be changed and if you find that you need to upgrade at a later date, it’s very possible.
Whatever option you decide to go with, here’s wishing you a very successful, and profitable year!
12 Days of Monetization is a 12-part series designed to help you make more money. Ariel and team Cyber PR asked 12 of their favorite colleagues to contribute and we hope you enjoy this series.One of my friends came up to me a little while back and asked me if I was interested in buying some USB flash drives from him. He had about 200 pieces, they are all new and are about 60% below the current market price. It’s a very good deal when you can buy a $20 new USB flash drive for only $8. He couldn’t reveal how or where he got it from and that alone got me a little worried about the quality of the USB flash drives. He also told me that there won’t be any warranty if the USB flash drive fails. So I thought that the possibilities are they could be either stolen or are rejected stock from the factory.
The only thing I am afraid of is using a stick for a few times and it couldn’t read the files or can’t detect the drive anymore. I have also heard several stories of people buying USB flash drives from places like eBay and their true capacity being only a fraction of what was advertised. So, with all this in mind, I told him that I’d like to test the USB flash drives first before buying and he agreed. Windows comes with scandisk or chkdsk which I can use to scan for bad sectors but it lacks any soft of burn-in test or a test to check the true capacity. So here are 3 tools you can use to test the current condition and performance of a USB flash drive.
1.
Check Flash (ChkFlsh) is a very simple flash drive testing and maintaining tool. I have used this tool several times to run a burn in read and write test on USB drives. If the device is able to survive after a few cycles, the USB flash drive should be OK. There are 3 access types and 6 action types for you to select. To access the actions of “Read stability test”, “Save image”, “Load image” and “Full erase” you have to change the Access type from temporary file to a logical or physical drive.
Other than checking for drive errors, it can also determine the read and write speed. The test length can be set to scan the drive just once, several specified passes, or leave it running until an error is found, or you tell it to stop. Check Flash is a free and single portable executable file. It can only test USB flash drive and not external hard drives.
Download Check Flash
2. RMPrepUSB
RMPrepUSB is a tool which is actually a USB formatting, partitioning and bootloader creation utility as opposed to a USB testing tool. While it’s not meant to be useful for doing a complete read and write scan, it does have a little function that can test your drive to see if there are missing or bad parts and what the actual usable size is. This is ideal to check if the drive is the capacity you believe it to be and is infinitely quicker than scanning the whole drive if that’s all you want to do.
Make sure the USB drive IS EMPTY because any contents will be deleted. Simply insert your drive and select the “Quick size test”. Portable and installable versions are available. This is also quite a good tool to experiment with bootloaders on your flash drive as there are several different types that can be used.
Download RMPrepUSB
3. H2testw
H2testw is able to test USB flash drives, memory cards and also internal, external and even network hard drives for errors. It simply works by filling the device with 1GB chunks of test data and then verifies it by reading the data back again. Usage is very simple. Select the English language because it defaults to German, select the target device, and then choose whether you want to test all available space or a specified amount of Megabytes.
Although H2testw is non destructive in that it won’t overwrite anything present on the drive, for best results, it’s recommended to have an empty and newly formatted device. This program has been found to be very good at testing both for errors and to find USB sticks with a fake capacity. H2testw is also a completely portable standalone executable.
Download H2testwSan Jose hasn’t played since Saturday and the four days off between games has the players anxious to begin the 2011 Sharks Playoffs, presented by El Camino Hospital.
Los Angeles Kings' Jack Johnson, right, skates with the puck ahead of San Jose Sharks' Logan Couture during the second period of an NHL hockey game Monday, April 4, 2011, in San Jose, Calif. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)
San Jose Sharks' Joe Thornton (19) celebrates his goal with teammate Patrick Marleau (12) and others during the second period of an NHL hockey game against the Los Angeles Kings on Monday, April 4, 2011, in San Jose, Calif. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)
“I think we’re excited,” Head Coach Todd McLellan said. “I hope there’s a little bit of butterflies and nerves. I think that would be a valuable thing for our team. I think we’re ready. We’ve had four good days of practice and I sense an excitement and it’s time to play.”“I’m anxious to get going. It was tough to sleep last night,” Logan Couture said. “I’m pretty excited and I’m sure everyone is going to have a tough time napping.”Even if they had one day off from the regular season to the playoff opener, the players would be just as excited.“It’s been a long time coming this year and playoff time is here,” Jason Demers said. “The playoffs are exciting and I think everyone is ready to go right now.”HOME ICEThe Sharks will look to take advantage of home ice in the early games, something that hasn’t gone as planned recently. Not that it stopped them from advancing last year. But tonight, there’s a serious sense of urgency.“Regardless of history, I think the first game is very important,” Dan Boyle said. “It sets the tone for the series. I think it’s important to let the other team know you’re ready to go and ready to play. Give them a taste of what they’re going to see for the next little while.”“We’d like to get off to a good start,” McLellan said. “I don’t know if the past predicts the future, but in the past we’ve had a little trouble getting out of the gate in Game 1 and we’re going to try and change that this year. We’d like to get out and establish our game. There’s a team wearing black and silver that is going to have something to say about that.”Home ice is extremely advantageous, but only if the opportunity is seized upon.“Home ice is only as good as you make it,” Patrick Marleau said. “We’ll try and get that first one tonight.”THREE ON A MATCH IS VERY GOOD LUCKMcLellan reiterated the importance of scoring three goals. That’s been a standard number of goals for winning clubs all season.“Most games are settled at three,” McLellan said. “You don’t hand out half goals and to get to four is usually a special night. If you look at the games last night, there weren’t many four-goal games. We’ll have to put some runs on the board, if you will.”It’s not likely either club would jump out to a 3-0 lead, just that finding that third goal at some point would put one side in an envious position.“There has to be an element of patience in both team’s games,” McLellan said. “Would we like to get three right of the bat? Yes. If they’d give us three before we even start we’d take it, but that’s not the way the game is going to be played.”IN THE BLACKThe Sharks players had a say and they’ve decided to run with the black jerseys for the first time in the postseason at home. San Jose has never worn anything but teal or white.“We like being in the black and we’ve had success in it,” Patrick Marleau said.“I’m excited to wear those black jerseys,” Couture said. “ I like they way we look in them and I like the way we play in them.”Regardless of the reasons, the players love that black sweater.“We like the color, it’s intimidating,” Demers said. “It’s a good color for us starting out these playoffs. I think everyone had the same thought process. We wanted to be black tonight.”“I just feel better in them,” Boyle said. “Traditionally teal is the jersey, but I like it. Ask me in two months.”THOSE SPECIAL TEAMSThe Sharks have a top-ranked power play and the Kings have an elite penalty kill. On the other side the rankings of the Sharks penalty kill and the Kings power play is not far off either. Whoever finds an advantage could put themselves in a favorable position.“You go about things the same way,” Marleau said. “You’ve got to be aware of what they’re going to bring, the different things they’re going to throw at you. You get success from doing things over and over and doing it right. We want to get shots, battle in front of the goalie, battle for the loose pucks and do it all over again.”“We’ll stick to our game plan and it’s been working for us,” Demers said. “They have a great penalty kill and we have to work as hard as them. It goes the same for their power play and our penalty kill. We have to work just as hard as them.”For everything the numbers say, 82 games worth of stats mean squat starting tonight.“Right now everyone’s got the same power play percentage and everyone’s got the same penalty kill percentage,” Demers said.NICE |
or employee of the United States entitled to receive it; (2) intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access, and thereby obtains— (A) information contained in a financial record of a financial institution, or of a card issuer as defined in section 1602 (n) [1] of title 15, or contained in a file of a consumer reporting agency on a consumer, as such terms are defined in the Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. 1681 et seq.); (B) information from any department or agency of the United States; or (C) information from any protected computer; (3) intentionally, without authorization to access any nonpublic computer of a department or agency of the United States, accesses such a computer of that department or agency that is exclusively for the use of the Government of the United States or, in the case of a computer not exclusively for such use, is used by or for the Government of the United States and such conduct affects that use by or for the Government of the United States; (4) knowingly and with intent to defraud, accesses a protected computer without authorization, or exceeds authorized access, and by means of such conduct furthers the intended fraud and obtains anything of value, unless the object of the fraud and the thing obtained consists only of the use of the computer and the value of such use is not more than $5,000 in any 1-year period; (5) (A) knowingly causes the transmission of a program, information, code, or command, and as a result of such conduct, intentionally causes damage without authorization, to a protected computer; (B) intentionally accesses a protected computer without authorization, and as a result of such conduct, recklessly causes damage; or (C) intentionally accesses a protected computer without authorization, and as a result of such conduct, causes damage and loss. (6) knowingly and with intent to defraud traffics (as defined in section 1029) in any password or similar information through which a computer may be accessed without authorization, if— (A) such trafficking affects interstate or foreign commerce; or (B) such computer is used by or for the Government of the United States; (7) with intent to extort from any person any money or other thing of value, transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing any— (A) threat to cause damage to a protected computer; (B) threat to obtain information from a protected computer without authorization or in excess of authorization or to impair the confidentiality of information obtained from a protected computer without authorization or by exceeding authorized access; or (C) demand or request for money or other thing of value in relation to damage to a protected computer, where such damage was caused to facilitate the extortion[8]
Specific sections [ edit ]
: Computer espionage. This section takes much of its language from the Espionage Act of 1917, with the notable addition being that it also covers information related to "Foreign Relations", not simply "National Defense" like the Espionage Act.
: Computer trespassing, and taking government, financial, or commerce info
: Computer trespassing in a government computer
: Committing fraud with computer
: Damaging a protected computer (including viruses, worms)
: Trafficking in passwords of a government or commerce computer
: Threatening to damage a protected computer
: Conspiracy to violate (a)
: Penalties
Notable cases and decisions referring to the Act [ edit ]
The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is both a criminal law and a statute that creates a private right of action, allowing compensation and injunctive or other equitable relief to anyone harmed by a violation of this law. These provisions have allowed private companies to sue disloyal employees for damages for the misappropriation of confidential information (trade secrets).
Criminal cases [ edit ]
Civil cases [ edit ]
Criticism [ edit ]
There have been criminal convictions for CFAA violations in the context of civil law, for breach of contract or terms of service violations. Many common and insignificant online acts, such as password-sharing and copyright infringement, can transform a CFAA misdemeanor into a felony. The punishments are severe, similar to sentences for selling or importing drugs, and may be disproportionate. Prosecutors have used the CFAA to protect private business interests and to intimidate free-culture activists, deterring undesirable, yet legal, conduct.[37]
Tim Wu called the CFAA "the worst law in technology".[38]
Aaron Swartz [ edit ]
The government was able to bring such disproportionate charges against Aaron because of the broad scope of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) and the wire fraud statute. It looks like the government used the vague wording of those laws to claim that violating an online service's user agreement or terms of service is a violation of the CFAA and the wire fraud statute. Using the law in this way could criminalize many everyday activities and allow for outlandishly severe penalties. When our laws need to be modified, Congress has a responsibility to act. A simple way to correct this dangerous legal interpretation is to change the CFAA and the wire fraud statutes to exclude terms of service violations. I will introduce a bill that does exactly that. When our laws need to be modified, Congress has a responsibility to act. A simple way to correct this dangerous legal interpretation is to change the CFAA and the wire fraud statutes to exclude terms of service violations. I will introduce a bill that does exactly that. —Rep. Zoe Lofgren, Jan 15, 2013 [39]
In the wake of the prosecution and subsequent suicide of Aaron Swartz (who used a script to download scholarly research articles in excess of what JSTOR terms of service allowed), lawmakers proposed amending the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Representative Zoe Lofgren drafted a bill that would help "prevent what happened to Aaron from happening to other Internet users".[39] Aaron's Law (H.R. 2454, S. 1196[40]) would exclude terms of service violations from the 1984 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and from the wire fraud statute, despite the fact that Swartz was not prosecuted based on terms of service violations.[41]
In addition to Lofgren's efforts, Representatives Darrell Issa and Jared Polis (also on the House Judiciary Committee) raised questions about the government's handling of the case. Polis called the charges "ridiculous and trumped up," referring to Swartz as a "martyr."[42] Issa, chair of the House Oversight Committee, announced an investigation of the Justice Department's prosecution.[42][43]
By May 2014, Aaron's Law was stalled in committee, reportedly due to tech company Oracle's financial interests.[44]
Aaron's Law was reintroduced in May 2015 (H.R. 2454, S. 1030[45]) and again stalled.
Amendments history [ edit ]
2008[1]
Eliminated the requirement that information must have been stolen through an interstate or foreign communication, thereby expanding jurisdiction for cases involving theft of information from computers;
Eliminated the requirement that the defendant's action must result in a loss exceeding $5,000 and created a felony offense where the damage affects ten or more computers, closing a gap in the law;
Expanded 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(7) to criminalize not only explicit threats to cause damage to a computer, but also threats to (1) steal data on a victim's computer, (2) publicly disclose stolen data, or (3) not repair damage the offender already caused to the computer;
Created a criminal offense for conspiring to commit a computer hacking offense under section 1030;
Broadened the definition of "protected computer" in 18 U.S.C. § 1030(e)(2) to the full extent of Congress's commerce power by including those computers used in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce or communication; and
Provided a mechanism for civil and criminal forfeiture of property used in or derived from section 1030 violations.
See also [ edit ]Ever since moving to 1080p HD displays, the TV industry has been struggling to find its next great sales pitch. Picture quality hasn't improved dramatically, OLED TVs remain mostly a mirage, and the repeated attempts to make consumers care about obvious gimmicks like 3D have fallen flat. In the absence of a real advantage to distinguish the latest TV model from the trusty high-def screen you might have bought a few years back, companies have had to enter a debilitating price war. But now there's hope.
Sony, Toshiba and LG all turned up to this year's IFA convention with a new weapon in hand: 84-inch 4K TVs. The "4K" refers to the increased resolution, which, at 3840 x 2160, is four times that of 1080p. In Toshiba's parlance, that makes these new TVs Quad Full HD, in LG's language, they're Ultra-Definition, and to Sony they're just the XBR-84X900, but whatever you call them, they're a reason to be excited for the future.
The simplest way to think of an 84-inch 4K TV is to imagine four 42-inch 1080p panels aligned in a square formation
Not the immediate future, perhaps, as 4K video content is still a rare commodity, but there's certainly cause for optimism once the entertainment industry gets on board. 4K resolution allows people to finally consider truly large-screen TVs as a somewhat rational purchasing decision. Whereas previous efforts in the 60-inch-plus range have been attractive from a distance but pixelated up close, a nice 4K display will let you get right up next to the image without sacrificing its clarity.
The simplest way to think of an 84-inch 4K TV is to imagine four 42-inch 1080p panels aligned in a square formation — you get the same pixel density, only without the annoying bezels getting in your way. In the time I spent eyeing all three of the new 84-inch TVs here at IFA, I was seriously impressed by the sheer amount of detail on show. At that scale and resolution, there's so much information before your eyes that you could have a different experience watching the same video depending on where you choose to look. It's as stunning an experience as the first time you see a gigapixel photo.
As with any incoming new technology worth owning, first-adopter pricing for these super-large 4K TVs is prohibitive, being led by LG's eye-watering $22,000 price for the 84LM9600 (which has sold roughly 50 units in Korea so far). Nonetheless, the move to lowering the cost barrier has already begun, with LG itself promising to slash at least a couple of thousand dollars off the price before taking its 84-inch behemoth to the US and Europe. Sony and Toshiba's competitive instincts should also ensure there's a healthy bit of price competition going forward.
If this isn't the future of TV, then TV has no future
The other big hurdle to widespread adoption, the scarcity of compatible content, looks sure to be resolved over time as well. Sony has long been a proponent of higher resolution with its 4K cameras and projectors, while Hollywood studios have also taken to mastering content in 4K over the past few years. Once the delivery mechanism has been figured out — and where there's profit to be made, these things do get figured out — there will be material for people to enjoy.
It's difficult to witness one of these 84-inch 4K TVs in person and not think that that's where the next great leap in home entertainment will be happening. They may look outlandish and present logistical nightmares, but these large-panel displays are the closest thing to realizing the long-held dream of a home cinema I've yet seen. If this isn't the future of TV, then TV has no future.It's been more than 40 years since the Viking One landed on Mars and sent back the first images from the red planet.
Since then, NASA has successfully operated six other unmanned landing craft and vehicles on the Martian surface.
This week, the space agency debuted its next generation mars rover, set to be launched in 2020.
But NASA is also showing off what a future manned Mars rover might look like. CBS News' Omar Villafranca went to the Kennedy Space Center for an inside look.
With six wheels and a distinctive alien design, visitors to the Kennedy Space Center complex have no idea what to make of this extraterrestrial machine.
CBS News
The new Mars rover concept vehicle stands 11 feet tall, 24 feet long and 13 feet wide. The giant rover is the brainchild of the Parker brothers, Shanon and Marc.
The two made their names in Hollywood designing and building movie props, most notably the futuristic motorcycles in the movie "Tron."
Shanon designed the rover, and Marc and his team did the dirty work, constructing the whole thing in less than five months.
"There is almost nothing on this vehicle that was not built in our shop. I mean, down to every little bracket and tab, nothing was ordered out of a catalog. We built the body, the chassis, the suspension, the wheels, the frame, the interior, the seats, the glass -- everything on this vehicle had to be built completely from scratch," Marc explained.
"Some of this was just for design. You know, just for it to look cool. Other things that I thought, you know, this is kind of important to have," Shanon said.
CBS News
The inside of the rover seats four and drives like an SUV, but there's also a mock lab in the back where astronauts could conceivably conduct experiments. Some of the features were designed with exploration in mind.
"We needed a good surface area for the rock to climb over, but then we needed a lot of surface area so when you get into the sand it's not going to sink, but it also has these vents in it so it's not going to clog up. So it can go through really deep sand [and] not get stuck and not get clogged up all at the same time," Marc said.
The brothers consulted with astronauts when building the machine, but this vehicle won't go to Mars.
Instead, its on an earthbound mission to educate future scientists about the red planet. U.S. astronaut Jon McBride flew two space shuttle missions and says putting the first person on Mars is closer than we think.
CBS News
"We think that the first man or woman on Mars is somewhere between 8 and 18 years old as we speak," McBride said.
The Kennedy Space Center hopes to recreate the worldwide buzz from 2012, when the unmanned Curiosity rover landed on Mars.
Villafranca asked, "Is public enthusiasm, does that have any bearing on what is decided in Washington?"
"I think it has a lot of bearing. I was congressional director for NASA. People say, 'Well, you ought to write your congressman,' but very few people do that," McBride said.
The eye-grabbing rover goes on display at the Kennedy Space Center's "Journey to Mars" exhibit starting June 5.Attorney Mark O'Mara says that a pending Florida Bar ethics inquiry related to how he handled the George Zimmerman case is one he initiated more than a year ago when trying to figure out how to manage Zimmerman's legal defense fund and a social media campaign.
"I am certain that the matter will be closed shortly, and that the conclusion will suggest that we handled these new and novel approaches in an appropriate and ethical way," O'Mara wrote in a blog post.
The bar confirmed Monday that O'Mara was the subject of an ethics complaint but provided no details, including who filed it and what allegations it included.
O'Mara would not comment Monday, but Tuesday afternoon he posted a long explanation on his website, omaralawblog.com.
Shortly after taking on Zimmerman as a client, O'Mara wrote, he sought the Bar's advice about how to handle a legal defense fund and a social media campaign. The Bar staff opened a case and asked a series of questions about how O'Mara intended to manage both, the blog post says.
"We responded promptly and to The Florida Bar's satisfaction, and the entire matter was deferred until after the trial. Although no further action has been taken since the verdict, the file has remained open," O'Mara wrote.
"Not only have I done nothing wrong … I think we also set the standard for how these matters should be handled in future high-profile cases that warrant such measures," he wrote.
Zimmerman is the former Neighborhood Watch volunteer acquitted in July of second-degree murder for shooting Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black 17-year-old in Sanford.
His legal defense fund raised more than $400,000, much of it after direct appeals from O'Mara, admitting that it was nearly depleted and in need of more money.
O'Mara used a webpage dedicated solely to the case to communicate with the media and public about case developments. He also used Twitter and, for a time, Facebook.
rstutzman@tribune.com or 407-650-6394.No matter how you try, you will find no more than 2 or 3 images of Hillary Clinton’s rear. Not responsible for ‘popular’ Bing search terms at top of screen
America: Land of the Me + Home of the Vain
Is Hillary Clinton’s campaign memoir What Happened the worst book by a Presidential candidate ever?
Amy Sterling Casil Blocked Unblock Follow Following Sep 13, 2017
Hillary Clinton doesn’t just exemplify American greed, amorality and award-winning mediocrity. She brings even worse things out in her adherents.
That’s a tweet from one of Hillary’s strongest online supporters, a lawyer who may or may not have a poly sci degree, Candice Aiston. I don’t think this message is meant ironically, nor do I think Aiston thinks anyone should be offended by it. As far as she’s concerned, these are great things to say to people and represents her idol’s ideals well.
Her idol, Hillary Clinton, has written one of the worst political memoirs — perhaps ever. What Happened is an historic achievement. Just not in quite the way its author imagines.
Hillary Clinton is not an average or mediocre writer, she’s bad. What Happened is a book of extraordinary vanity and negligible insight. It is the longest series of closing arguments by the losing side in the longest mock trial in world history. Clinton has been making arguments in defense of herself, her husband, and their group of adherents since the couple was in the Arkansas governor’s mansion in the 80s.
What Happened is so replete with minutiae and self-justification it’s hard to see the overall truth or theme. Readers are bludgeoned with details like Hillary’s Chipotle bowl from the day she says she chose to run for President a second time, or the exact hot sauce brands she favors. Food is frequently mentioned, from Goldfish snack flavors to a campaign food purveyor who made ‘natural’ or healthy foods for the group.
The overall theme is that a lady with similar character and distinction as a bad Country Club ladies auxiliary president, has been in the corridors of power in this nation since her husband was elected President in 1992. Clinton “knows everyone” from Henry Kissinger and Ronald Reagan to Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama, but writes that at the Trump inauguration, she couldn’t tell the difference between former member of Congress Jason Chaffetz and former RNC chair and White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus.
Everyone who’s ever been in junior high or the “ladies auxiliary” will know what Clinton is saying. “Oh those Republicans. I can’t tell the difference.”
She mentions Chaffetz in detail, including a photo she took with him in the interminable e-mail/Benghazi defense chapter, and emphasizes how he questioned her for 11 hours straight, yet was unable to determine she had done anything “wrong.”
We call him “Priebubus” (unknown why). All those white men look alike.
Clinton also asserts at length, using innuendo and circumstantial evidence such as holding the Miss Universe contest in Moscow, that Donald J. Trump is a traitor to the United States with Russia and Vladimir Putin.
Trump was criticizing Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy 30 years ago with his own money and hasn’t deviated from the same concept. It’s called “isolationism.” It’s one of the few points in favor of libertarians like Ron and Rand Paul. They don’t favor sending U.S. residents overseas to die for any rich man’s profit. They do have the same opinion as Muhammad Ali, who did jail time for refusing to fight in the Vietnam war. Clinton, in poor, tone-deaf taste, compares her electoral defeat and next-day concession speech, to Ali’s stay in in the same hotel after his loss to Joe Frazier.
There’s plenty to criticize Donald Trump about: a 30-year anti-war, isolationist stance isn’t it.
Clinton’s reminisces about the Trump inauguration emphasize how hard it was for her to attend the event. It was made a little easier by sitting with George W. Bush, she says.
She goes to great lengths to explain why there are so many images of her, Bill, and the Trump family out there, although they are not friends. Heck, she and Bill barely know Trump (who picked up the 2008 anti-Obama campaign slur against Barack Obama’s birth location and citizenship status from Clinton’s BFF Sidney Blumenthal with vigor). Blumenthal, whose gossipy intelligence emails to Clinton regarding Libya and Syrian insurgents and backchannel business opportunities served as linchpins in both the email and Benghazi investigations, is only thanked in an appendix to What Happened, not mentioned elsewhere.
My grandfather and grandmother both impressed upon me the importance of always telling the truth. “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.”
So, I’ll leave it to readers to determine whether or not Clinton is being honest when she indicates she basically doesn’t know Donald J. Trump and certainly was never friendly with him.
That’s the whole book. It’s nothing but one thing like that after another. The only section that sounds convincing are brief reminisces about her mother. I also think, strangely, that Hillary “loves” Bill Clinton. Or, at least, has the strongest feelings for another human she can muster for him. I think she has some enjoyment of her young grandchildren (or at least knows she had better talk about them). I think she has some affection for her daughter.
Other than that, this lady is no one’s friend.
Others smarter than I have pointed out that the Clintons and others of their ilk violently and frequently accuse others of the exact things they, themselves, have done. What Happened has such accusations in every chapter.
Vladimir Putin and the former Soviet Union, with approximately 1/3 of the population of the United States, and fewer than 10 military bases around the world, as compared to the United States’ 800 bases, is no threat other than Russia’s possession of nuclear weapons.
In contrast, Clinton really did compare voters’ requests for #Medicare4All, #FreeCollege, #Peace, #EnvironmentalJustice and an end to #PoliceShootings through support for Bernie Sanders’ campaign with a child asking for a pony.
I didn’t write that passage, and Bernie Sanders didn’t write it, Hillary Clinton did.
I have seldom seen a book more in need of an editor than What Happened. Bernie’s pony or worse examples are on every page.
Lady, that pony died in Syria. It died in Libya. It died in Yemen. It is dying in Afghanistan while I type. Every person our military brought home or encouraged through their work internationally has had their dream crushed when they came to realize the American Dream meant they, us, all of us, lived only to fight, serve, slave and die for your governor’s mansion, for your White House, for your limousines, for your ceaseless, endless, vampirelike, unquenchable search for fealty, attention, praise.
I know why, too.
As was fairly widely reported, What Happened makes use of the daily devotional messages sent to Mrs. Clinton by her pastor, Bill Shillady. Clinton cannot adequately describe the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount, but she does take time to quote an inspirational message from Shillady.
This is probably a difference between the e-book version of What Happened and the hardcover. This excerpt takes care to note that the devotional was written by Pastor Matt Deuel, not Shillady. That’s because Shillady’s entire book Strong for a Moment Like This has been withdrawn from publication for reasons of massive plagiarism.
People have associated the Clintons with Southern Dixiecrats who just went undercover while Richard Nixon sucked a lot of officially racist white Southern politicians into the Republican party.
I’ve sat at ladies luncheons with this type of person for my entire life. My fiance’s mother was one of them. She said right in front of me, while her son was standing nearby, “I don’t want John to marry her because of her tainted blood.” Looking back at the dinner I had with the man who raped me and his parents, Washington D.C. resident wealthy socialites, I recall the open discussion of how little I looked like a Jew.
I really do not understand how anyone supports Hillary Clinton, listens to her endless self-justifications, or thinks there is anything good about her whatsoever.
She almost had me convinced she loved her mother and that she had love for Bill Clinton. Almost had me thinking somewhere inside of her, there was a human being deserving of some consideration and mercy.
We have fought this damn battle in this country for our entire history. We fight it in our world every day.
My God is it not time to put these people where they belong and live like human beings, with heads held high? Isn’t it time to stand up for all those who have died — not just Martin Luther King, Jr., not just the three Civil Rights workers whose murders Dick Gregory helped reveal, but Jack Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy — how many others? Every American killed in these endless, unceasing wars of profit. Every Native American lied to and cheated, land destroyed, forced in reservations. Lied about, disrespected, just like the Haitians.
In this book, Hillary brags that Clintons raised $500 million for Haiti relief. That is $350 million more than the officially reported figure. She knows they will never be held to account for any of it. To this day we still have official USAID videos blaming the Haitians for not getting benefit of huge sums of money because of their corruption. Not the Clintons, who stole it with their friends before the Caribbean nation ever saw a penny.
This is our dishonor as a nation. As a people. It is our mirror.
Hillary says she spent 600 hours on hair and makeup during her campaign. Everyone who works for a living knows how many weeks of fulltime work that amounts to. What portion of a fulltime year of work that is.
Hillary complains of Russian trolls and Putin’s attacks, yet somehow her team has managed to remove all but two or three pictures of her backside from the internet — no matter which search engine you use or what type of search term you put in, you can only see the same two or three photos of her rear end. There are none from the 2016 Democratic Convention she loved so much.
This isn’t what we thought as young people when wishing there would be a female President. But it is what we got as a candidate.
Most. Qualified. Ever.For the red bird, I used white rice and mixed it with tomato sauce. The bird also had white color on the bottom part of its body, so I add a little white rice on the bottom after I made the red onigiri and shaped it again until became egg shaped. I used baby carrot for the beak and cut red pasta sheet for the feather on top of its head. The eyes and eyebrows were cut from nori and cheese slice.
As for the green pig, I mixed white rice with edamame and peas paste to make green colored rice. I used edamame for the ears and cut a slice of cucumber for the nose. Like the red bird, I used nori and cheese slice to make the eyes and the eyebrows.
The food artists at My Meal Box made a bento box inspired by the mobile game Angry Birds. It does not appear to be available for download, but here's a description of how they made it: Link via TechnabobAmongst the new tax data from HMRC published today was updated information on the income of the self employed. That for 2012/13, the most recent year, was as follows:
That was interesting. It shows a large number of the self employed are part time, and earning as much or more from employment as self employment. That means the government's assumption that a self employed person is a full time person is nonsense, to be polite.
It is also quite remarkable that one sixth of all self employed people are also in receipt of a pension.
But a little more digging revealed much more interesting data. Over the first three years of the Coalition's life this is a summary of the data:
The income of the self employed earning less than £100,000 fell over this period.
The average income of those earning more than £100,000 was staggeringly different:
Over the period this rose, of course. Only a little, but it did rise (and band inflation given the overall rate of earnings inflation during this period is not going to explain this).
So, what are the conclusions?
First, if mean pay is about £20,000 then 91.5% of self employed people earn mean pay or less.
Second, if two thirds of median pay is a measure of poverty (or £15,000 or less here, at least) then 84% of the self employed would be in poverty based on their self employed earnings and 77% are based on total income.
Third, the top 1.7% of self employed earners make 30.7% of all self employed profits.
And the average earnings of a person in the top 1.7% income bracket of self employed people makes 25.5 times more than the average for all other self employed people.
If this is a market based solution to inequality it very clearly fails.
Although I would add, I suspect all these figures are understated because of tax evasion, but right across the board.Our really good road is the B4391 that joins Bala and Ffestiniog in north Wales. Cutting through the spectacular Snowdonia National Park, it’s one of the best stretches of tarmac for testing a quick car that I’ve ever come across.
Although our benchmark for the Audi is approaching its tenth year in production, if the RS5 comes away from this bout with anything other than a red face, we can be pretty sure it’s a very capable performance coupé indeed. A few years ago, I’d have laughed at this comparison, writing off the Audi before a wheel had even turned. But Audi Sport, as Ingolstadt’s go-faster division is now known, has been on good form of late: the R8 is as mighty as it’s ever been, while the new TT RS and RS3 are both far superior to the models they replaced. Audi Sport’s latest might just give the GT-R a fright.
With the two parked side-by-side for the first time in the hotel car park, it’s advantage Nissan. The Audi is more classically handsome and looks more mature but, alongside the snarling, winged-andvented brute, it just looks a tad anonymous. A bit of a soap bar, isn’t it? The flared box arches could be so appealing if they were just a bit more prominent.
New TVR sports car will have best power-to-weight in segment
The scores are levelled once you open the door, though. The RS5’s slick, high-quality cabin makes the GT-R’s interior look like something you’d store your firewood in –and that’s after the 2017 model year refresh, which introduced a muchimproved dashboard design with more premium switchgear for the minor controls (a special mention for the metal heater controls, which are some of the nicest I’ve ever used).
So the GT-R has more presence and the RS5 the better cabin. Their specs sheets tell very different stories, for while the Nissan is faster and more powerful, the Audi is just so much more modern. Its twin-turbo V6 is an efficient, downsized 2.9-litre unit compared with the GT-R’s raucous, fuel-hungry 3.8. In fact, the RS5 is so much a super-coupé for the modern age that it even does without a dualclutch gearbox. Manufacturers are starting to move away from dualclutch technology because they’re increasingly able to extract ultraquick shift times from smoother, lighter and cheaper torque converter automatics, which is exactly the sort of transmission the RS5 employs.
The Nissan, meanwhile, was among the first to embrace what was a very modern dual-clutch technology a decade ago. Tellingly, as we’ll find out, the two gearboxes feel spookily similar out on the road.
The GT-R is rated at 562bhp, which gives it an advantage of 118bhp over the RS5. The Audi counters with a 1655kg kerb weight, which makes it almost 100kg lighter than the Nissan. Chubbier or not, the GT-R is the faster car, though; it fires from a standstill to 62mph in 2.8sec, more than one second quicker than the RS5.The Foreign Ministry spokesman, Liu Weimin, said that he was not aware of the detentions, but blamed foreign groups for the recent tensions in the region. “Some groups outside of China’s borders wait for their chance to incite separatist activities,” Mr. Liu said at a news briefing.
“These actions all have obvious political goals: to destroy social stability, pressure the Chinese government and provoke separatism to achieve Tibetan independence schemes,” he said.
Activists say China has waged a violent campaign to eradicate religious freedom and culture in Tibet, a vast, remote and largely mountainous region of western China that has been under Chinese control since 1950.
Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content, updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters.
At least 15 Tibetans are believed to have died after setting themselves on fire since March in protests against Chinese rule, mostly in heavily Tibetan parts of China’s Sichuan and Gansu Provinces rather than in Tibet itself.
The United States-based broadcaster Radio Free Asia reported that another Tibetan monk, Damchoe Sangpo, about 40, burned himself to death on Friday in Qinghai.
The monk set himself on fire to protest Chinese security strictures at Bongtak monastery in the Haixi District, the radio network said. Free Tibet, an advocacy group, also reported the death.
Tibetan advocacy groups say as many as seven Tibetans were fatally shot and dozens wounded during protests in Sichuan in January. Chinese state media reported that the police fired in self-defense on mobs that stormed police stations.
Human Rights Watch said the recent batch of Tibetan detainees had traveled in and out of China on valid Chinese passports.
“There is no known regulation banning Tibetans from attending the teachings, and the returnees undergoing re-education have not been accused of any crime, such as carrying illicit documents or crossing the Chinese border without permission,” the group’s statement said.
Advertisement Continue reading the main story
The group said that an estimated 700 ethnic Chinese who attended the teachings were not detained; only ethnic Tibetans were.Police found guns, explosives and an IS flag at the suspects' flat (AFP Photo/BORIS HORVAT)
Paris (AFP) - The two men suspected of plotting an "imminent" attack ahead of France's presidential election were charged Sunday with terror offences, prosecutors said.
The foiled plot in Marseille sparked fears that the closing days of the campaign could be a target for extremists ahead of Sunday's first round of voting in the country's most unpredictable election in decades.
Elite police and intelligence agents arrested the two Frenchmen -- 23-year-old Clement Baur and Mahiedine Merabet, 29 -- on Tuesday in the Mediterranean port city.
Paris prosecutors said the men are accused of participating in a terrorist conspiracy as well as weapons charges.
After searching the suspects' shared Marseille apartment, authorities said they uncovered an Uzi sub-machine gun, pistols, three kilogrammes (6.5 pounds) of TATP explosives and a homemade grenade as well as an Islamic State group flag.
Police had been searching for them since April 12 following the interception of a video in which they pledged allegiance to IS.
The men had used a number of aliases, switched mobile phones frequently and used pre-paid bank cards to evade police.
Two days after the arrests, 39-year-old Karim Cheurfi shot dead a policeman on Paris's Champs Elysees avenue before being killed by police gunfire.
A note praising the Islamic State group was found near his body.
More than 230 people have been killed in a string of jihadist attacks in France since January 2015.Lynn Coyne
President of BEDC
Lynn Coyne is president of the Bloomington Economic Development Corporation (BEDC) which is the lead economic development organization for Bloomington and Monroe County. Prior to joining the BEDC, Mr. Coyne served as Assistant Vice President for Real Estate and Associate Counsel for Indiana University. Before joining Indiana University, he practiced law in Bloomington, Indiana, primarily in business and land use planning. He has been active in economic development throughout his career, including at Indiana University. He has been an adjunct instructor at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business and School of Public and Environmental Affairs. He has received the Lifetime Achievement award from the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce, the Indiana University President’s Distinguished Service Medal, and the Indiana University Maurer School of Law Distinguished Service Award. Throughout his career, Mr. Coyne has been active in many professional and community service organizations. He currently is Vice Chair of the Indiana University Health Bloomington Hospital Board of Directors.There has been a proverbial media storm surrounding the recent settlement of the lawsuit launched by Omar Khadr. Khadr was a Canadian citizen who was captured by American forces during the invasion of Afghanistan. He was a minor at the time and was held as a prisoner at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp for ten years prior to being released and allowed to return to Canada. He then sued the Canadian government for breaching his charter rights by engaging in his interrogation, in collaboration with American officials, at the detention camp.
Khadr was fifteen years old at the time of the firefight in which he was captured, however he was condemned as a terrorist and |
food consumption and body weight were measured daily and weekly, respectively. Data were expressed as the mean ± SE. Statistical analyses were performed using the statistical package for the social science software program. Student’s t test was used to assess the differences between the groups. Statistical significance was considered at P < 0.05.
Several studies have shown that Garcinia Cambogia (GC), a fruit native to southeastern Asia and Western Africa, has beneficial effects on body weight and fat loss in both experimental animals and human[ 6 - 10 ]. Its main component hydroxycitric acid (HCA) not only inhibits ATP-citrate lyase, the enzyme response for de novo fatty acid synthesis, but also increases hepatic glycogen synthesis, reduces food intake by suppressing appetite and decreases body weight gain[ 6 - 9 ]. Although extensive experiments reported the weight loss and body fat-lowering effects of GC, some animal and clinical studies have shown controversial findings[ 6, 10 - 13 ] and no studies have shown whether these effects persist beyond 13 wk of GC treatment. Furthermore, some studies have reported the potential for hepatotoxicity of hydroxycut, a formulation that contains GC among other ingredients[ 14, 15 ].
Obesity is one of the global public health problems commonly associated with metabolic diseases including insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and dyslipidemia[ 1 ]. According to the World Health Organization global estimates from 2008, more than 1.4 billion adults are overweight and at least 500 million adults are obese[ 2 ]. Although the use of dietary supplements for weight loss becomes common[ 3 ], the optimal dose and safety profiles of many dietary supplements are poorly studied. The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) do not regulate dietary supplements in the same manner as pharmacological agents[ 4, 5 ]. While pharmaceutical companies are required to obtain FDA approval, which involves assessing the risks and benefits prior to their entry into the market, dietary supplements are not subject to the same scientific scrutiny and are not required to demonstrate any scientific safety and efficacy pertaining to the claims made by manufacturers.
Epididymal WAT and liver were homogenized in TRIzol reagent (15596-026, Invitrogen Life Technologies, Grand Island, NY, United States) and total RNA was isolated according to the manufacturer’s instructions. The total RNA was converted to cDNA using the QuantiTect Reverse Transcription Kit (205313, QIAGEN Gmbh, Hilden, Germany). The RNA expression was quantified by quantitative real-time PCR using the QuantiTect SYBR green PCR kit (204143, QIAGEN Gmbh, Hilden, Germany) and the SDS7000 sequence-detection system (Applied Biosystems, CA, United States). Each cDNA sample was amplified using primers labeled with SYBR Green dye for glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH). The amplification was performed as follows: 10 min at 90 °C, 15 s at 95 °C and 60 s at 60 °C for a total of 40 cycles. The cycle threshold values obtained were those cycles at which a statistically significant increase in the SYBR green emission intensity occurred. Ct data were normalized using GAPDH, which was stably expressed in mice. Relative gene expression was calculated with the 2 -ΔΔCt method[ 23 ]. The following gene-specific primers were used: for catalase (CAT), 5’-GCGTCCGTCCCTGCTGTC-3’ (forward), 5’-TGCTCCTTCCACTGCTTCATCTG-3’ (reverse); for cell death-inducing DNA fragmentation factor-α-like effector A (CIDEA), 5’-TTTCAAACCATGACCGAAGTAGCC-3’ (forward), 5’-CCTCCAGCACCAGCGTAACC-3’ (reverse); for CPT, 5’-ATCTGGATGGCTATGGTCAAGGTC-3’ (forward), 5’-GTGCTGTCATGCGTTGGAAGTC-3’ (reverse); for FAS, 5’-CGCTCCTCGCTTGTCGTCTG -3’ (forward), 5’-AGCCTTCCATCTCCTGTCATCATC-3’ (reverse); for fatty acid translocase/cluster of differentiation 36 (FAT/CD36), 5’-ATTGGTCAAGCCAGCT-3’ (forward), 5’-TGTAGGCTCATCCACTAC-3’ (reverse); for glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH), 5’-ACAATGAATACGGCTACAGCAACAG-3’ (forward), 5’-GGTGGTCCAGGGTTTCTTACTCC-3’ (reverse); for glutathione peroxidase (GHS-Px), 5’-TCGCAATGAGCCAAAACTGACG-3’ (forward), 5’-GCCAGGATTCGTAAACCACACTC-3’ (reverse); for MCP-1, 5’-TTCCTCCACCACCATGCAG-3’ (forward), 5’-CCAGCCGGCAACTGTGA-3’ (reverse); for peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPAR)α, 5’-CCTGAACATCGAGTGTCGAATAT (forward), 5’-GGTCTTCTTCTGAATCTTGCAGCT-3’ (reverse); for TNF-α, 5’-GCAGGTCTACTTTAGAGTCATTGC-3’ (forward), 5’-TCCCTTTGCAGAACTCAG GAATGG-3’ (reverse); for stearoyl-CoA desaturase (SCD1), 5’-CCCCTGCGGATCTTCCTTAT-3’ (forward), 5’-AGGGTCGGCGTGTGTTTCT-3’ (reverse); for superoxide dismutase (SOD), 5’-TGGTTGAGAAGATAGGCGACA-3’ (forward), 5’-CATCTCGGCAGCATCCACCTC-3’ (reverse); and for sterol-regulatory-element-binding protein 1c (SREBP1c), 5’-GGAGCCATGGATTGCACATT-3’ (forward), 5’-CCTGTCTCACCCCCAGCATA-3’ (reverse).
The hepatic thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances (TBARS) concentration, as a marker of lipid peroxide production, was measured spectrophotometrically by the method of Ohkawa et al[ 22 ]. Hepatic homogenates containing 8.1% sodium dodecyl sulfate were mixed with 20% (w/v) acetic acid (pH 3.5), distilled water and 0.8% (w/v) TBA. The reaction mixture was heated at 95 °C for 60 min. After cooling the mixture, n-butanol: pyridine (15:1, v/v) was added and centrifuged at 3000 rpm for 15 min. The resulting colored layer was measured at 535 nm.
To measure the lipid-regulating enzymes activities in the epididymal white adipose tissue (WAT) and liver, samples were prepared and analyzed as previously described[ 17 ]. Briefly, fatty acid synthase (FAS) activity was determined with a spectrophotometric assay according to the method by Carl et al[ 18 ]; one unit of FAS activity represented the oxidation of 1 nmol of NADPH per minute at 30 °C. Carnitine palmitoyltransferase (CPT) activity was determined according to the method by Markwell et al[ 19 ] and the results were expressed as nmol/min per milligram protein. Fatty acid β-oxidation was measured spectrophotometrically by monitoring the reduction of NAD to NADH in the presence of palmitoyl-CoA as described by Lazarow[ 20 ], with slight modification. Protein concentration was measured by the Bradford method using BSA as the standard[ 21 ].
Hepatic lipids were extracted[ 16 ], and then the dried lipid residues were dissolved in 1 mL of ethanol for triglyceride and cholesterol assays. Triton X-100 and a sodium cholate solution in distilled water were added to 200 μL of the dissolved lipid solution for emulsification. The hepatic triglyceride and cholesterol contents were analyzed with the same enzymatic kit used for the plasma analysis.
Plasma adipokines were measured with a multiplex detection kit (171-F7001M, Bio-Rad, Hercules, CA, United States). Capture antibodies directed against the adipokines (resistin, leptin) were covalently coupled to the beads, and the coupled beads reacted with plasma. After a series of washes to remove unbound protein, a biotinylated detection antibody was added to create a sandwich complex. The final detection complex was formed with the addition of streptavidin-phycoerythrin conjugate. Phycoerythrin served as a fluorescent indicator, or reporter. All samples were assayed in duplicate and analyzed with a Luminex 200 Labmap system (Luminex, Austin, TX, United States). Data analyses were done with Bio-Plex Manager software version 4.1.1 (Bio-Rad, Hercules, CA, United States).
The blood glucose concentration was measured with whole blood obtained from the tail veins after withholding food for 12 h using a glucose analyzer (OneTouch Ultra, Lifescan Inc., United States) based on the glucose oxidase method. The intraperitoneal glucose tolerance test was performed on the 15 th week. After a 12-h fast, the mice were injected intraperitoneally with glucose (0.5 g/kg body weight). The blood glucose level was measured from the tail vein at 0, 30, 60 and 120 min after glucose injection. Area under the curve (AUC) was calculated for all glucose levels as an index of glucose tolerance. Homeostatic index of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) was calculated according to the homeostasis of the assessment as follows: HOMA-IR = [fasting glucose (mmol/L) × fasting insulin (μL U/mL)]/22.51.
Male C57BL/6J mice (4-wk-old) were purchased from Jackson Laboratories (Bar Harbor, ME, United States). The mice were individually housed in polycarbonate cages, which were kept in a room maintained at a constant temperature (24 °C) with a 12-h light/dark cycle. The mice were fed a normal chow diet for acclimation for 1 wk after delivery. At 5 wk of age, they were randomly divided into two groups of 10 mice each and fed a HFD ( {"type":"entrez-nucleotide","attrs":{"text":"D12451","term_id":"767753","term_text":"D12451"}}D12451, Research Diets, New Brunswick, NJ, United States) with or without GC (1%, w/w, 60% hydroxyl citric acid; Newtree Inc., United States) for 16 wk. The HFD contained 45 kcal% fat, 20 kcal% protein and 35 kcal% carbohydrate. They were given free access to food and distilled water, and food consumption and body weight were measured daily and weekly, respectively. At the end of the experimental period, all the mice were anesthetized with isoflurane (5 mg/kg body weight, Baxter, United States) after a 12-h fast, and blood samples were collected from the inferior vena cava into heparin-coated tube for the measurement of plasma parameters. The blood was centrifuged at 1000 g for 15 min at 4 °C, and the plasma was separated.
Next, we examined the effect of GC supplementation on NAFLD induced by HFD. GC supplementation did not alter the hepatic triglyceride and cholesterol contents as well as the accumulation of hepatic lipid droplets in HFD-fed mice (Figure ). There were also no significant changes in the activities of hepatic FAS and β-oxidation and in the mRNA levels of the genes involved in lipogenesis and fatty acid oxidation, including FAS, SCD1, CPT, CIDEA, SREBP1c and PPARα, between the two groups (Figure ). However, trichrome staining of the liver revealed GC supplementation increased collagen deposition (blue staining) compared to the control mice (Figure ). Furthermore, Plasma ALT and AST levels were significantly increased in the GC group compared to the control mice (Figure ). The mRNA levels of TNF-α and MCP-1, pro-inflammatory markers, were significantly increased in the liver of GC-supplemented mice compared to the control mice (Figure ). GC supplementation also caused significant increases of hepatic SOD and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) mRNA levels as well as TBARS level compared to the control mice, although there was no significant difference in hepatic CAT mRNA level between the two groups (Figure ).
We also examined the expression of genes that regulate adipogenesis and inflammation. Consistent with the activity of adipose enzymes, GC supplementation significantly down-regulated FAS mRNA expression, whereas it markedly up-regulated CPT mRNA expression in the epididymal WAT of HFD-fed mice (Figure ). Moreover, GC-supplemented mice showed a significant increase in the mRNA expression of transcription factor PPARα in the epididymal WAT compared to the control mice. However, there were no significant differences in the mRNA expression of SREBP1c, FAT/CD36, MCP-1 and TNF-α between the two groups (Figure ).
To examine the mechanism through which GC supplementation reduces the visceral WAT weight, we measured the activity of enzymes that regulate lipid accumulation in visceral WAT. The GC supplementation resulted in a significant decrease in the activity of FAS in the epididymal WAT of mice fed a HFD (Figure ). Furthermore, GC-supplemented mice showed a significant increase in the activity of CPT and β-oxidation in the epididymal WAT (Figure ).
To investigate the effects of long-term GC supplementation in diet-induced obese mice, we provided 5-wk-old male C57BL/6J mice with HFD or 1% (w/w) GC supplemented HFD for 16 wk. During the experimental period, there was no significant difference in daily food intake between the groups (HFD, 3.96 ± 0.14 g; GC, 3.87 ± 0.07 g). The body weight gain was slightly lower in the GC-supplemented mice compared to the HFD control mice but the effects of GC were not significant (Figure ). Thus, the food efficiency ratio was not significantly different between the groups (Figure ). However, the weight of the visceral WAT including the epididymal, perirenal, retroperitoneal and mesentery WAT was significantly lower in the GC-supplemented mice than in the HFD control mice (Figure ). The GC supplementation also tended to lower the subcutaneous WAT weight compared to the HFD control group by 17% although it was not significantly different. Hence, the weight of the total WAT (visceral and subcutaneous WAT) was significantly lower in mice fed a GC supplemented HFD. Morphological observations also indicated the epididymal adipocyte size was smaller in the GC-supplemented mice than in the HFD control mice (Figure ). However, GC supplementation did not alter the extent and degree of fibrosis in the epididymal WAT of HFD-fed mice (data not shown).
DISCUSSION
Since unhealthy eating habits combined with limited activity are a major contributor to obesity and its related metabolic disease, lifestyle changes may present a cost-effective first-line of intervention for obesity[24-26]. Dietary supplements seemed to be an inefficient agent for dietary intervention in obese subjects[26]. Such supplements are not recommended by the position papers/guidelines for management of NAFLD[27-32], and have been associated with increased mortality in some studies[33]. However, there are a number of natural dietary supplements for weight management, including GC, guar gum and chitosan[34]. Among them, HCA-containing GC has been shown to be efficacious in lowering body weight and body fat[6,10-13]. But, some clinical trials and animal studies have shown conflicting results[6,12], and a case series on hepatotoxicity has been reported in patients taking GC-containing hydroxycut, although the individual chemical component underling liver injury remains poorly understood[14,15]. Therefore, the aim of this study was first to determine the effects from long-term GC supplementation on obesity and related metabolic diseases as well as the hepatotoxicity in mice fed a HFD.
In the present study, GC supplementation (1%, w/w) in a HFD for 16 wk did not lead to significant changes in body weight and food intake in mice. However, it resulted in significant decreases in visceral WAT weight and adipocyte size in HFD-induced obese mice. The anti-adiposity effect of GC was partly associated with marked decreases in FAS activity and its gene expression in the epididymal WAT. FAS is a key enzyme involved in de novo fatty acid synthesis and WAT is a major site of fatty acid synthesis and storage. We also found that the activity of CPT as well as fatty acid oxidation in epididymal WAT was elevated by GC supplementation. Furthermore, the enhanced adipose fatty acid oxidation in GC-supplemented mice was accompanied by the up-regulated mRNA expression of genes involved in fatty acid oxidation such as CPT and PPARα in the epididymal WAT. The CPT is a major rate-limiting enzyme for fatty acid oxidation, and its gene expression is regulated by PPARα in adipocytes[35]. The PPARα mRNA expression was decreased in the WAT of both genetic and HFD-induced obese mice, and the down-regulation of PPARα in obese WAT was involved in obesity-induced mitochondrial dysfunction and metabolic disorders[36]. Taken together, our findings suggest that in HFD-fed mice, a significant reduction in visceral fat accumulation by GC supplementation could be partly due to decreased fatty acid synthesis as well as increased fatty acid oxidation in adipose tissue. The results of this study are supported by the findings of a previous study which suggested GC supplementation significantly lowered body fat mass, but not body weight and food intake, by inhibiting adipose ATP-citrate lyase (ACL) activity in Zucker obese rats[12]. The ACL is another lipogenic enzyme catalyzing the cleavage of citrate to oxaloacetate and acetyl-CoA for de novo fatty acid synthesis[37]. The inhibitory action of HCA on ACL reduces the acetyl-CoA pool, which can lead to a decreased concentration of malonyl-CoA, a physiological inhibitor of CPT[38], and thus results in the suppression of body fat accumulation through stimulation of fatty acid oxidation[39]. Kim et al[11] also reported that HCA-containing GC (1%, w/w) supplementation in HFD-fed mice for 12 wk significantly lowered body fat accumulation by modulating multiple genes associated with adipogenesis in mice fed a HFD.
Along with the anti-obesity effects of HCA, previous studies have reported on the beneficial effects of HCA on insulin resistance[40,41]. HCA increases the cellular pool of citrate by inhibiting ACL, which in turn can increase glycogen production[42]. Recently, HCA supplementation enhanced the glycogen synthesis rate in skeletal muscles and improved post-meal insulin sensitivity[41]. Although we did not measure the level of glycogen in the liver, HCA-containing GC supplementation improved glucose tolerance in HFD-induced obese mice. Furthermore, the plasma resistin level was significantly lowered by GC supplementation in the current study. Resistin is one of the adipokines proposed to link obesity with insulin resistance. Circulating resistin level was elevated in obesity and insulin resistance[43], and HFD significantly increased plasma resistin levels in mice compared to a standard low-fat/high-carbohydrate diet[44]. Resistin deficiency ameliorated glucose homeostasis in mice[45], whereas administration of resistin impaired glucose tolerance and insulin action[43,46]. Thus, the beneficial effect of GC on glucose intolerance might be associated with the decreased resistin level in plasma. Another mechanism in which GC could contribute to improve glucose tolerance is the lowered body fat mass because excess adiposity, especially in visceral WAT, is considered to promote insulin resistance[47]. However, there was no significant difference in HOMA-IR which estimates insulin sensitivity from fasting glucose and insulin concentrations. Tripathy et al[48] reported a significant relationship between hepatic insulin sensitivity and HOMA-IR regardless of the stage of glucose tolerance, suggesting that the HOMA-IR is dependent upon hepatic insulin sensitivity rather than peripheral insulin sensitivity. Another clinical study also demonstrated that HOMA-IR did not accurately predict insulin sensitivity[49].
Increased adiposity with the consequences of inflammation and insulin resistance has been linked to the development of NAFLD, which refers to a wide spectrum of liver damage, ranging from simple steatosis to steatohepatitis and cirrhosis. Steatosis represents the accumulation of fat within the liver through multiple mechanisms including an altered balance in fatty acid uptake and triglycerides secretion, increased de novo lipogenesis, and decreased fatty acid oxidation[50,51]. Steatohepatitis is the combination of steatosis with hepatic inflammation and fibrosis. Liver fibrosis is excess synthesis and deposition of extracellular matrix proteins including collagen[52], and pro-inflammatory factors including MCP-1 and TNF-α that contribute to the second hit in the pathogenesis of steatohepatitis. Among the inflammatory mediators, MCP-1 is a pro-inflammatory chemokine which coordinates leukocyte recruitment to the liver by activation of the CC chemokine receptor 2 (CCR2) on inflammatory cells including monocytes and macrophages promoting the inflammatory response[53]. Several studies indicate that MCP-1 is an important mediator of liver fibrosis[54-56]. MCP-1 mRNA expression was markedly increased in the livers of patients with steatohepatitis and in murine models of steatohepatitis such as mice fed a HFD or methionin-cholin deficient diet[57-63]. CCR2 inhibitor suppressed the early and late features of steatohepatitis including fibrosis[64], and chronic exposure of HFD induced hepatic MCP-1 mRNA expression in mice before induction of other pro-inflammatory cytokine mRNAs including TNF-α and prior to the onset of steatohepatitis, suggesting that MCP-1 plays a major role in initiating the inflammatory process in steatohepatitis[65]. Moreover, MCP-1 deficiency reduced liver fibrosis (collagen deposition) and pro-fibrogenic gene expression in mice fed a methionine-choline deficient diet although it did not affect liver steatosis in this model[66].
Similarly, we found that GC supplementation did not affect hepatic lipogenesis and lipid droplet formation, but it markedly increased collagen deposition as well as pro-inflammatory MCP-1 and TNF-α mRNA expression in the liver of HFD-fed mice. Furthermore, GC-supplemented mice exhibited impaired liver function indicated by the elevations of plasma ALT and AST, suggesting that GC possibly promotes liver injury in HFD-fed mice. Several case reports have suggested HCA-containing hydroxycut has potential hepatotoxicity but the underlying mechanism remains unknown[14,15,67,68]. Our experiments provide new information regarding hepatotoxicity after long-term GC supplementation in HFD-induced obese mice. Accordingly, GC supplementation contributes to steatohepatitis by increasing hepatic collagen accumulation and hepatic MCP-1 and TNF-α expression in mice fed a HFD, which are independent of its effects on HFD-induced hepatic steatosis.
On the other hand, oxidative stress is considered to play an important role in progression of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis and hepatocellular injury[69]. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) can damage DNA, lipids and proteins, induce necrosis and apoptosis of hepatocytes and amplifie the inflammatory response. The ROS also stimulate the production of pro-fibrogenic mediators from Kupffer cells and inflammatory cells and directly induce hepatic stellate cells proliferation, resulting in the initiation of fibrosis[70]. Antioxidant enzymes such as SOD and GSH-Px ameliorate the damaging effects of ROS. SOD converts superoxide radicals into hydrogen peroxide, which is then further metabolized by GSH-Px, where it catalyzes the destruction of hydrogen peroxide and lipid hydroperoxide. We observed that the supplementation of GC significantly up-regulated hepatic SOD and GSH-Px mRNA expression with concomitant increase in lipid peroxidation in the liver, suggesting that the increases in antioxidant gene expression by GC seems to be a compensatory response of the liver to cope with oxidative stress.
In conclusion, this study demonstrated that long-term GC supplementation ameliorated adipogenesis in mice fed a HFD by promoting fatty acid oxidation with a simultaneous decrease in fatty acid synthesis in visceral WAT. Furthermore, GC exhibited a protective role against glucose intolerance induced by HFD. Moreover, this study provides the first evidence that long-term GC supplementation significantly increased hepatic collagen accumulation, lipid peroxidation and MCP-1 and TNF-α mRNA expression as well as plasma AST and ALT levels, thereby contributing partly to the exacerbation of steatohepatitis in HFD-induced obese mice at the doses given. The observations described above are summarized in Figure. Although further research is required to elucidate the efficacy and safety of long-term use of GC in humans, caution is needed when using GC supplements for weight management.With oil prices in free fall and a rocky end to 2014 fresh in their minds, more than 500 attendees came out to the National Post and Canadian Club of Toronto’s 38th Annual Outlook luncheon at the Royal York on Tuesday.
The audience heard from a panel of four National Post and
Financial Post columnists and editors as well as Warren Jestin, Scotiabank senior vice-president and chief economist. The panelists came out swinging, contrarian and opinionated.
Terence Corcoran, FP Comment editor & Financial Post Magazine editor, National Post
ON OIL’S ECONOMIC SHOCK
For Mr. Corcoran, this year’s economic outlook is all about oil.
“The price of oil is more than just a surprise,” he said. “It’s an economic shock.”
After taking the time to sling a few derisive arrows at peak oil theorists crawling farther into the woodwork since the price of oil plummeted, Mr. Corcoran predicted that world economies will see monumental change in this new era of cheap oil.
“The price crash in oil looks like a shock that will ripple through the world economy for years to come,” he said. “It will rock government budgets, increase growth, realign global power struggles … and disrupt the activities of central bankers.”
He also predicted major change to industries as companies adjust to cheaper oil and new problems for international climate negotiations.
The much-maligned, much-loved Keystone XL pipeline was also on Mr. Corcoran’s list of oil glut casualties.
“Obama now has even less reason to approve the pipeline,” he said. “[He] can now argue even more effectively that America does not need Canadian oil.”
With the future of Keystone in doubt, Mr. Corcoran said the dream of Canada becoming an energy-exporting superpower is now all but dead.
Warren Jestin, senior VP and chief economist, Scotiabank
ON THE U.S. RECOVERY
Mr. Jestin thinks the biggest story of 2015 is that the United States is back in the game.
“The U.S. economy is now seen in a leadership role in a way it was not seen two years ago,” he said.
The Scotiabank chief economist thinks that lower deficits and faster growth will bring investors back to the U.S. en masse – especially as the stagnant European economy continues to be dominated by uncertainty. He also feels that Europe will remain on the cusp of a recession for some time.
In the developing world, Mr. Jestin expects growth to pick up slightly in India, but begin to slow in China. Despite this deceleration, he still feels China is “going to emerge very quickly as the largest economy in the world.”
With this lagging growth in developing nations, Mr. Jestin predicted trouble for commodities. Oil producers are going to be the losers and consumers the winners, he said.
For Canadian provinces, Mr. Jestin thinks falling oil is going to bring adjustments.
“We’re having a change in the economic landscape,” he said. “Big commodity-producing provinces are now moving into a period of softer growth. Ontario [and] Quebec… are expected to pick up some of the slack.”
Conrad Black, columnist, National Post
ON OPTIMISM
Despite being the butt of moderator Bruce Sellery’s jokes throughout the event, Mr. Black seemed to surprise everyone with his economic optimism.
“The world’s workforce is much more skilled than it’s ever been,” he said. “Huge countries that formerly had no interest in economic growth, led by China and India and Indonesia, are now putting up respectable growth rates.”
Mr. Black also pointed to the drop in oil prices as something to be cheered rather than feared.
“This is a $750 billion tax cut for Western Europe, the Americans, Japan and Australia,” he said. “It’s a tremendous step forward. And up until relatively recently, if anyone had held that as a prospect to us there’d be weeks of uncontrollable celebration.”
There was one aspect of optimism Mr. Black couldn’t bring himself to share with the other panelists, however. For the media mogul, the U.S. recovery has been modest and achieved at too great a cost.
“They are having something of a recovery, but it is in my judgment the… minimum you would expect.”
Mr. Black sees America’s growing debt as a black mark on its recovery. He said that the U.S. has gone from $10 trillion of accumulated debt to $18 trillion in the last six years.
“If they didn’t have 3% growth there’d be something absolutely inexplicable going on,” he said. “What is inexplicable is that they haven’t gotten more for their money than that.”
Diane Francis, Financial Post editor-at-large, National Post
ON THE FUTURE OF EUROPE
Shifting the conversation to the old world, Ms. Francis thinks there’s only one piece of Europe that really matters.
“The EU has become the United States of Germany,” she said. “They are in charge. They are the best economy on the planet.”
Ms. Francis cited Germany’s exports, its specialized manufacturing and its low youth unemployment.
Ms. Francis thinks that Germany, as the European powerbroker, is going to call Greece’s bluff.
“Greece is going to threaten to leave [the EU] if they don’t get their way, and Germany will say, fine, here’s the door,” she said.
She also thinks Germany will become the first country in the world to provide free energy through distributed power and renewable energy. As Germany kicks its oil and natural gas habit, she feels Russia’s hold on Europe will relax.
“Putin will continue to tighten the grip internally,” she said. “He will nationalize just about any company that needs it. He will even possibly fool around with the central bank… but I think he will slowly slip out of Eastern Ukraine. He clearly overplayed his hand, and even he must realize this.”
Andrew Coyne, Postmedia columnist and Comment editor, National Post
ON THE 2015 FEDERAL ELECTION
Mr. Coyne focused his predictions on the imminent Canadian federal election and what role economics will play in it.
“The year will essentially be… a race,” he said. “Can the economy improve enough to rescue the government from its growing democratic and ethical deficit?”
Mr. Coyne thinks that the election will come in the fall, and seemed to be preparing himself, already, for the dubious campaign.
“The spring and summer will be a prolonged bath in sleaze and entitlement,” he said.
More than political acumen, though, the election will be dependent on the economy’s performance in 2015, according to Coyne. He feels if Canadians are satisfied economically, the Conservatives will stay where they are.
“The combined effect of stronger growth in the U.S., cheaper oil and the falling dollar should make spirits bright in Ontario where this election will be won or lost,” he said. “If so, there shouldn’t be the slightest doubt that this will redound to the incumbent’s favour.”
Careful to hedge his bets, Mr. Coyne wasn’t ready to rule out a challenger victory.
“By the fall,” he said, “events may conspire to throw both the economy and the fiscal plan off the track that is most congenial to the government.”
dkennedy@nationalpost.comIt’s inevitable– dab rigs get gunked up after sufficient use and at some point down the road, every glass-owner needs to learn how to effectively clean their setup. A dirty piece not only looks and smells bad, it affects flavor and can potentially reduce the amount of vapor actually inhaled. Though there are several products marketed specifically for cleaning pipes, the best method is to use a safe, inexpensive polar organic solvent.
Cleaning The Nail
The nail is the easiest part of the rig to clean but can be difficult to remove as the glass from your rig may have expanded into the nail creating a tight seal. Just lightly heat the nail at the base and gripping from the top using tongs (or better, forceps if you can find them) gently twist the nail loose.
Glass and ceramic nails need only be lightly heated (enough to liquify any offending resin) and wiped with a cotton swab. Titanium nails can be placed on a heat resistant surface (like stone or tile) and heated until glowing red which will carbonize any residue (like a cast iron skillet) and cause excess to flake away upon cooling (you might observe an attractive blue tint to the excess carbon).
Once your nail is hot, be sure to carefully use a cotton swab to clean the underside where the nail makes contact with your rig. Do not use your bare hands to hold the nail at point during the process… trust me, it’s hot (personal experience).
Cleaning The Rig
Regardless of how complicated your rig is, the two best solvents for cleaning glass are Acetone and Isopropyl Alcohol. Acetone can be purchased at the drugstore as clear “nail polish remover” and works almost instantaneously (it’s what chemists use to clean their glassware in the lab) but it smells and shouldn’t be dumped down the drain. Additionally, most nail polish contains “denatonium benzoate” which leaves a residue and is unpleasantly bitter when present even in a few ppm (parts per million) so additional washing with soap and water may be required.
Isopropyl alcohol, while not as vigorous a cleaner as acetone, can also be found at the drugstore as pure as 91% and makes for a great solvent which is very rarely tainted with bitterants like denatonium benzoate (though drinking isopropyl will definitely make you feel terrible). Simply pour it in your rig, shake and wait. A soaked cotton swab can be used for trouble areas. If your rig has particularly bad build up in a hard-to-reach spot, a little salt can be used as an agitator in addition to alcohol but in those situations it’s almost always more effective to resort to acetone (with a thorough wash afterwards).
Basically, isopropyl is for regular grime, acetone is for when you’ve been particularly neglectful. To finish up, let the solvent evaporate and then do a final rinse with water. If you rinse with water before all the acetone/isopropyl has evaporated, you may end up with while scaling on the sides from precipitate in the water. To remedy, just rinse with solvent and let it dry completely before rinsing with water again.
Keep It Clean
Once you’re taking a dab from your freshly cleaned piece, you’ll probably want life to be that way all the time (this is understandable). Though it may take a little training, its important to remember that regular maintenance goes a long way towards keeping your rig clean. Change the water every time you sesh and try not to let your rig develop a solid layer of slime in between cleanings. Remember, dabbing isn’t like smoking– all that resin inside your rig is decarboxylated, re-condensed hash oil that didn’t make it into your lungs. A clean rig develops less build-up!
If you are ready to upgrade your rig, or would like to add another dab rig to your collection, take a look at these dab rigs for cheap.© Getty Images Lord Prescott has strongly denied ever sexually assaulting Mrs McDougal
John Prescott has insisted he could never have sexually assaulted the wife of a former parliamentary colleague because she was “built like a bloody barn door”.
The former MP and peer added that it was impossible that he groped Linda McDougall, wife of former Great Grimsby MP Austin Mitchell, as “the f****ng house” would have fallen down had he thrown her against a wall.
The allegations against Mr Prescott were first aired in 2006 when Mrs McDougall told a Sunday newspaper that on her first meeting with Lord Prescott he had “pushed me quite forcefully against the wall and put his hand up my skirt.”
She added that “things were different in those days” and that there was “no big fuss.”
But in an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Lord Prescott claims the alleged assault could never have taken place.
When the allegations were first aired Lord Prescott claims he told Mr Mitchell they were “not true”.
"I had to say, ‘do you believe it Austin?’ Have you seen his wife? Built like a bloody barn door, if I threw her against the wall, the f*****g house would fall down," he told the Telegraph.
The peer strongly denied ever sexually assaulting Mrs McDougall, claiming on Friday: "She never said anything [in 1978] because I never did anything. How is it that she waited 30 years to make a story?"
Meanwhile, Mr Mitchell labelled Lord Prescott’s remarks as those of a “wounded man,” adding that he was “best left alone”.
Lord Prescott could not be reached for comment. |
far.
Senior administration and police officials have rushed to the spot. More information is awaited.Get live updates about voting in the March 15 primaries.
The first time I felt unsafe at a Trump event was a week ago in New Orleans.
I hadn’t been on the Trump beat for The New York Times for very long, but the warm Friday night rally in an airport hangar on the outskirts of the city thrummed with an ominous energy. Donald J. Trump took the stage just as the sky was slipping from purplish twilight to slate black, and the mood shifted, as well, turning tense and electric.
The first interruption came early, followed by another, and another, as a constant stream of protesters disrupted the event. Some went peacefully and quietly as they were escorted out by security officers, but others did not, shouting obscenities and dropping to the ground to resist.
The crowd turned angry, jostling and pushing and jeering the disrupters. One young woman, a Trump supporter, was shoved against the metal barricades and began to cry. A group of older women left early, shortly after a man holding a “K.K.K. 4 Trump” sign was hustled out nearby.Crystal Dynamics recently released Lara Croft’s latest adventure for Xbox One and Xbox 360, which ramps up the high action and has the reboots’ biggest world to date. (You can read our review of the stellar game here) We spoke with franchise creative director Noah Hughes about what went into its creation.
What were some of Crystal Dynamics' main goals for Rise of the Tomb Raider?
From the story perspective, we really wanted to continue forward from where we left off [in the original reboot] and try to tell the next chapter in Lara’s story in her movement toward who she would eventually become as a character. Part of the gameplay promise of that was not only to see Lara step toward her role as a tomb raider more formally, but to deliver that fantasy fulfillment of tomb-raiding more aggressively. Whether that be our commitment to some of the ancient themes or scale within in the tombs or with Lara’s language system, just trying to cater to the gameplay expression of her unique facets as a brilliant archaeological explorer.
If I could sprinkle a second one on top it was to take some of the survival themes we introduced in the first game and start to give more gameplay meaning to them. You actually have to hunt in order to get stronger and use your environment against your enemies. Even the ability to heal is based on resourcefulness and what you’ve collected.
The world was much larger this time around with different hubs. Would you consider going even bigger in the future, maybe even more open-world?
Yeah, I think what I would say is that I was really excited about the step that we were able to take this time. They feel roughly two to three times bigger, and for us that was not just a back of the box feature. There’s a threshold that you cross in a gameplay place that you feel you can get lost and you feel that there’s corners that not everyone finds. One of the things that was exciting about the scale that we were able to bring this time is I felt we were starting to cross that threshold and really creating a greater sense of discovery and a greater sense of player-driven exploration.
I don’t know if an equivalent scale in the next game is necessarily the right answer, though. What we always want to maintain is a sense of density and a sense of a unique crafting experience, so as much as scale was the right step this time, going forward we want to make sure we’re continuing to create worlds that are meaningful, well-crafted, and rich. It’s not about scale for scale’s sake.
You focused on having more tombs this entry. Is there a reason why it was decide to make a chunk optional instead of weaving more in with the main story?
To me, it makes a lot of sense to have main story tombs because these really do intersect with the progression of the main conflict and making sure Lara’s unique ability to tomb raid helps resolve the main story conflicts and then we can push scale. These are experiences that everyone has, so we can really double down as a team and make them as great as possible, but also challenge tombs are awesome because we can do a few things. We can put more puzzles in the game than some of our action gamers may want and ultimately they become an opt-in experience for people. And our commitment there is to always make them well rewarded. Probably what I like most as a game designer is this concept of discovery. One of the things that’s tough with the main tombs is everyone experiences them; one of the things I love about our challenge tombs is you get this sense that not everyone found this place. Maybe some people that found it didn’t solve it, and so you get more of a sense of personal satisfaction.
There were some hints of Lara having post-traumatic stress disorder, especially with that trailer in the therapist’s office. Why did you peel back from that in the actual game?
Lara certainly had traumatic experiences on the island and experienced great loss and that took her some time to get over as it would any of us. But part of the subtext of the therapist scene is that [no one] believes what she’s saying is true. I would characterize part of the problem that’s being characterized there isn’t PTSD, but being disbelieved by the society she came back to. She glimpsed something on this island that she can’t explain, but she knows it was real. We were trying to create the sense that her knowledge became almost a burden of her destiny. If it is real and no one believes her - then it almost falls on her to prove it. More importantly, we really wanted to wrap you up in Lara’s plight as an individual facing overwhelming adversity and her need to believe in herself and pursue her own journey.
Expedition mode, where you can compete with friends’ scores on tombs, was introduced in this entry. What was the the thought-process behind having that mode?
The point of our departure was continuing to explore what the right answer was for connected gameplay experiences for our audience and our game. We had done a directly competitive mode last time, which I thought was awesome and I personally had a lot of fun with, but we also felt we got enough feedback in terms of what else we could do with the technology that we wanted to explore that a bit. So, in some ways, I would characterize expedition mode as an answer to that ‘what if’ of saying, ‘What if we took the fact that you’re connected as players and used that to extend the single player experience? What if you want to be Lara and continue to tomb raid? How can we make that interesting?’
Ultimately, I’m excited about it. I think a lot of things are super promising, but what’s most exciting to me is to just create that dialogue with the audience, just like between Tomb Raider 9 and Tomb Raider 10. I think we’ll get great learning experiences from Expedition mode in terms of what people want to see. For me, it’s a little premature to come to conclusions, but hopefully you can get a sense of the creative vision behind that direction.
Tomb Raider is so much about survival and a lot of gruesome violence plays into it. How does that help create the tone you want for the series?
For us, any of the violent outcomes for failure for the player are just meant to frame the stakes that Lara has in this situation. There are gameplay repercussions to dying that you restart at the checkpoint, but there are also narrative repercussions, which is that this is a hostile world and if Lara falls victim to its traps in a tomb – this is the gruesome end to her story. The same is true for the victories. When you find one of the codex and you celebrate Lara’s ability to find new, ancient knowledge we really want you to be a part of that. We try to represent the high and low points of Lara’s journey in an impactful and honest way on screen, and death is a part of that when you’re dealing with high-stakes survival situations.
Click on page two to find out what feature almost got cut and when Crystal Dynamics decides to revisit characters...
Lara is often isolated. How do you decide when to break away from gameplay and give the player an idea of what’s going through her mind?
As authors, one of the things that’s important for us is to deliver vicariously that experience of tomb-raiding and there’s a part to that that’s very isolated. This sense that you’re alone, you’re in a place that no one’s been, and it’s just you and this place. There’s a magical relationship between an "alone Lara" and the discovery of a tomb or these other important movements in the game. For us, it was important to write a story that had those moments for solitary discovery and also express her independence as a character. Having said that, some of the things we’re always committed to doing is bringing out so of her humanity and one of the best ways to do that is interaction with other characters. We tried to do that with the inclusion of some of her friends in the story, as well as trying to make the enemies more relatable in a way that we start to understand Lara’s fight as a set of complicated questions – not just a singular pursuit of goodness. But really what we start to understand is that she’s herself is trying to find her own identity in the story and trying to understand herself what the right answer that she should be fighting for is and a lot of that can only come through other characters. We essentially try to balance moments of important relationships in the story as well as moments of important independence and solitude.
When do you decide to revisit characters and what do you hope new ones bring out of her?
One of the things that we try to do with the cast is that we don’t want people to have to play the previous game in order to understand the current game. Having said that, we love having the experience that if you are a fan and have followed the story that you have a greater sense of attachment to these characters and a greater understanding of the relationships and the backstory. We try to strike a balance of bringing some [past] characters forward and introducing new players to who they are and their relationship with Lara as well as adding new characters to the mix that can flesh out the world. And we [do] look to the future about what characters should be included in Lara’s story, but it should be sort of a balance of leveraging the existing cast and building a world of believable characters we can take forward in the universe.
The action in this game is its strongest asset. How do you determine when to have those big scenes and keep the momentum moving forward?
If we gave you action upon action, it would get old and redundant. Part of what we really celebrate in our design asthetic is pacing and the variation of pacing. This is where I feel blessed working with a character like Lara and a franchise like Tomb Raider, because we have all these different facets of traversal, platforming, combat, puzzle-solving, and resourcefulness that we can essentially commit to always giving you something fresh before you’re bored of what you’re doing now. So instead of hitting you with just one note, we’re really trying to play this, or for lack of a better word "score" this experience for you and have these high highs and these intimate lows. For us, it really is that variety and breadth of experience that really gets us fired up every day.
What was the most challenging part of creating Rise of the Tomb Raider?
Picking the right battles. We can’t do everything, so one of the things that’s tough as a designer is recognizing that. One of the fun examples this time around of picking the wrong thing and correcting it late in the game was we actually had sprint as a feature, and we didn’t have it in the last game. We actually cut that feature and that was super painful, but we recognized in our play throughs and playtesting experiences that we missed it too much. That’s just an example of how we’re always trying to pick our battles, and in that case we had to be agile enough to realize we picked the wrong battle, and we had to fix it. I was excited we got sprint this time and that actually makes the game more fun to play.
What are you most proud of and hope continues from the series?
The characterization of Lara as a person is something I’m probably most proud of and most excited to continue forward. There’s always exciting adventures to take Lara on and exciting myths to explore and secrets to unlock and regions of the world to travel to. What I’m excited to do is pair those great journeys with a continued exploration of Lara as a character and revealing different facets of her. Part of it is putting us in those shoes of what it would be like to be a tomb raider and go on these adventures.Last year, Jordan Vogt-Roberts filmed "Kong: Skull Island" in Quang Binh Province and two other popular destinations in central Vietnam. He returned in late December to revisit Son Doong. Photos courtesy of Oxalis Adventure Tours
Vietnam’s Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Nguyen Ngoc Thien on Friday officially appointed Jordan Vogt-Roberts, director of "Kong: Skull Island", as an official tourism ambassador.
Vogt-Roberts will hold the position from 2017-2020. He will be responsible for promoting Vietnam tourism through newspapers, art, photography and other forms of media.
The ministry is scheduled to organize a ceremony, which will be attended by U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam Ted Osius, to award the American director the title in Hanoi next Monday, March 13.
Vogt-Roberts is expected to arrive in Hanoi on March 12 to accept the position, the The thao & Van hoa (Sports and Culture) news site reported on Thursday, citing its own sources.
“Kong: Skull Island”, which was filmed in some of Vietnam's most stunning locations, is hitting global theaters on Friday.
In a recent interview with Channel News Asia, the film's director praised the "gorgeous" Vietnam for giving the movie a fresh look and making it stand out from previous retakes.
Vogt-Roberts told Channel News Asia he believes the movie would do justice to Vietnam's tourism industry, just like "The Beach" (starring Leonardo DiCaprio) did to Thailand and "The Lords of the Rings" to New Zealand.
It's a take: Director of 'Kong: Skull Island' crowned Vietnam tourism ambassador Kong, the unlikely tourism ambassador of Vietnam's 'Cave Kingdom'
Related news:
> 'Kong: Skull Island' director asked to make monstrous change to tourism in Vietnam
> Fire erupts at 'Kong: Skull Island' premiere in SaigonThe last gun Garand worked on before retirement was the T-31 Bullpup. From the Springfield Armory website …
U.S. RIFLE GARAND T31 “BULLPUP”.30 (T65E1) SN# 2
Manufactured by Springfield Armory, Springfield, Ma. – Limited prototype experimental select-fire weapon shoulder weapon; never went into production. Lightweight, selective full and semiautomatic rifle with an in-line stock in an attempt to reduce recoil. Cyclic rate of fire 600 rpm. Weapon weighs approximately 8.7 lbs. without accessories. Handguard cooled by circulating fresh air. German FG42 rear sight. Rubber stock and handguard. This was the last model worked on by John Garand.
What is especially interesting about this gun is the recoil system. The tube that surrounds the barrel is not a handguard but gas tube (I use the term lightly). A small around of gas deflected by the muzzle brake would enter the tube causing a shockwave to ripple down the tube towards the receiver end where it would actuate a piston. The system did not work very well because the tube would accumulate 3 grains of dirt for every shot fired!
Garand retired before the second version of the rifle was complete and so the project was terminated. The legacy of this rifle can be seen in the magazine design which was adopted for the M14 rifle.
[ Many thanks to Sven (Defense and Freedom) for emailing me the the info. ]ONE of Scotland’s biggest housebuilders, Stewart Milne Group, has highlighted the recent downturn in the key Aberdeen area market after posting a two thirds increase in annual profits.
Owned by entrepreneur Stewart Milne, the group made £5m pre-tax profit in the year to 30 June, up from £3m in the preceding period as it capitalised on strong demand for homes in places like the Central Belt.
However, Mr Milne wrote in the accounts for the year: “Following the year end, we have experienced challenging trading conditions in the North East Scotland Market as a result of the significant fall in the oil price.”
He said the group is trying to rebalance its land bank with more sites in Central Scotland and North West England. This will make it less reliant on the market in the area in and around Aberdeen, where Mr Milne started the business in 1975.
The comments provide further evidence of how the downturn in the North Sea oil and gas industry is damaging the economy of North East Scotland.
Oil and gas firms have shed thousands of jobs since the oil price started tumbling in June 2014. The effects have rippled through the supply chain impacting on businesses in areas from engineering to catering and on demand for homes.
After out-performing many areas during the boom in the North Sea that ended in 2014, prices in Aberdeen have slipped into reverse.
Last week a survey found Aberdeen was the only major UK city which has seen a house price drop in the past year.
The Hometrack survey of 20 cities showed average house prices in the Granite City fell by 1.6 per cent to £190,900 in the year to February 2016. That compared to a 9.3 per cent rise in the previous year.
A study by the Scottish Parliament Information Centre found the number of home sales in North East Scotland has been falling year on year since the second quarter of 2014. Sales have been increasing in Scotland since the first quarter of 2015.
Stewart Milne Group noted improved market conditions in the UK construction market and in particular the Central Scotland and North West England housing markets.
The group plans to bring four new developments to market in Central Scotland this year, in towns such as Renfrew and Strathaven.
The group recorded a strong performance in the year to June, with turnover increasing 20 per cent to £253m, from £210m in the preceding year.
The highest paid director, assumed to be Mr Milne, enjoyed a 20 per cent increase in total remuneration, to £1.3m from £1.1m.
The division that makes timber frames benefited from increased demand across the UK.
Mr Milne concluded: “The Group has performed well and has positioned itself to take advantage of the improving market condition in the overall UK economy and explores opportunities in the Aberdeen housing market.”
He added: “We remain optimistic about the Aberdeen market despite some challenging conditions.”
Work on a new community Stewart Milne is building at Countesswells west of Aberdeen will begin this month. The first homes are expected to be available later this year.
The group noted it has secured a UK Government guarantee for an £86 million loan for the new settlement. Some 3,000 homes will be built over the next 15 years with three schools and leisure and healthcare facilities.
Last month Miller Homes hailed the strength of the market in central Scotland and said it plans to grow in the area. The firm noted strong demand for homes in the Glasgow and Edinburgh areas.It would seem the Orlando City U-17/18 Development Academy has turned the corner.
The Lions won again on Saturday, defeating Weston 2-1. Forward Joe Gallardo scored both goals as City moved up to No. 2 in the country, but it was the way they won that has Academy Director David Longwell excited.
“Great performance and result,” said Longwell, who also coaches the U-17/18s. “Great achievement from them made more pleasing because they’re playing with a true football style and philosophy that we want.”
Developing a style and philosophy is a primary focus of the Development Academy. As nice as winning games is, the goal is to produce talented young players to move up the ladder to Orlando City B in the USL and eventually to the MLS squad, like midfielder Pierre Da Silva did earlier this year.
Da Silva is on the First Team but was loaned down to OCB to get more playing time, and it’s certainly paying off for him as the 18-year-old currently leads the league with four assists.
The U-17/18s are back in action on Saturday, April 29 against IMG Academy.Sound of Voice May
Predict Sexual Behavior
New research findings suggest that the sound of a person's voice may predict his or her level of sexual activity. Men and women whose voices were given higher ratings in attractiveness reported having more sex partners and were younger at first intercourse than those whose voices were considered less attractive. "Thus, the sound of an individual's voice can reveal important information to potential mates," study author Dr. Susan M. Hughes of Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York told Reuters Health. In the study, 149 men and women listened to recorded voices of anonymous individuals and rated the voices on a five-point scale, from "very unattractive" to "very attractive." On average, six men and six women rated each voice. Study participants also underwent measurements of their shoulders, waists and hips and some anonymously reported various details about their sexual history. When the researchers compared voice ratings with sexual histories, they found that men and women whose voices were considered more attractive by opposite sex raters reported younger ages at first sexual intercourse, more sex partners and more sexual affairs than did those with less attractive voices. Voice attractiveness predicted promiscuity in women better than did their waist-to-hip ratio, Hughes and her colleagues report in the September issue of Evolution and Human Behavior. Among men, however, the shoulder-to-hip ratio was a better predictor of promiscuity. That said, not all women with attractive voices are promiscuous, but "promiscuous females tend to have more attractive voices," co-author Dr. Gordon G. Gallup Jr., of the University at Albany, State University of New York, stated. Women with the most attractive voices, according to opposite sex raters, tended to have smaller waists relative to their hips, whereas men whose voices were rated as more attractive -- regardless of the sex of the rater -- tended to have broader shoulders and narrower hips. "Voice is shaped and modified by certain hormones, such as testosterone, and these same hormones also play a role in influencing both sexual drive as well as the sex-specific changes in body shape that occur during puberty," Hughes said. "Therefore, the link between voice, body configuration, and sexual behavior may be due to similar hormonal influences, attractiveness promoting sexual opportunity, or both." During human evolutionary history, voice may have also played a role in how men and women made reproductive-related decisions, particularly at nighttime, the report indicates. "The sound of a person's voice could have become an important indicator of other biologically relevant information," Gallup Jr. said. Other researchers have reported an association between facial attractiveness and sperm quality in men and facial attractiveness and longevity in men and women. That is, men who were judged to be more attractive tended to have a higher number of sperm and more mobile sperm than their less attractive peers. The most attractive men and women were also found to live longer than those considered less attractive. Thus, the authors write, "voice attractiveness may be an indicator (albeit indirect) of other fitness-related features as well." As men and women search for Mr. or Ms. Right, the current findings suggest that people should not "combine a 'blind' date with a 'deaf' date," Gallup said. "Given the importance of voice as a dimension along which important features may vary," he said, men and women should not agree to a blind date without first having at least one telephone conversation. SOURCE: Evolution and Human Behavior, September 2004.
September 28, 2004 Reference Source 89
...............................................................................................................Endnotes and citations are available in the PDF and Scribd versions.
Supportive state and national policies for solar power, coupled with more available and affordable technology, have spurred a strong solar market. Residential photovoltaic solar installations increased 60 percent from 2012 to 2013, reaching 792 megawatts of electricity. Market projections of solar panel investments for the first quarter of 2014 anticipate another 60 percent increase in solar installations. Moreover, some analyses project that more than 1 million residential solar installations could be installed by 2017—triple the current market. Over the past year, prices for residential photovoltaic systems fell 7 percent, and installation prices declined in major residential markets, including California, New York, Massachusetts, and Arizona. These factors have resulted in an expansion of solar deployment to middle- and upper-income households. However, the same benefits have not yet accrued for low-income households on a large scale.
Low-income households in the United States spend a higher percentage of household income on energy costs than their higher-income peers: Their energy spending is more than twice the average for non-low-income households—8.3 percent compared to 2.9 percent—and four times the median national household energy cost burden—a median of 13.3 percent compared to 3.3 percent. Access to solar power could significantly reduce the energy burden of low-income households by providing electricity below local utility rates. Furthermore, as residential solar systems become increasingly common and significant sources of renewable energy, policies that increase low-income solar adoption will help alleviate the risk of a so-called electrical divide in which low-income consumers who do not have access to renewable energy sources increasingly carry the burden of financing antiquated utility systems.
However, low- and middle-income households face several barriers to rooftop solar access:
Difficulty meeting credit requirements to obtain long-term, low-cost financing or affordable leases for solar systems Not being able to benefit from tax credit or other incentive programs because of insufficient income or inability to claim benefits Status as tenants rather than homeowners, which means households do not control the roof-space necessary for installation of solar systems
In order to ease the energy burden experienced by low-income households and take advantage of the ever-strengthening solar market, states and local governments should embrace policies that can help low-income families access residential solar power. These policies will provide families with a clean, stable, and renewable source of energy that could help reduce household electric bills and enhance grid resilience. Although several states have begun to explore this potential, there is still much to be done.
State programs that are expanding solar adoption among low-income households
States are well positioned to support innovative strategies of solar power deployment to low-income communities and households. They can enact legislative support expediently and tailor policies to match their specific geographic and economic features. California, Louisiana, and Colorado are three states that feature particularly innovative and income-specific solutions to affordable financing for solar power.
California
California has aggressively pursued strategies to support deployment of solar power with a special emphasis on programs that serve low-income families. California launched the Go Solar California campaign in 2007 with a goal of deploying 3 gigawatts of photovoltaic power to homes and businesses by 2016 and financed with a total budget of $3.3 billion over 10 years, collected through a charge on electricity distribution. The largest component of the program, the California Solar Initiative, or CSI, reserved 10 percent of its budget, or $216 million, to support the adoption of solar power by low-income families. This budget is divided between the Single-Family Affordable Solar Housing, or SASH, and Multifamily Affordable Housing, or MASH, programs.
SASH—managed by the nonprofit Grid Alternatives with a total budget of $108 million—subsidizes 1 kilowatt photovoltaic systems for very low-income households—partially for those that are 50 percent to 80 percent below the median household income and fully for those that are more than 80 percent below the median. To date, Grid Alternatives has installed 4,489 systems across California. Although the program relies on incentives between $4.75 and $7.00 per watt installed in the form of upfront rebates, Grid Alternatives has successfully reduced installation costs through a volunteer-based installation model and has trained more than 16,000 volunteers. Installation labor costs can represent around 10 percent of the full cost of a residential system, and this model not only allows Grid Alternatives to reduce costs, but also to educate potential consumers and community members.
Partnered with SASH, California employs the MASH program to deploy solar systems for multifamily buildings—either in their common areas or for use by specific tenants—at incentive rates of $1.90 to $2.80 per watt. The program has resulted in 347 completed projects totaling 23.6 megawatts—with another 48 projects totaling 6.7 megawatts in the pipeline—costing an average of $6.61 per watt. PG&E and Southern California Edison have installed a total of 20.7 megawatts, and the Center for Sustainable Energy has installed 2.6 megawatts.
In addition to CSI, the state launched the Solar for All California program in 2010, which directly invested a portion of its annual Low income Heating and Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, funding to support solar deployment for LIHEAP-eligible homeowners. In all, the program financed photovoltaic systems for 1,482 low-income households using $14.7 million in LIHEAP funds and an additional $3.5 million leveraged through outside partners. The program is distinct from CSI due to its use of LIHEAP funding, rather than a consumer-financed budget. Since LIHEAP funding is distributed nationally, the success of this pilot could be replicated in other states with approval of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Louisiana
In contrast to California, Louisiana lacks a robust system of public support and financing for low-income solar deployment or any income-specific state energy programs. However, PosiGen, a solar leasing company, has developed a low-income solar system leasing model that has successfully installed more than 4,000 systems since 2011. PosiGen has leveraged Louisiana’s 50 percent tax credit on purchased solar systems, 38 percent tax credit on leased systems, and the federal 30 percent Residential Renewable Energy Tax Credit to reduce the costs of financing photovoltaic systems.
In order to capture the full value of the credit, PosiGen leases the systems from U.S. Bank, which owns the panels. To further reduce costs, PosiGen has secured financing on community redevelopment terms, which can be more favorable than standard agreements. Such terms allow banks to earn redevelopment points, which are necessary to comply with the Community Reinvestment Act. Although Louisiana has succeeded with this financing model, it is not based on characteristics that are exclusive to the state. In fact, 16 states currently offer residential renewable energy tax credits to offset a portion of solar system costs that could lay a foundation to replicate this program.
Colorado
Colorado passed the Community Solar Gardens Act in 2010, which allows Colorado homeowners to purchase shares of centralized solar installations. Community solar gardens, or CSGs, allow homeowners who would not otherwise have the necessary rooftop space to purchase solar power. Colorado’s legislation is unique in that it targets low-income households by requiring that 5 percent of the electricity from each CSG be reserved for subscription by low-income households in order for the CSG to qualify for state Renewable Energy Credits.
The Clean Energy Collective, a community solar company, has also partnered with the Denver Housing Authority, or DHA, to earmark 5 percent of solar power produced for DHA housing residents and offset the electric bills of 35 low-income families. The program is expected to generate $7,700 in bill credits in the first year and more than $230,000 over the 20-year lifetime of the program.
Policy recommendations
Elements of these innovative state-based programs can serve as models that can be implemented across the nation. Colorado’s experience with community solar and the combination of state and federal tax credits and community development programs in Louisiana through a private company, for example, are policy ideas that could be replicated nationally, particularly in states that have already enacted tax incentives for solar power and community solar legislation. To further build on these ideas, states should consider additional policies—such as using brownfield redevelopment as part of community solar programs, incorporating solar into rehabilitation programs for existing housing, and developing green banks similar to those now underway in Connecticut, New York, and Hawaii—as opportunities to further advance low-income household solar adoption.
Expand community solar programs
Community solar programs are centralized solar arrays with electricity divided between residential subscribers in the form of a credit on their monthly utility bills. Because the arrays can be placed anywhere with grid access, homeowners who lack the necessary space for a photovoltaic installation can still access solar power and accrue the associated benefits. Shares of community solar installations are typically sold on a per-panel basis and maintained by a central entity—either a company such as the Clean Energy Collective in Colorado or a utility such as Central Hudson Gas & Electric. Community solar programs allow renters and homeowners with shaded roofs to invest in the benefits of solar power—without the restrictions of traditional rooftop solar systems.
The scale and investment requirements of community solar programs depend heavily on the states in which they are located, since state legislation typically sets qualifications for each project. Colorado’s Community Solar Gardens Act, for example, limits installations to a maximum of 2 megawatts and requires a minimum of 10 subscribers to own at least 1 kilowatt each of the total capacity. Subscribers also must live in the same county as the community solar garden. In 2011, Colorado Springs Utility developed four 500 kilowatt— totaling 2 megawatts—community solar gardens, which customers could lease for 20 years. Colorado Springs Utility required a minimum purchase of 400 watts, about two panels worth, for a minimum initial investment of $1,100. However, the scale of the Colorado Springs case is large relative to other programs. A CSG could range in size from 10 panels to 2,500 panels. In California, community solar garden legislation allows installations to grow up to 20 megawatts, which would require 160 acres.
Community solar power has unique potential to benefit low-income communities for a variety of reasons. First, low-income families are more likely to rent or live in apartments than the average American household. Second, community solar power can be purchased in discrete amounts that are smaller than most multi-kilowatt rooftop solar systems, making the cost to entry more accessible. Furthermore, because community solar programs are constructed on larger scales than most rooftop units, they can secure cheaper prices through bulk panel purchases. Finally, community solar programs can be installed on land that is otherwise unusable or has low property value, as long as it is within reach of a centralized grid and receives adequate sun. This can reduce the property costs necessary for initial investment and support community redevelopment by increasing the productivity of unused land.
Use brownfield properties for solar projects
Across the United States, there are brownfield properties that are considered unusable due to past industrial or commercial use. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, defines brownfields as property where expansion, redevelopment, or reuse “may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant.” The EPA estimates that there are more than 450,000 such sites in the United States, and solar developers are already demonstrating a growing interest in using brownfield and landfill properties for development of commercial solar plants. The EPA and National Renewable Energy Laboratory, or NREL, have also invested $1 million to evaluate the feasibility of developing renewable energy on Superfund sites—or those undergoing cleanup of hazardous wastes—brownfields, and former landfill and mining sites. The EPA and NREL mapped renewable energy potential on brownfield sites around the country, produced reports on best practices, and developed feasibility studies for the reuse of 27 contaminated sites for solar installations.
Although the development of solar projects on brownfields is not a new concept, these sites have primarily been redeveloped for commercial solar projects in the past. In order to facilitate the development of cost-effective community solar programs on these properties, Community Development Finance Institutions, or CDFIs, and other community organizations coordinate their efforts. These projects would face low-siting and permitting barriers and facilitate cleanup and use of sites that are blights on the communities they inhabit. Furthermore, the EPA coordinates a series of grant and loan programs to facilitate environmentally sound cleanup and redevelopment of brownfields, which could be marshaled by CDFIs and community solar programs to further reduce investment costs. By investing in brownfield redevelopment through solar power, low-income communities could repurpose wasted land for positive economic growth.
Finance low-cost solar power through community development organizations
As described above, Louisiana has succeeded in leveraging state and federal tax credits in partnership with banks and community development programs to increase the affordability of solar power. Today, many CDFIs could replicate Louisiana’s success elsewhere. CDFIs are nongovernmental organizations engaged in lending and development projects in low-income neighborhoods. They can secure low-cost capital from banks looking to comply with the Community Reinvestment Act and can leverage New Market Tax Credits and Community Development Block Grants to attract private financing. CDFIs such as Craft 3 in Oregon have already successfully financed energy efficiency projects. In another example, Bank of America invested $55 million in CDFI energy efficiency projects in 2011. The Solar and Energy Loan Fund, which received CDFI accreditation in 2012, has also financed $2.4 million in residential energy improvements in Florida, including low-income rooftop solar systems. There are currently 896 CDFIs functioning around the country, and many of these institutions are well positioned to support deployment of solar power to low-income communities in states that do not currently offer income-specific programs to reduce household energy consumption.
Incorporate solar power into housing stock rehabilitation
One of the substantial costs homeowners and businesses face in installing rooftop solar systems is the cost to physically connect solar panels to the roof. This process takes time and expertise and is more expensive when done on a case-by-case basis. California has taken steps to address some of these challenges by requiring all new buildings to be constructed in a “solar ready” fashion that would support a solar photovoltaic system in unshaded areas, if possible. Although this policy will offer homeowners increased opportunity for future investment in solar panels, this policy does not address the houses throughout the United States that are already built.
In order to better deploy solar power to low-income communities, solar providers should partner with states, municipalities, and nonprofits to incorporate rooftop solar systems into redevelopment and rehabilitation projects. This could be done by engaging Neighborhood Stabilization Program, or NSP, grant recipients and leveraging this low-cost financing for solar system installation. NSP financing is allocated for purchasing and rehabilitating homes and residential properties that have been foreclosed, redeveloping land with blighted or vacant properties, and establishing financing mechanisms to further these programs.
Congress allocated three rounds of Neighborhood Stabilization Program grants under the Community Development Block Grant program between 2008 and 2010—$7 billion in total. These funds were made available to states, |
the window for dissing its electrons. As a result, that ordinary matter is visible because of the way it absorbs and scatters light. Dark matter, on the other hand, completely ignores light and ordinary matter. Dark matter doesn't even like other dark matter very much. If the Universe were your local neighborhood, dark matter is the family that communicates with everyone, even other family members, only by changing the name of their WiFi network.
More seriously, dark matter particles are massive, but don't seem to have charge or a magnetic moment, so all they feel is the force of gravity. The only way they exert forces on other particles is via gravity.
Not seeing is not believing
Dark matter is not an unreasonable explanation for our observations, but it's not the only possible explanation for galaxies' behavior. You can, for instance, modify the law of gravity. Many of these alternatives, called Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND), began as curve-fitting exercises: here is the data, how should gravity be modified to fit?
The stumbling block has been to figure out the underlying physical reason for the new law. This is actually a big ask. In a 3D universe with a flat space-time, conservation of energy and momentum automatically gives forces like gravity and electrostatics a spatial dependence (the force falls as the square of the distance). These laws are a consequence of the nature of the Universe, so changes to the laws also have to be down to the fundamental nature of the Universe. Ad hoc add-ons are not appreciated.
The Universe doesn't have a completely flat space-time, though. Instead space-time warps and flows around massive objects, which provides a sliver of hope for alternative theories of gravity. A new class of theoretical gravities slithered out of this mud, much to the joy of gumboot-wearing theoreticians. For the versions of MOND that we are interested in today, the basic idea is this: there is no dark matter, but there are two different metrics—metrics are space-times coupled to matter.
One metric is coupled to ordinary matter. Light and ordinary matter dance together on this stage and provide us with a spectacular show. Gravtitational waves, on the other hand, have an entirely different metric that, for reasons best known to itself, is warped out of shape. Its warped shape is what we perceive as dark matter.
So there is no dark matter—instead the space-time is naturally warped in the absence of dark matter. It's as if light and ordinary matter were given a nice shiny space-time that is all flat and beautiful, while gravity was given a used space-time that had been bent out of shape by a series of minor parking mishaps. The result of this is that galaxies move like supertankers, but look like dinghies.
These two seemingly independent metrics can explain the structures of galaxies and of collisions between galaxy clusters, but the idea has consequences. For instance, if a something should emit both gravitational waves and light, the two waves will travel by different paths depending on the masses they encounter. So, light and gravitational waves won't arrive at a distant observation point at the same time.
Bring on the dancing neutron stars
And this is the gift gravitational wave observatories have given us. When two neutron stars spiraled into each other and merged, they released a huge amount of energy as both light and gravitational waves. Three gravitational wave detectors picked up the gravitational waves emitted during the in-spiral and merger, while the Fermi telescope caught the gamma ray burst released as the stars merged. Over the course of the next few days, many telescopes observed the light emission from the cooling debris that was hurtling outwards from the merger. It was, in short, a data bonanza the likes of which we may never see again.
The light and the gravitational waves travel along the direct line of sight to us, curling around the gravity wells of intervening galaxies along the way. As a result, the initial burst of light and gravitational waves hid a little gem: the time difference between the arrival of the gravitational waves and the light. All 1.7 seconds of it. Yes, that was the recorded delay between the two signals.
"Hooray," I hear some of you dark matter doubters shout, as the difference would seem to support the idea that they faced two different gravities. That would be premature cheering. Remember, dark matter makes up most of the mass in a galaxy, so the galaxies between us and the neutron stars (including our own Milky Way) should provide two very different paths for the gravitational and light waves. The delay should have been longer if MOND were correct. Much longer: about three years, in fact.
The measured delay was so much shorter than the difference predicted by double metric theories that the researchers didn't even bother performing more detailed calculations. There is, in their view, simply no way to include the intervening galaxies and exclude dark matter. This is a dead MOND theory.
In other news, Einstein is still right
Along the way, the researchers took a look at a related subject, called the weak equivalence principle. The idea is simple: free fall is the same for everyone and everything. It doesn't matter what your internal structure is or what your mass is—if you are in a gravitational field, you'll behave exactly the same as your neighbor. Gravitational waves and electromagnetic waves are both carried by particles: the graviton and the photon. The near simultaneous arrival of the two show that they also experienced the same gravitational field and were influenced in exactly the same way. Or more precisely, the maximum difference is less than four parts in 100 million.
Essentially, this analysis shows that photons and gravitons travel on nearly identical metrics. And, even on the same metric, they experience pretty much the same gravitational fields—that is the coupling between the particle and the gravitational field is the same for both. This also means that any new theory of gravity has to respect the weak equivalence principle.
Zombie MOND will return
Yes, MOND will be back. First of all, this doesn't eliminate all MOND theories. There are those that simply don't posit a underlying physical basis for the change in gravitational laws. Without a reason, they cannot be eliminated. Then there are those that don't use a weird metric to separate gravitation from everything else. These are also not, at first sight, eliminated.
Unusually, I will be a bit cautious here. It is not clear that the remaining MOND theories do not have their success or failure hidden in the neutron star merger data. It may be that no one has tested any predictions they make about gravitational wave behavior (or that the merger does not satisfy the conditions of the predictions). Human nature plays a role too. No theoretician lets a good idea die without a fight. You can be sure that several of them are already working to see if there is some wriggle room that might allow their theory to escape, scarred but alive.
So, as usual, the conclusions aren't quite as straightforward as we would like, but that is science, and it's fun to watch the show.
2017: arXiv.org, ID: 1710.06168v1Predatory beetles can detect the unique alarm signal released by ants that are under attack by parasitic flies, and the beetles use those overheard conversations to guide their search for safe egg-laying sites on coffee bushes.
Azteca instabilis ants patrol coffee bushes and emit chemical alarm signals when they're under attack by phorid flies. In an article published online July 27 in the journal Ecology and Evolution, University of Michigan researchers and their colleagues show that pregnant lady beetles intercept the ants' alarm pheromones, which let the beetles know that it's safe to deposit their eggs.
The findings, which may have practical implications for pest management on coffee plantations, are the first documentation of a complex cascade of interactions mediated by ant pheromones, according to the authors.
"It is too often the case that pest management in agriculture focuses on finding a magic bullet solution to every problem," said U-M ecologist Ivette Perfecto, professor at the U-M School of Natural Resources and Environment and co-author of the Ecology and Evolution paper.
First author of the paper is Hsun-Yi Hsieh, a graduate student at the School of Natural Resources and Environment.
"This research shows that there are very complex ecological interactions that are involved in population regulation, and when the population of concern is a potential pest species, understanding those interactions is key to the long-term sustainability of pest control strategies," Perfecto said.
Ants and other social insects communicate using chemicals called pheromones. Little is known about insects and other creatures that exploit ant chemical communication systems. A few such cases have been reported, including ant-eating spiders that use ant alarm pheromones to find their prey and parasitic flies that use ant alarm or trail pheromones to find their host.
But complex relationships involving ant pheromone-mediated interactions between multiple species of insects have not been previously reported, according to Perfecto.
The cast in this bug-world drama features four main players: the aforementioned Azteca instabilis ant, a tiny insect called the green coffee scale, the predatory lady beetle, and the parasitic phorid fly.
Tree-nesting Azteca ants enjoy a mutualistic relationship with the green coffee scale, which is a coffee pest. The ants protect the scale insects from predators and parasites and in return collect honeydew, a sweet, sticky liquid secreted by the green coffee scale.
The lady beetle eats the scale insects tended by the ants. However, patrolling ants attack and kill adult beetles and remove all beetle eggs laid bare on ant-tended coffee plants.
To get their offspring into food-rich patches among the scale insects, female lady beetles hide their eggs in out-of-the-way places-including the underside of the flat-bodied scale insects. That way, when the beetle eggs hatch they can start eating scale insects immediately, while still being protected from ant predation. A short time later, lady beetle larvae develop a waxy, filamentous coat that offers further protection from ants.
Phorids are a family of small, hump-backed flies resembling fruit flies. The parasitic phorid flies that attack Azteca ants lay their eggs on the ant's body. Fly larvae develop inside the ant's head, which falls off when the adult fly emerges. Phorids need to see movement to detect individual ants; therefore moving ants, rather than stationary ones, are their targets.
Needless to say, the ants do their best to avoid becoming phorid-fly victims. When the flies attack, the ants release a phorid-alert pheromone to warn other workers in the vicinity. In response, nearby ants enter a motionless, catatonic state and overall colony activity declines by at least 50 percent. This effect can last up to 2 hours.
In the Ecology and Evolution paper, Hsieh, Perfecto and their colleagues show that female lady beetles-especially pregnant ones-detect the phorid-alert pheromone and take advantage of the ensuing lull in activity to search out safe egg-deposition sites with plenty of food for their offspring. Interestingly, male beetles did not respond to any of the ant pheromones.
For the study, beetles, ants and phorid flies were collected from an organic coffee plantation in the southern part of the state of Chiapas, Mexico, or were reared in the laboratory after field collection from the same site. The insects were placed in a multi-chambered apparatus called an olfactometer, which is used to measure an organism's sensitivity to various odors.
In addition to several olfactometer tests, an egg-deposition experiment was conducted. Pregnant lady beetles were placed in a one-liter container holding a coffee branch with four to six leaves infected with scale insects, 40 Azteca worker ants, and two or three phorid flies. After 24 hours, the coffee branch was removed and examined under a microscope for beetle eggs.
Results of the various tests support the hypothesis that female beetles use the phorid-alert ant pheromone to exploit low ant-activity periods and to locate sites where eggs can be hidden and protected against ant predation after ants resume their normal activity levels.
The authors suggest that such complex interactions may be common in nature, "and their uncommon occurrence in the literature is the product of investigators failing to search for them in the first place."
The results have important implications for the management of the scale insect on coffee plantations. The findings suggest that the conservation of Azteca ants, rather than their elimination, is the best management option, Perfecto said.
"This is counterintuitive because the ants protect the scale insects," Perfecto said. "However, the ants are distributed in a patchwork on the plantations, and the patches of Azteca are essential for the survival and reproduction of the predatory lady beetle."
The patches of Azteca, which cover 3 to 5 percent of the plantation area, act as a source of adult lady beetles, which can help control the scale insects on the rest of the plantation. Since the Azteca ants nest in trees that are planted alongside the coffee for shade, eliminating these shade trees can result in the elimination of one of the most important predators of the scale insects, Perfecto said.5. Carlos Sainz
Toro Rosso, 12th in points
JN: Gutted to have missed out on the Red Bull seat instead of Max Verstappen, Carlos Sainz simply stepped up his game – delivering stellar performance that could have included a podium finish in Monaco. Deserves a better car in 2017.
PE: It is always difficult to notice drivers who are not fighting for the top positions, but Sainz had a great season in terms of his own performance, flattering a Toro Rosso that struggled on the straights of every circuit all year long. He deserved better results than what his car was capable of, something he will be hoping changes in 2017.
GN: That Sainz hasn’t managed to land in a top team seat for 2017 is not surprising, given the way the market was quickly locked up - but team managers know his value. Unlike Kvyat, Sainz never looked defeated after Verstappen's promotion to Red Bull, although he too probably knows the doors are now locked for a while. A very safe benchmark for the mid-grid.
Carlos Sainz Jr., Scuderia Toro Rosso Photo by: XPB Images
4. Nico Rosberg
Mercedes, Champion (9 wins)
OK: His last four races were not so impressive, but it's pointless to discuss what would have happened if Lewis didn't have all the problems he had during the course of the season. At the end of the day, Rosberg did everything he needed to in order to win the title, and we definitely saw the best-ever form from the German this year. A worthy champion without a doubt.
AVL: The crucial part of the season for Rosberg was not falling apart when Hamilton roared back into title contention mid-season. That run from Belgium through to Japan was impressive, as was his pressure-absorbing drive in Abu Dhabi to seal the title. Hamilton may have got a little unlucky in 2016, but that’s not to say Rosberg doesn’t deserve to be World Champion. It was just his year.
JN: He did everything he needed to do over the season for his best campaign, but he even admitted the ‘real Rosberg’ wasn’t on display in the final races as the pressure of the title chase got to him. In the end, that’s what drove him to quit.
PE: There is no point arguing whether Rosberg deserved the title or not. He is the champion, and a worthy one at that. The German seized every one of the chances given to him and was stronger than Hamilton in some races, like the European GP. Having said that, you could be tempted to think that at least four other drivers would have taken the title had they been in Rosberg's situation.
VK: The dominance of the Mercedes W07 ensured Rosberg would win a fair few races, but also left him as the fans' only hope against another Hamilton landslide, with nowhere to hide on weekends where he couldn't run with his mega-talented teammate. But the hybrid-era stats as a whole do suggest he's earned his stripes as a champion.
Podium: Second place Nico Rosberg, Mercedes AMG F1 Photo by: XPB Images
3. Lewis Hamilton
Mercedes, 2nd in points (10 wins)
AVL: One thing never changes: at his best, Hamilton is devastatingly fast. His conspiracy theories may be wide of the mark, but there is little doubt he copped the wrong end of the pineapple in terms of mechanical blunders this season. In an era of reliability, he can consider himself a little unlucky to win 10 races but still miss out on the title.
VK: There is no great injustice in Hamilton losing the F1 title in 2016 – poor reliability was not the only reason why he came up short, and his tendency to often go against a team that helped ensure he wouldn't remain a 2008 one-hit-wonder is frustrating. But he remains exceptionally fast, and 2016, title or no title, will have only bolstered his status as one of F1's all-time greatest.
JN: The engine failure in Malaysia ultimately proved costly for the championship, but there were driving mistakes – race starts and Baku qualifying – that hurt his title campaign just as much.
EJ: Lewis had a lot of bad luck this year but still managed to stay in the title fight until the very end, which is just a testament to his sheer speed and amazing mental strength. He didn’t win the title, but he did collect the most victories and the most pole positions in 2016, which kept him on course for becoming one of the greatest Formula 1 drivers of all-time.
GN: Confident in his speed and ability, Hamilton knows where he has to improve to take the edge next season and keep some margin in case of DNFs or bad luck: starting procedures and qualifying. Too often, he was matched or beaten by his teammate in these aspects this year. As well as his mechanical troubles, that lack of a cushion made the difference at the end of the championship.
Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes AMG F1 W07 Hybrid Photo by: Mercedes AMG
2. Max Verstappen
Toro Rosso/Red Bull, 5th in points (1 win)
VK: Amid a dreary, distinctly underwhelming F1 season, Verstappen was the series' greatest entertainer, for better or for worse. His inconsistency was frustrating, but the speed and skill made up for it – and his three-year meteoric rise from karting driver to F1 superstar continues to mystify.
EJ: Max was the reason most of the races this year were exciting to watch, whether it be brilliant overtakes, hard defending or the fact he wasn't afraid to take on the established names in the sport. His first victory in Spain and incredible wet-weather drive in Brazil were the highlights of the season for me - and for, no doubt, plenty of other Dutch people.
JN: On his day in another league, but equally still does not quite have the consistency to deliver like that all the time – but that will come! Still by far the most exciting driver out there.
PE: Verstappen is the best thing to have happened to Formula 1 this year, ruffling some feathers on the way to becoming one of the sport's biggest stars. He may have made more mistakes than some of his rivals, but he has also given the fans the most memorable moments of the year. His Brazilian GP drive alone earns him first place on my list.
AVL: His natural ability is undeniable. And his apolitical, ‘not here to make friends’ attitude is refreshing. He grabbed the Red Bull opportunity with both hands, and not just in Barcelona. And he’s forced the more experienced Ricciardo to get better. Impressive season.
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB12 Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool
1. Daniel Ricciardo
Red Bull, 3rd in points (1 win)
JN: A truly brilliant season where he lifted his game superbly after Max Verstappen’s arrival. His Q3 lap in Barcelona was qualifying performance of the season. Lost Spain and Monaco wins through no fault of his own, and although there were days when Verstappen got the attention, Ricciardo’s consistency all year stood out.
JK: Ricciardo ended up with one (slightly fortuitous) win as the result of Hamilton's engine woes in Malaysia, but it so easily could have been four - besides Spain and Monaco, less than half a second stood between him and victory in Singapore. If there was any doubt remaining that the easy-going Aussie is a bona fide champion-in-waiting, there should be no longer.
GN: The pairing with Verstappen was the confrontation needed for us to be reminded that Ricciardo is an ace just waiting for the right car to fight for victories and become a title contender. He not only resisted the newcomer with authority, but welcomed the challenge. By ending “best of the rest” behind the Mercedes drivers for the second time in the hybrid era, he reaffirmed his superstar status.
VK: If 2014 was strong evidence of Ricciardo being firmly among F1's elite, 2016 is basically confirmation of the fact. Extremely cool under pressure, both in delivering over one lap and in banking strong results, the Aussie is long overdue a go with championship-calibre machinery.
OK: Fast, reliable, a great overtaker: Ricciardo is the complete top driver. It's hard to remember when his last significant mistake was. If there's a sniff of a chance for him to go for the title next year, he'll undoubtedly grab it with both hands.
3rd place Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull Racing Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool
Complete rankings:Photo: AP Image 1 of / 5 Caption Close Image 2 of 5 In this photo made Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2014, windmill work on a bluff overlooking the town of Sweetwater, Texas. At the heart of the Cline, a shale formation once thought to hold more oil than Saudi Arabia, Sweetwater is bracing for layoffs and budget cuts, anxious as oil prices fall and its largest investors pull back. (AP Photo/LM Otero) less In this photo made Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2014, windmill work on a bluff overlooking the town of Sweetwater, Texas. At the heart of the Cline, a shale formation once thought to hold more oil than Saudi Arabia,... more Photo: AP Image 3 of 5 In this photo made Monday, Dec. 22, 2014, former Sweetwater mayor Greg Wortham drives his truck though Sweetwater, Texas. Wortham has led since 2002 a private effort to prepare the region for the huge influx of oil workers expected to arrive when drilling in the Cline Shale began. At the heart of the Cline, a shale formation once thought to hold more oil than Saudi Arabia, Sweetwater is bracing for layoffs and budget cuts, anxious as oil prices fall and its largest investors pull back. (AP Photo/LM Otero) less In this photo made Monday, Dec. 22, 2014, former Sweetwater mayor Greg Wortham drives his truck though Sweetwater, Texas. Wortham has led since 2002 a private effort to prepare the region for the huge influx... more Photo: AP Image 4 of 5 In this photo made Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2014, men work on an well pump near Sweetwater, Texas. At the heart of the Cline, a shale formation once thought to hold more oil than Saudi Arabia, Sweetwater is bracing for layoffs and budget cuts, anxious as oil prices fall and its largest investors pull back. (AP Photo/LM Otero) less In this photo made Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2014, men work on an well pump near Sweetwater, Texas. At the heart of the Cline, a shale formation once thought to hold more oil than Saudi Arabia, Sweetwater is bracing... more Photo: AP Image 5 of 5 In this photo made Monday, Dec. 22, 2014, former Sweetwater mayor Greg Wortham walks in his office in Sweetwater, Texas. Wortham has led since 2002 a private effort to prepare the region for the huge influx of oil workers expected to arrive when drilling in the Cline Shale began. At the heart of the Cline, a shale formation once thought to hold more oil than Saudi Arabia, Sweetwater is bracing for layoffs and budget cuts, anxious as oil prices fall and its largest investors pull back. (AP Photo/LM Otero) less In this photo made Monday, Dec. 22, 2014, former Sweetwater mayor Greg Wortham walks in his office in Sweetwater, Texas. Wortham has led since 2002 a private effort to prepare the region for the huge influx of... more Photo: AP U.S. rig count sees biggest drop in six years 1 / 5 Back to Gallery
HOUSTON — More than 40,000 upstream oil and gas jobs in Texas could be lost as energy sector activity here continues to slow, said Karr Ingham, the economist who compiles the monthly Texas Petro Index tracking the industry’s economic indicators.
The latest data point that spells trouble for the industry: data released Friday indicating that that the number of rigs operating in the U.S. was down 74 this week, the rig count’s biggest one-week decline in more than six years.
“We’re now at the point where there’s likely to be some damage inflicted on the Texas economy,” Ingham said. “I’d sure be fine if I was dead wrong, but a turnaround in drilling activity is not on the horizon at this point.
Ingham said the industry suffered 40,000 upstream job losses in Texas when crude oil prices fell as low as $35 per barrel during the 2008-2009 downturn. The last time the rig count fell as dramatically as it did this week was in January 2009, when it fell by 98.
This time, Ingham said, the job losses might even be bigger because the drop in oil prices could be more prolonged.
Texas, which has more rigs operating than any other state, also saw more rigs put down than any state in this week’s report. The state’s rig count was down by 44 to 766 rigs in this week’s report.
Last year’s Texas rig count peaked at 906, but Ingham said that figure could eventually fall in half.
The impact, he said, could mean more than 200,000 job losses for the state, when positions indirectly connected to the industry are included.
Nationally, this week’s plunge marked the third-biggest one-week drop in the history of the rig count, compiled by oilfield service company Baker Hughes since 1987.
Friday’s report was the sixth consecutive week in which the U.S. rig count declined as oil prices have plunged more than 50 percent since their peak in June. Ingham said the rig count could continue to decline weekly for most of the first half of the year.
In an note to investors Friday, energy investment firm Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. noted that the declines were widely expected and occurred broadly — across both public and private companies’ operations and through many different basins.
Ingham said the bad news for the industry won’t stop until production slows dramatically, which isn’t likely to happen soon. “What really needs to happen is production and volume to drop like a stone,” Ingham said. “But production is going to continue to increase — at a slower rate — for months into the future, until it finally peaks.”Story highlights Jarrett Bellini travels to Nashville to meet their zoo's new arrival
Photos of the baby Baird's tapir surfaced on Reddit
Bellini: "Trust me, this goofy little thing has an absolutely incredible story"
The Nashville Zoo's ungulate manager saves the day
If I've learned anything after many years in news, it's that people love cute, baby animals. And car chases.
So, really, we're sort of all just waiting for a newborn panda to rob a bank, steal a Nissan, and drive it to the Mexican border for an explosive three-hour shootout.
Anderson Cooper will go on air later that night with a teary, bittersweet final report.
"Welp, that's as good as it gets. Kill your TV. There is no longer anything worth seeing."
Unfortunately, even just normal, non-panda-related car chases are rather rare. Though, Florida, Texas and California do try their best. Bless their hearts.
Baby animals, on the other hand, are seemingly everywhere. I recently had the opportunity to meet a very special one in person.
"Apparently This Matters" Is Jarrett Bellini's weekly (and somewhat random) look at social-media trends.
Trust me, this goofy little thing has an absolutely incredible story.
A few days ago, before setting off on a work trip to Nashville, I started searching the Web for anything trending in that city I could write about while I was in town. Through Reddit, I quickly discovered a popular link with adorable photos of this strange new creature that very well might have been the result of an aardvark mating with Danny DeVito.
(Which, I'm told, is considered "das sexy" in Germany.)
This bizarre little newborn was a Baird's tapir from the Nashville Zoo, and it's actually nothing at all like an aardvark. Or Danny DeVito. In fact, its closest living relatives are horses.
And I only know all this because I made a short visit to the zoo to meet with Lanny Brown, its ungulate manager.
"Ungulate" is a science word. And those make me dizzy. So, let's just call him Hoof Master General, for he described his body of work as: "Everything from deer all the way up to elephants and everything in between."
Now, you've probably never heard of a Baird's tapir, so the first thing you need to know is that it's technically a Spanish word. Thus, one might accurately pronounce the second part 'tap-YEAR.'
I choose not to be accurate.
The common North American way of saying it is 'TAPE-uhr' -- like the guys with the tall microphones at Widespread Panic concerts who record the shows
However you decide to pronounce it, there are four species of tapir -- all of which, as adults, become delightfully ugly and sort of look like 500-pound versions of Watto from Star Wars. Essentially, if animals did online dating, these would be the really desperate ones who "respond frequently."
This particular breed that we're talking about here, is actually native to southern Mexico and central America. But they're endangered, so it's pretty remarkable that the Nashville Zoo successfully bred one in captivity.
Though, it almost ended in tragedy. And that's where this story gets both amazing and disgusting all at once. Sort of like when I fear-floss an hour before the dentist.
It all went down on January 12 when the mother tapir, Houston, finally gave birth to her cute little baby boy, Felix. There was no mention of daddy tapir during this miracle, but it's safe to assume he was off doing guy things like lighting stuff on fire and burping into a microphone.
Baby Felix introduces himself to the world.
After Felix was born, his mother was supposed to gently use her teeth to open the embryonic sac, releasing her calf into the world to breathe on its own. However, in this particular instance, she actually went directly to step two: Eating the placenta and afterbirth. Because, really, who can resist?
Meanwhile, poor Felix was suffocating in the embryonic sac.
Eventually, zoo staff was able to move mom into another stall so our brave Hoof Master General could get to the baby and set it free. Only, by this point, it wasn't breathing. So, they started the equivalent of human CPR.
"There was a lot of fluid in his snout that had to be sucked out first," Brown said. "I would love to tell you I was so much in the moment that I didn't think about it at all, but that's not true by any means. It was (sigh) very similar to -- what's a good way to put it -- you know when you have a really, really runny nose. It's that same salty, mucousy kinda taste. I spit it out as quickly as I could. It had to be done."
After about 15 minutes of supplemental breaths and compressions, little Felix finally started breathing on his own and, weeks later, is as healthy as can be. On top of that, he's already sort of an Internet star.
Now, if only we can teach him to rob banks and drive a Nissan.The Workhorse W-15: The Electric Truck With A Lower Total Cost Of Ownership Than A Ford F-150
May 2nd, 2017 by Kyle Field
Today at the ACT Expo in Long Beach, the Workhorse Group unveiled its W-15 Plug in Hybrid Electric Pickup Truck. The electric truck has 80 miles of all-electric range (AER) paired with a gasoline-powered BMW range extender to enable a total range of 390 miles on a full charge and a full tank of gas.
The unveiling of the production version of the Workhorse W-15 PHEV pickup truck, which we have covered a few times previously, shows the world the new standard for fleet pickup truck efficiency and effectiveness. For the gearheads in the room, yes, the W-15 can lay down the rubber with 460 horsepower and full torque available at zero RPMs, which enables this beast to go 0-60 in just 5.5 seconds.
The battery pack is 60 kWh nameplate with 45 kWh usable to ensure a long life for the pack. This nets out to about 1.78 miles per kWh, which is not great, but for a 7,200 pound truck, it’s about what you would expect. On the gasoline front, it gets 32 mpg highway and 28 mpg city, which is very respectable for a truck.
The Workhorse W-15: Built for Fleets
The W-15 was designed from the ground up as a new take on the pickup truck, with an aim to meet the vast majority of the needs of fleet managers with a zero-emission footprint.
Perhaps equally impressive is the fact that the W-15 is priced at an extremely competitive $52,500, which, due to fuel savings and lower maintenance, comes in at a lower total cost of ownership (TCO) than a comparable Ford F-150. While new technologies always feel risky for fleet managers who bank on predictable track records and stable returns on investments, the financial bottom line is a powerful motivator when it comes time to purchase the next batch of vehicles.
As with most battery-electric vehicles, the W-15 does have a higher sticker price than a comparable internal combustion truck but it makes up the difference over the life of the vehicle with lower fueling costs and lower maintenance. I spoke with Workhorse Group CEO Steve Burns about the W-15 and he shared that it costs 20% as much to charge as a comparable diesel vehicle.
The savings add up quickly, paying off the purchase price premium in around 2 years, meaning that fleet managers will be able to rake in these savings for the rest of the life of the vehicle, resulting in the lower TCO. The W-15 is currently only for sale to fleet managers, which is almost the perfect audience for a financial picture like this, and one that turns traditional models on their heads.
All signs point to Workhorse Group having designed a product that resonates with fleet managers, as it previously announced that it had secured Letters of Intent (LOI) for 1,000 W-15s — enough for Workhorse to move the vehicle into production planning. In addition, Steve Burns shared that Workhorse will announce additional orders it has secured at the ACT Expo this week.
A Plug-In Hybrid Electric … Truck?
Truck owners have a reputation for being tough, for needing a truck that can take a beating, that has endless power and a full tank (or two) of gas (or diesel) that can get them anywhere in the world, on the road or off. So, on the surface, it seems like a rough market for a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. Digging into the details, however, reveals a compelling set of facts.
Many fleet vehicles travel predictable routes for the most part. Duke Energy trucks, for example, travel an average of 40 miles per day. That means that Duke could convert its fleet of thousands of trucks to a PHEV like the W-15 and run them almost every day on fully electric power (that it also happens to provide), resulting in real cuts to emissions and real financial savings.
As with most consumers, the tough use cases are on the fringes — that handful of times per year when a hurricane hits or a big job is happening in the next state over and Duke needs to get its teams from the region on site. That’s where the range extender (REx) kicks in. In addition to the 80 miles of all-electric range, the W-15 can travel an additional 310 miles on the BMW REx, which is the same unit that the BMW i3 uses. The Workhorse team views the REx as an insurance policy for niche use cases and to give fleet managers the peace of mind that they’re not losing functionality by purchasing a PHEV. It can still do everything that an internal combustion vehicle could do … and then some.
That’s not to say that the W-15 is a shoe-in. While it does appear to have strong traction with fleet managers and even a few consumers who have expressed interest in the truck, there are a number of very real, very difficult hurdles the group has to overcome to achieve success with customers. First and foremost, service. Tesla found out firsthand that it is one thing to get a few thousand vehicles on roads around the world, but that it is another matter entirely to be able to keep them running.
Workhorse Group must ensure fleet managers have what they need in terms of regional support to give the W-15 a fighting chance of survival. With many fleet managers handling their own maintenance and the W-15 not needing nearly as much maintenance as a comparable diesel or gasoline truck, it already has a headstart, but service is definitely an area to keep an eye on as the W-15 moves into production.
Who is Workhorse Group?
The Workhorse Group was originally established in 2007 as Amp Electric Vehicles as a “developmental stage electric vehicle company” that started out with electrifying 2-seater roadsters (sound familiar?). It has fleets in its blood and over the last decade has worked tirelessly to bring innovative solutions to fleet managers around the world. Most recently, Workhorse developed and delivered an electric box truck to market.
The |
Jon Link
2011: Link will earn $414,500 per Dylan Hernandez of the LA Times.
2010: Link's salary is $400,000. The Dodgers recalled Link on April 18, and optioned to Albuquerque on April 21. He was recalled on April 25 to replace the injured Vicente Padilla, and since it was within 10 days of being optioned Link gets credit for those days as if he was never optioned. Link was optioned to Triple A on April 28, so he got credit for 10 days of major league service:
$400,000 x 10/183 = $21,858
Link was then recalled on June 7, for just one day, getting optioned on June 8:
$400,000 x 1/183 = $2,186
Link was then recalled on June 25, and was optioned on June 28, so he was with the club for 3 days:
$400,000 x 3/183 = $6,557
Link was then recalled on July 11, and was optioned after the game July 18, so he was with the club for 8 days:
$400,000 x 8/183 = $17,846
Link was then recalled on September 6, with 28 days left in the regular season:
$400,000 x 28/183 = $61,202
Chin-Lung Hu:
2010: I am estimating his salary as $401,000, and he was recalled on June 17, with Furcal on the bereavement list. Hu was optioned on June 23, so he was with the club for 6 days:
$401,000 x 6/183 = $13,148
Hu was then recalled on September 6, with 28 days left in the regular season:
$400,000 x 28/183 = $61,202
2009: His salary is $401,000, and he was recalled on September 13, with 22 days left in the regular season.
$401,000 x 22/183 = $48,208
Travis Schlichting:
2011: Schlichting will earn $415,000 per Dylan Hernandez of the LA Times.
Schlichting was designated for assignment on May 29.
2010: His salary is estimated to be $400,000, and he was recalled on May 31. He was optioned to Triple A on June 3, so he was with the club for 3 days:
$400,000 x 3/183 = $6,557
He was called up again on June 16, and was optioned on June 24, so he was with the club for 8 days:
$400,000 x 8/183 = $17,486
He was called up again on July 3, and was optioned on August 1, so he was with the club for 29 days:
$400,000 x 29/183 = $63,388
He was recalled again on August 20, with 45 days left in the season:
$400,000 x 46/183 = $98,361
2009: His salary is $400,000, and he was recalled on May 31. He was optioned before the game on June 20, so he spent 20 days on the roster.
$400,000 x 20/183 = $43,716
Jamie Hoffmann:
Hoffmann was claimed on waivers by the Colorado Rockies on December 5, 2011.
2011: I don't have Hoffmann's salary, but I am estimating it to be $415,000.
Hoffmann was recalled from Triple A on Monday, April 11, and was optioned after the game on Thursday, April 14, so Hoffmann was with the club for a total of 4 days.
$415,000 x 4/183 = $9,071
2010: Hoffmann was selected by the Nationals in the 2009 Rule 5 draft, then traded to the Yankees. The Dodgers received $50,000 per draft rules. Hoffmann must remain on the Yankees' active roster or disabled list all season, or he would have to clear waivers then be offered back to the Dodgers for $25,000.
He was returned to the Dodgers on March 22.
2009: His salary is $400,000, and he was recalled on May 22. He was optioned to AAA on June 15, so he was on the MLB roster for 24 days.
$400,000 x 24/183 = $52,459
Juan Pierre: Traded to the White Sox on December 15, 2009. Per Buster Olney of ESPN, the Dodgers are paying:
$7 million of his $10 million salary in 2010*
$3.5 million of his $8.5 million salary in 2011
*It is a little more complicated, as pointed out by Jon Paul Morosi of Fox Sports, "When they traded Juan Pierre to the White Sox, they transferred $3 million of Pierre’s 2010 salary into a bonus to be paid starting in 2012."
The Dodgers' bankruptcy filing in 2011 included Pierre as an unsecured creditor still owed $3,050,000, so it appears the cost for converting $3 million of 2010 salary into a bonus in 2012 was $50,000 to Pierre.
Andruw Jones: From a $17.1 million 2009 salary, Andruw's release "is expected to shave $12 million from the Dodgers' 2009 payroll and cut Jones' salary next season to about $5 million," (per Bill Shaikin) so I'm counting Andruw's 2009 base salary as $5.1 million.
Per Ken Gurnick, the Dodgers owe Jones $3.6 million in 2010, which would leave $13.5m remaining on his contract. For purposes of this worksheet, I'm spreading that evenly over the four years remaining on his deferral ($3.375 milliion in each of 2011-2014).
Jones signed a minor league deal plus incentives with Texas; the Dodgers receive 50% of any salary earned with the Rangers. The contract details (per Joel Sherman of the NY Post):
$500,000 salary if he makes the team
Andruw can opt out by March 20 if not on the 40-man roster
$75,000 for 340 plate appearances
$75,000 for 380 PA
$125,000 for 420 PA
$125,000 for 460 PA
$125,000 for 500 PA
$125,000 for 540 PA
$175,000 for 580 PA
$175,000 for 620 PA
$50,000 for being an AL All-Star
$25,000 for winning ALCS MVP
$50,000 for winning World Series MVP
$200,000 for winning AL Comeback Player of the Year award
$100,000 for winning AL MVP
$25,000 for winning Gold Glove award
$25,000 for winning Sliver Slugger award
Jason Schmidt: The breakdown of his three-year, $47 million contract (for the years 2007-2009) is as follows (per Tony Jackson):
2007: $12.5 million
2008: $15 million
2009: $16 million
2010: $2 million (payable in January 2010)
2011: $1.5 million (payable in January 2011)
Jon Garland:
Signed a one-year contract on November 26, with a vesting club option for 2012. Details per Dylan Hernandez of the LA Times:
$1 million signing bonus, to be paid in 2012
2011: $3.5 million base salary, plus up to $3.525 million in performance bonuses:
$500,000 for 150 IP
$500,000 for 160 IP
$525,000 for 170 IP
$1,000,000 for 180 IP
$1,000,000 for 190 IP
Per Hernandez, "If he pitches 190 innings, $1 million of his incentive pay will be deferred without interest."
2012: $8 million club option, which vests if Garland pitches "190 innings and avoid landing on the disabled list in September because of an injury to his right arm" in 2011. If the option doesn't vest, the Dodgers can exercise the option or pay Garland a $500,000 buyout. The 2012 contract also has performance bonuses:
$250,000 for 185 IP
$250,000 for 190 IP
The Dodgers declined their 2012 option on Garland on October 4, 2011.
2009: traded by Diamondbacks to Dodgers on August 31, with 34 days remaining in the regular season. His contract called for $6.25 million for 2009.
$6,250,000 x 34/183 = $1,161,202
Garland also has a $10 million mutual option for 2010. If the Dodgers decline the option, the buyout is $2.5 million. If Garland declines the option, the buyout is $1 million. Nick Piecoro of The Arizona Republic reported the Diamondbacks are paying all of Garland's remaining salary for 2009, as well as any option buyout, so the total paid by Garland will be between $2,161,202 and $3,661,202.
The Dodgers declined the $10 million option for 2010 on November 5.
Ramon Troncoso:
2011: Troncoso will earn $442,000 per Dylan Hernandez of the LA Times.
Troncoso was recalled on April 16, then was optioned after the game on April 21, meaning he was with the club for 6 days.
$442,000 x 6/183 = $14,492
Troncoso was recalled on May 19, then was optioned on June 19, meaning he was with the club for 31 days.
$442,000 x 31/183 = $74,874
Troncoso was recalled on September 4, with 25 days left in the regular season.
$442,000 x 25/183 = $60,383
2010: His salary is $416,000, and he was optioned to Triple A on July 3, meaning he was on the big league roster for 90 days.
$416,000 x 90/183 = $204,590
Troncoso was recalled on August 3, and was optioned to Triple A on August 9, meaning he was on the big league roster for 6 days.
$416,000 x 6/183 = $13,639
Troncoso was recalled on August 30, with 35 days remaining in the regular season.
$416,000 x 35/183 = $79,563
Kenley Jansen:
2013: Jansen will make $512,000, per Dylan Hernandez of the LA Times.
2012: Jansen's salary in 2012 is $491,000, per Tony Jackson of ESPN LA.
2011: His salary in 2011 is $416,000, per Dylan Hernandez of the Los Angeles Times.
Jansen was optioned to Double A Chattanooga on May 1, but he was recalled on May 6 to replace the injured Jonathan Broxton, so Jansen gets credit for service time as if he was never sent down.
2010: His salary is estimated to be $400,000, and he was recalled on July 23, with 73 days left in the regular season.
$400,000 x 73/183 = $159,563
Octavio Dotel:
2010: He was acquired from Pittsburgh on July 31 for James McDonald and Andrew Lambo.
His salary is $3,250,000. Dotel was subsequently traded to the Rockies on September 18, so he was with the Dodgers for 48 days.
$3,250,000 x 48/183 = $852,459
In addition, the Dodgers and Rockies are splitting Dotel's salary for the remaining 16 days left in the regular season.
$3,250,000 x 16/183 = $284,153 / 2 = $142,077
They are also splitting Dotel's $250,000 buyout of his $4.5 million 2011 mutual option.
The Pirates also paid the Dodgers $500,000 to cover part of Dotel's salary.
Ted Lilly:
Lilly signed a three-year, $33 million contract on October 19, 2010, covering seasons 2011-2013. The payout, per Beth Harris of the Associated Press:
2011 : $7.5 million ($7m salary + $500k bonus)
: $7.5 million ($7m salary + $500k bonus) 2012 : $12 million ($10.5m salary + $1.5m bonus)
: $12 million ($10.5m salary + $1.5m bonus) 2013: $13.5 million ($12m salary + $1.5m bonus)
The $3.5 million signing bonus is spread out over three seasons, payable in installments on April 1 of 2011, 2012, and 2013.
Lilly also has a full no-trade clause for 2011 and 2012.
2010: He was acquired with Ryan Theriot from the Cubs on July 31 for Blake DeWitt, Brett Wallach, and Kyle Smit.
His salary is $12,000,000, and the Dodgers are on the hook for 64 days left in the regular season.
$12,000,000 x 64/183 = $4,196,721
The Cubs also paid $2.5 million to the Dodgers as part of the trade, and I have subtracted that from Lilly's 2010 salary.
Jay Gibbons:
2011: On November 4, 2010, Gibbons signed a one-year deal for $650,000 plus $150,000 in incentives. The contract is guaranteed for only the MLB minimum (which is now $414,500), per Dylan Hernandez of the Los Angeles Times, meaning the remainder of $235,500 would likely become guaranteed once Gibbons makes the team out of spring training.
Gibbons' full $650,000 contract became guaranteed on March 28.
Gibbons has $150,000 in performance bonuses as well (per Dylan Hernandez):
$50,000 for 300 PA
$50,000 for 400 PA
$50,000 for 500 PA
2010: He signed a minor league deal, and I am estimating the salary to be $500,000.
His contract was purchased on August 8, with 57 days left in the regular season.
$500,000 x 57/183 = $155,738
John Lindsey:
2010: His contract was purchased by the Dodgers on September 6, with 28 days left in the regular season.
$400,000 x 28/183 = $61,202
Russ Mitchell:
Mitchell was designated for assignment on February 6, 2012, to make room on the 40-man roster for Todd Coffey.
2011: I don't have his salary for 2011, but I am assuming it to be $414,500.
Mitchell was recalled by the Dodgers on April 29, and then optioned to Triple A on May 27, meaning he was with the club for 28 days.
$414,500 x 28/183 = $63,421
Mitchell was recalled by the Dodgers on September 1, with 28 days left in the regular season.
$414,500 x 28/183 = $63,421
2010: His contract was purchased by the Dodgers on September 6, with 28 days left in the regular season.
$400,000 x 28/183 = $61,202
Trent Oeltjen:
2011: I don't have his salary for 2011, but I am assuming it to be $414,000.
Oeltjen's contract was purchased by the Dodgers on June 9, with 112 days left in the regular season.
$414,000 x 112/183 = $253,377
2010: His contract was purchased by the Dodgers on September 7, with 27 days left in the regular season.
$400,000 x 27/183 = $59,016True Facts 4
(thanks to Barbara Bassett)
Fire escapes, windshield wipers and laser printers were all invented by women.Married men change their underwear twice as often as single men.There are more collect calls on Father's Day than any other day of the year.Mel Blanc (voice of Bugs Bunny) was allergic to carrots.40% of all people who come to a party in your home snoop in your medicine cabinet.3.9% of all women surveyed say they never wear underwear.Superman is featured on every episode of "Seinfeld", either by name or pictures on Jerry's refrigerator.85% of the men that die while having sex are cheating on their wives.Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than for the US Treasury.American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served in first class.Percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28Percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38Percentage of American men who say they would marry the same woman if they had it to do all over again: 80Percentage of American women who say they would marry the same man: 50Percentage of men who say they are happier after their divorce or separation: 58Percentage of women who say they are happier: 85Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitchesPercentage of bird species that are monogamous: 90Percentage of mammal species that are monogamous: 3Chances that a burglary in the United States will be solved: 1 in 7One third of the land in the United States is owned by the government.The hummingbird is the only bird that can fly backwards.Between 1942 and 1944, Academy Awards were made of plaster.John Madden is an accomplished ballroom dancer.In 23 states, Wal-Mart is the single largest employer.Jim Gordon, drummer of Derek and the Dominos ("Layla"), killed his mother with a claw hammer.One of Hewlett Packard's first ideas was an automatic urinal flusher.Eric Clapton did not play the very famous first riff on the song "Layla". That was Duane Allman. Clapton comes in later.There are more cars in Southern California than there are cows in India.There is a two-foot long bird called a Kea that lives in New Zealand. The Kea likes to eat the strips of rubber around car windows.The province of Alberta, Canada is completely free of rats.Illinois has the most personalized license plates of any state.If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.There are two credit cards for every person in the United States.There are no venomous snakes in Maine.The blue whale can produce sounds up to 188 decibels. This is the loudest sound produced by a living animal and has been detected as far away as 530 miles.Erosion at the base of Niagara Falls (USA) undermines the shale cliffs and as a result, the falls have receded approximately 7 miles over the last 10,000 years.The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.(NaturalNews) Just hours after President Obama said he would sign new federal legislation ostensibly aimed at ending the National Security Agency's bulk collection of Americans' metadata, he instructed his Department of Justice to seek permission from a secret court to continue the program for at least another six months.As reported by the UK'snewspaper, the DOJ essentially asked the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which considers all government surveillance requests behind closed doors, to ignore an earlier federal appeals court ruling that found the bulk collection of data unconstitutional The request also suggested that the administration had no intention of complying with a potential court order banning the collection, the paper reported.The paper said U.S. officials had confirmed earlier that the administration intended to seek permission from the FISA court to restart the domestic bulk collection program.The paper further reported:However, Carlin said he did ask the FISA court to put aside a landmark ruling by the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in May, which said the federal government had systematically and erroneously interpreted the USA Patriot Act's authorization of data collection as "relevant" to ongoing investigations to permit the bulk collection.In his filing, Carlin wrote that the controversial Patriot Act provision, Section 215, remained "in effect" during a six-month transition period."This court may certainly consider ACLU v Clapper as part of its evaluation of the government's application, but second circuit rulings do not constitute controlling precedent for this court," Carlin wrote in his June application, as reported byRather, the administration asked the FISA court to rely on its own body of its secretive precedent dating back to 2006, which Carlin called "the better interpretation of the statute."The FISA court is comprised of 11 federal judges appointed by the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court "to review applications for warrants related to national security investigations," according to the Federal Judicial Center (the original number was seven, but it was expanded to 11 by the USA Patriot Act). They serve staggered seven-year terms. Each judge only serves one term, and there is no requirement that they have any special training or education in intelligence matters. The court was established by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, itself an intelligence reform measure that grew out of unconstitutional FBI spying during the latter 1960s, as protests over the Vietnam War grew.notes that the unique nature of the FISA court makes ambiguous which public court precedents are and are not to be followed or even acknowledged."While the FISA court isn't formally bound by the second circuit's ruling, it will certainly have to grapple with the second circuit's interpretation of the'relevance' requirement. The [court] will also have to consider whether Congress effectively adopted the second circuit's interpretation of the relevance requirement when it passed the USA Freedom Act," Jameel Jaffer, the deputy legal director of the ACLU, which brought the lawsuit decided by the second circuit, toldStill, the nature of the Obama Administration's request, coming as quickly as it did on the heels of the president saying he would sign the "reform" legislation, is ironic, to say the least.On May 7, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals noted "that Section 215, which addresses the FBI's ability to gather business records, could not be interpreted to have permitted the NSA to collect a'staggering' amount of phone records, contrary to claims by the Bush and Obama administrations," Reuters reported.The increasingly divisive debate over pipelines, with the economic benefits and environmental concerns they carry, has been selected as The Canadian Press business story of the year.
In an annual survey of newsrooms across the country, pipeline development edged out another politically charged issue — real estate — by a single vote, a reflection of how the two stories competed for attention throughout 2016.
The year saw Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attempt to strike a grand bargain of sorts: approving Kinder Morgan's expansion of Trans Mountain and the replacement of Enbridge's Line 3 while also pushing ahead with a national carbon price and rejecting Enbridge's Northern Gateway.
"In a debate between economy and the environment, the Trudeau government's decision has not only huge political implications, but has sparked debate and protests over the rights of indigenous peoples that tarnishes the Liberal brand," said Paul Samyn, editor at the Winnipeg Free Press.
The decision to green-light the Kinder Morgan proposal, which would see an existing pipeline that runs from Edmonton to Burnaby, B.C., nearly triple its capacity, was Trudeau's most controversial.
The project has triggered protests, sparked legal challenges and tested federal-provincial relationships, themes that are likely to dominate the headlines next year.
"This is the year in which the rubber hit the road," said Benjamin Dachis, associate director of research at the C.D. Howe Institute. "This is the culmination of years of policy debate, of policy change."
From coast to coast, the question over whether to build more pipelines to access markets abroad confronted mayors, premiers and community leaders at almost every turn.
The review of the Energy East Pipeline also made news when it was aborted in August over concerns about conflict of interest involving the panel overseeing TransCanada's application to build the project. If built, the development would see crude shipped from Alberta to as far east as Saint John, N.B.
Another pipeline that appeared to be on its deathbed a year ago — the Keystone XL project — was given new life following Donald Trump's presidential victory in the U.S. last month. Trudeau said earlier this month he remains supportive of the pipeline, which would carry oil from Alberta to Nebraska.
The hot housing sector also earned the consideration of business newsroom leaders as politicians on every level took action in a bid to address prices that have spiralled to dizzying heights, particularly in Vancouver and Toronto.
"Is there a more important issue facing Canada's economy?" asked Noah Zivitz, managing editor of Business News Network.
"Real estate has served as a pillar while other economic drivers have fallen by the wayside. Yet that reliance on housing has only inflamed fears over household debt levels, barriers to entry, foreign investment, and the risk of a correction."
Real estate worries also resonated outside Canada's largest cities.
"Toronto and Vancouver may be the focus of discussion at a national level, and rightly so, but rising prices and limited choice are having an impact in markets across the country," said Ron DeRuyter, business editor at the Waterloo Region Record.
"Many Canadians fear they will not be able to buy a home; others feel bullied into paying more than they should pay. And the higher prices go, the more the spectre of a crash looms."
Governments tried to intervene without rocking the foundations of the market.
In B.C., Premier Christy Clark instituted a surprise 15 per cent tax on foreign buyers in Metro Vancouver and the city moved ahead with a tax on vacant homes. At the federal level, federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau tightened mortgage rules.
Pipelines garnered 26 per cent of the ballots cast, with real estate getting 22 per cent.
Carbon tax, Fort Mac fires on list
Other headline-grabbing stories circled back to oil and the environment, with the carbon tax and fires in Fort McMurray, Alta., both tied at 15 per cent. There were 27 votes in all.
"The disruption to production in the oilsands during the Fort McMurray wildfire gave Canadians a better appreciation of the important role the massive energy development plays in the national economy," said Kevin Usselman, news director at 660 NEWS CFFR in Calgary.
The carbon tax became entwined with resource development as both Trudeau and Alberta Premier Rachel Notley said it was a critical policy to allow for the responsible expansion of pipelines.
Dachis at the C.D. Howe Institute said governments showed they were willing to make tough choices on energy, but failed to devise policies needed to increase the supply of housing.
"The common thread of what the government has done, governments have done... when it comes to carbon pricing and pipelines, is that they've done things that people think are politically harmful, but are in the best interest of the country," said Dachis.
"But that's not happening in zoning, or housing development."
Douglas Cudmore, senior editor of business, innovation and justice at the Toronto Star, said the carbon pricing story was important because of its far-reaching impact.
"If there's one story (dull as it might seem to readers) that could change not just the way we live but the way our kids and grandkids live, it's governments finally being brave enough to get serious about carbon emissions."In my sophomore year at Miami University (of Ohio), I made the decision to become an English Literature major. I didn’t choose it because I’m passionate about the role feminism plays in Restoration Literature or because I wanted to understand why Foucault is a part of the literary canon; rather, I chose it because I knew it’d be an easy row to hoe for a right-brained girl like me, leaving plenty of time for the important things in life (i.e. playing Snood and learning how to beatbox).
I was frequently told by friends and fellow Lit students that I was the worst English major ever, perhaps because I never finished (nor rarely ever started) the literature I was assigned in class. You might be asking yourself why I chose to major in English if I wasn’t planning on doing any of the work, and in your question you have found the answer: I wasn’t planning on doing any work. If you are inclined to do the same, I have some tips for you. Read on to see how you, too, can succeed in English without really trying.
1. Learn how to bullsh*t
If you want to be an English major (and actually do semi-well), this skill is a non-negotiable. You must learn to spin intricate yet nonsensical webs of analysis that make it seem like you know what you’re talking about, though no one can be sure. The best way to go about this is to half-listen to your classmates, appropriate their thoughts and recast them as your own, and then use every ten-dollar word you’ve ever come across.
Observe:
Teacher: “Who can explain the relevance of the pinecones in chapter 24?”
Lit Major: Wait. There are pinecones somewhere in this book? I thought it was about a dystopian society run by misogynistic robots… at least that’s what the cover would suggest. What was that last girl saying about pregnancy and grandfather clocks?
Teacher: “No one? How about you, Lit Major?”
Lit Major: Wipe that blank ass look off your face and pull it together. “Well, in their most natural form, pinecones resemble eggs, which could allude to the infertility of the protagonist. They also come into play several times in the chapter, and are always discussed in conjunction with the grandfather clock from chapter two… this might suggest the author’s disjointed relationship with the construct of time.”
Teacher: “Interesting take on that passage, Lit Major. Anything else?”
Lit Major: “Um, pinecones also come from nature and are most ubiquitous in the spring, which could symbolize some sort of rebirth for the ancillary characters…?
Teacher: “Well done. Moving on, we can see in chapter 17 that blah blah blah…”
Lit Major: Booooooom. Back to Angry Birds.
2. The Period Trick
Let’s say you have a 15-page essay due tomorrow on the various works of Virginia Woolf. It’s three in the morning and you’ve finally finished, but you’ve only got ten pages of analysis. Guess what: you’re done. Slap a conclusion on that sucker and call it a day (night?). But how?! Pay attention: Go to Edit. Select “Find.” Type in a “.” Select “Find All.” At this point, all of the periods in your document should be highlighted. Go to your font size, and change it from 12 to 16.
Say hello to your 15-page essay.
3. Make use of a thesaurus
Hear this now: no English Lit major can possibly survive college without the use of a thesaurus. Besides being able to verbally spar during in-class discussions, a successful Lit major must perfect the art of the analytical essay — an area in which you will only see the fruits of your labor if you abandon your everyday vocabulary lexicon.
Seeing as said lexicon is generally strengthened fortified through reading the literature assigned in your classes (which, being the slacker that you are, you obviously won’t be doing) you must warm to the idea notion of replacing weak inadequate words with better more purposeful ones. Here is where your thesaurus comes in.
Using normal quotidian words in your writing is the fastest way to be labeled as an idiot ignoramus for the entirety of your college career. On the other hand Conversely, using words people have never heard of will suggest that you are smart erudite and well-read scholarly. Not only will you fool bamboozle your teacher into thinking you read pore over the dictionary for fun, you’ll likely outshine your classmates with your huge Brobdingnagian arsenal of synonyms.
4. Use your time wisely
If someone told you that you had to physically read books — as in cover to cover — in order to graduate with a BA in English Literature, that person was either (a) an English teacher or (b) an overachiever. One of the things I learned in college is that English teachers are seemingly ignorant to the fact that you’re in more than one class per semester. They love to assign anywhere from 50 to 150 pages of reading as homework, which, assuming you’re taking a full course load, means you’ll be reading upwards of 200 pages per night. If you’re planning on having some semblance of a social life, there is a simple solution: don’t do the reading. At least, don’t do all of it.
Do you have a class discussion tomorrow on pages 1-150 of James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man? Pick ONE chapter, read (or skim) it, and then spend five minutes thinking of something mildly interesting or intuitive to say about it. That way it looks like you read, and you’ll knock out a class participation requirement. The same goes for papers — choose a topic or theme that is contained in only a few chapters of a book, read those chapters, and you’ll be as informed as you need to be to write a well-thought-out essay.
And there you have it. Succeeding in English without really trying can be done by anyone lazy enough to give it a go — take it from me, Marielle Wakim (BA in English Literature, Miami University, Class of 2009; Masters of Professional Writing candidate, University of Southern California, May 2012).Ferrari is yet to confirm the news, but the famous team looks set to enter the 2015 season with Sebastian Vettel alongside Kimi Raikkonen.
It is now an open paddock secret that Alonso and Ferrari made the decision to terminate the rest of their contract - scheduled to run until the end of 2016 - on Thursday.
According to Red Bull, quadruple world champion Sebastian Vettel will replace the Spaniard.
And despite Kimi Raikkonen's struggles in 2014, the Finn has a watertight contract and so he looks set to be Vettel's teammate in red.
Famously, the pair are friends.
Asked by the Finnish broadcaster MTV3 if he would be happy to work with Vettel at Ferrari, Raikkonen said at Suzuka: "Absolutely.
"I have never worked with him, we've always been in different teams, but I know him well."
Raikkonen played down any lingering doubts that he might join Alonso in departing the crisis-struck Maranello camp, amid 'academy' driver Jules Bianchi's obvious interest in stepping up for 2015.
"I have a contract," said Raikkonen, "and I expect that I am here next year.
"I strongly believe that we will be in better positions next season.
"I know Marco (Mattiacci) has said he does not expect us to be at the front next year, but who knows," the 2007 world champion added.
"Lots of things happen in Formula One, including big steps in development.
"I'm here because I want to be here," said Raikkonen. "I could leave tonight, but I can also continue for two or ten more years if I want."QUESTION: What was the draw for you to be a part of Into the Storm?
SARAH WAYNE CALLIES: I thought it’d be fun to do a big, crazy special effects movie. I’ve never done anything like that before. And then I read it and what really held my attention was the fact that it’s this huge spectacle of a movie, but, at the same time, it’s also a story about how people who are strangers can become almost family in the course of a single day when that day threatens all their lives and is chaotic and overwhelming. I just think there’s something really moving about that. It’s the story of strangers who become family in the course of 24 hours.
The catalyst to that, obviously, is a tornado and it’s amazing and cool to see all that thrashing around. But I think from a human perspective, it’s really simple and really moving. It’s interesting. We never know whether we’re heroes or cowards until the sirens go off and the storm is coming. You learn so much about yourself in those moments that you can’t know otherwise. Movies like this are fascinating because inevitably we end up casting ourselves in them and thinking, ‘Well, I hope I would do this and I think I would do that.’
Storytelling is an old thing that humans have done for as long as we’ve been around. We tell each other stories to try and figure out who we are. This is a summer movie but it’s still a movie that tells us something about who we are and who we might be.
QUESTION: You play Allison Stone, who a climatologist and meteorologist and has joined the storm-chasing team for the first time. What can you tell us about her?
SARAH WAYNE CALLIES: Allison is somebody who’s studied weather events in depth and with a great deal of passion and who has incredibly strong opinions about the need for certain kinds of climate work, to demonstrate certain things about climate change. In a way, she’s sort of a combination between an academic and ideologue, and all of a sudden these storms leap out of her textbook and into her face.
So, it’s the story of a woman who’s had a lot of ideas and a lot of theories about weather and about the politics of weather who all of a sudden finds herself very much immersed in the practicalities of weather, which are two very different things. She’s getting her hands dirty for the first time and it’s very, very dirty.
QUESTION: I understand you did quite a bit of research for the role?
SARAH WAYNE CALLIES: I did. I mean, I’m the daughter of academics. Research is just part of my de facto approach to |
this wind, the balloon takes off more like an airplane than a balloon.
Wells returns to the garage and quickly closes it up.
"Now, I'm going to apologize, but I'm going to take off almost at a full-bore sprint," he says before doing just that.
He sprints the 100 yards back to his office to make sure the radiosonde is transmitting data in real time. It is. No need for a second launch today.
Hundreds of balloons
For Wells, this is a daily routine. For the balloon, it's a one-time affair. As it rises 20 miles into the sky, the balloon swells to about 40 feet in diameter. Then it bursts and returns to Earth as debris, most likely somewhere in the Bering Sea — but not before it has sent back valuable data.
"We are such a remote location," Wells says. "Our data is pretty precious."
That data gets used within the hour in the 4 p.m. NOAA weather forecasts that mariners and others rely on in the Bering Sea and beyond.
Twice a day, like clockwork, balloons are released from hundreds of locations around the world at noon and midnight Universal Time (3 p.m. and 3 a.m. Alaska Daylight Time). Before they burst in the upper atmosphere, they help weather forecasters pinpoint what's going on overhead.
In a report on the impacts of released balloons, marine biologist Jan van Franeker with Wageningen University in the Netherlands wrote that even though they're made of natural latex, the balloons are a danger to wildlife, especially seabirds. He says remains of weather balloons can be found regularly on European beaches.
"The risk of wildlife suffering or dying from balloons may be best balanced against usefulness or necessity of balloons released," van Franeker writes. "Latex weather-balloons are an essential element for reliable weather forecasts to the extent that human life may be affected."
Each National Weather Service radiosonde includes a self-addressed envelope encouraging anyone who finds it to mail the gadget back for reuse.
A century in St. Paul
The St. Paul weather station has been collecting data since 1915. It's been successfully sending balloons into the sky, in winds up to 50 mph, since 1948.
Wells says he's always loved the weather, especially the meat and potatoes of gathering the raw information needed to make a forecast.
"It takes a lot of skill and hardiness to do it, and I'm proud to do it," he says.
The National Weather Service is testing an automatic balloon-launching device at its Kodiak station this year. Someday, human launchers like Wells could be replaced by machines at the 13 weather stations in Alaska and those across the country.
For now, Wells is a continent — and 300 miles of the Bering Sea — away from his native North Carolina, but he doesn't mind.
"I feel privileged to be doing this," he says. "I'd always wanted to work for the weather service and now I am working for the weather service, and I couldn't be happier."
Bering Sea hub
Some St. Paul residents dislike it when their home is described as "the middle of nowhere." And in some ways, the Pribilof Islands are centrally located:
• St. Paul is home to the world's largest Aleut community;
• Trident Seafoods claims to run the world's largest crab-processing plant there.
• Nearly half of all seafood harvested in the United States is hauled up from the surrounding Bering Sea.
Still, travel to St. Paul from almost anywhere else (it's a three-hour, thrice-weekly flight from Anchorage on planes so small they ask you what you weigh before assigning you a seat), and you realize that St. Paul is on the distant outer perimeter of the Last Frontier.
Wells says his quiet life on the outskirts of St. Paul, on the outskirts of America, is lacking in some creature comforts, but it's been good for him.
"I lost 25 pounds after moving up here because I didn't have the temptations of fast-food restaurants," he says.
It's a different career path from his classmates', who get dressed up and made up and sweep their arms in front of maps on TV news. Jobs like his make their forecasts possible.
"They can have the TV and the radio," Wells says. "I'll stick with this."Dwight Howard will be an unrestricted free agent this summer (yes, a shocking development, I know). The Lakers haven't had a very good season by any stretch of the imagination and are currently on the outside of the playoffs begging to get in. Hakeem "The Dream" Olajuwon has worked with Dwight over the summer in the past and believes that Howard will re-sign with the Lakers. In fact, he says when they worked out together in 2011 that becoming a Laker was Dwight's focus, reports Chris Tomasson with FOX Sports Florida who recently had a phone interview with Olajuwon.
Howard has been noncommittal when talking to the media. But until he hears otherwise, Olajuwon believes Howard will re-sign with the Lakers when he becomes a free agent this summer.
"I think so," Olajuwon said. "I think so. Because that is where he wanted to be. He wanted to go there."
Olajuwon said that when the two worked out in the summer of 2011, Howard told him he wanted to end up with the Lakers. - Chris Tomasson, FOX Sports Florida
Going even further, Olajuwon said he was very surprised when teams outside of Los Angeles were on Dwight's "preferred" list.
Olajuwon eventually asked to be traded from the Magic and named the Lakers, Nets and Mavericks as preferred destinations. When reports surfaced that Howard's first choice was the Nets, Olajuwon put little stock in that since Howard only had spoken to him about wanting to go to the Lakers.
"That was a surprise," Olajuwon said of the Nets. "I don't know where that came from. He was very focused on knowing he wanted to go to the Lakers." - Chris Tomasson, FOX Sports Florida
Things change, especially regarding this Lakers team that has been anything but a "dream" destination thus far for Dwight Howard. Olajuwon intends to meet with Howard over All-Star weekend in February to "catch up" with Howard and discuss the issues he is having in Los Angeles this season.
- Drew
- Follow this author on Twitter @DrewGarrisonSBNFilm-maker Karan Johar, actors Arjun Kapoor and Ranveer Singh participated in the show. Film-maker Karan Johar, actors Arjun Kapoor and Ranveer Singh participated in the show.
It seems like troubles for the controversial All India Bakchod (AIB) Knockout are far from over.
A fresh litigation against the stars of the AIB Roast was submitted in the Meerut district court on Saturday. A lawyer Virendra Kumar filed the litigation in the Chief Judicial Magistrate's court against film director Karan Johar, actors Arjun Kapoor, Sanjay Kapoor, Ranveer Singh, Deepika Padukone, Alia Bhatt, Sonakshi Sinha and 14 others seeking punitive action under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Information and Technology (IT) Act.
Kumar said he decided to file the litigation after seeing the use of vulgar and abusive language in the video that was uploaded on YouTube. "I saw the video a few days ago and was shocked to see Bollywood actors and actresses use vulgar language and cracking awkward jokes. It is a shame and such acts are not only vulgar but also affect the culture. It also sends a wrong impression about us to the world," he added.
Wrong signal
The petitioner felt that the abuses by the tinsel town stars, while being cheered by the audience, sends out a wrong message to the younger generation. "It is a criminal conspiracy to broadcast vulgar programmes across the world via the Internet. This is an attempt to malign our image and our cultural values," Kumar added.
The lawyer pleaded the court that punitive action should be taken against the stars under Sections 292 (sale etc, of obscene book, etc), 294(obscene acts and songs) and 120B (punishment for criminal conspiracy) of the IPC and some Sections of the IT Act. The next hearing in the case is scheduled for April 2.
It is to be mentioned that the AIB Knockout was organized on December 20, 2014. It had an audience of about 4,000. A larger number of Bollywood bigwigs were present in the show where jokes were cracked not only on the participants but also on other Bollywood stars. However, facing sharp criticism (both positive and negative) from all sections of the society including Bollywood, the organisers had pulled down the video from YouTube.
Controversies that the infamous 'Roast' raked up across the nation, had also forced the AIB to cancel their live tour starting March 7 in Pune.
Viral fever
The show, uploaded on YouTube, went viral on the site but invited flak from various sections of society for the use of expletives.
Director Karan Johar reportedly dropped the idea to produce a sex comedy after the infamous Roast landed him up into unwanted controversies and jokes.
The director, who is facing legal heat and numerous FIRs over the live show, has decided against producing a film to be directed by Sonam Nair.
Johar, who was hoping that AIB roast will pull him out of regressive family dramas and love stories, had received a major blow with radical reactions, media debates and FIRs. He had been left isolated as his close friends who are big names in the industry had refused to take a stand for him."To me, the backlog is one of the clearest and most shocking demonstrations of how we regard these crimes in our society. Testing rape kits sends a fundamental and crucial message to victims of sexual violence: You matter. What happened to you matters. Your case matters. For that reason, The Joyful Heart Foundation, which I founded in 2004, has made ending the rape kit backlog our #1 advocacy priority."
- Mariska Hargitay
Every 98 seconds, someone is sexually assaulted in the United States.
With the crime of sexual assault, the victim’s body is a part of the crime scene. When the victim reports the assault to the police, at a hospital, or at a rape crisis center, the victim can choose to have a doctor or nurse photograph, swab and conduct an invasive and exhaustive examination of the victim’s entire body for DNA evidence left behind by the attacker—a process that takes four to six hours to complete. That evidence is collected and preserved in a sexual assault evidence kit, commonly referred to as a rape kit.
When tested, DNA evidence contained by rape kits can be an incredibly powerful tool to solve and prevent crime. It can identify an unknown assailant and confirm the presence of a known suspect. It can affirm the survivor's account of the attack and discredit the suspect. It can connect the suspect to other crime scenes and identify serial offenders. It can exonerate the wrongfully convicted.
To accomplish these things, however, rape kits must be tested.
It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of rape kits sit untested in police department and crime lab storage facilities across the country in what is known as the rape kit backlog. Each kit represents a lost opportunity to bring healing and justice to a survivor of sexual violence and safety to a community.
The rape kit backlog comprises two distinct but related problems. The first part of the backlog occurs when rape kits are collected and booked into evidence, but detectives and/or prosecutors do not request DNA analysis. These kits may remain in a police evidence storage facility indefinitely. This is often referred to as the “untested” or “unsubmitted” rape kit backlog. The Joyful Heart Foundation defines an untested and/or backlogged kit as one that has not been submitted to an accredited public or private crime lab for testing within 10 days of being booked into evidence.
The second part of the backlog occurs in crime laboratory facilities, where rape kits that have been submitted for testing are awaiting DNA analysis. Many kits that are submitted to crime labs are not tested in a timely manner, creating the second part of the backlog. The Joyful Heart Foundation defines a “backlogged” kit at the DNA testing lab as one that has not been tested within 30 days of receipt by the lab.
We believe that every rape kit booked into evidence and connected to a reported sexual assault should be submitted to a crime lab for testing, and that crime labs must commit to testing rape kit evidence in a timely manner.
Since most jurisdictions do not have systems for counting or tracking rape kits, we cannot be sure of the total number of untested rape kits nationwide. Additionally, there is no federal law mandating the tracking and testing of rape kits. It is estimated, however, that there are hundreds of thousands of untested kits in police and crime lab storage facilities throughout the country.
However a growing number of states, all across the country, are making real reforms to end the backlog. States and local jurisdictions have started to count, track and test the untested kits in their facilities, and are seeing powerful results.
END THE BACKLOG is an initiative of the Joyful Heart Foundation to shine a light on the backlog of untested rape kits throughout the United States. Our goal is to end this injustice by conducting groundbreaking research identifying the extent of the nation’s backlog and best practices for eliminating it, expanding the national dialogue on rape kit testing through increased public awareness, engaging communities and government agencies and officials and advocating for comprehensive rape kit reform legislation and policies at the local, state and federal levels. We urge you to learn more about the backlog, where it exists and why it matters. We invite you to take action and support efforts to test rape kits. Help us send the message that we must take rape seriously.Advertisement
Miss the live coverage of the 2017 Cyclocross National Championships? Watch the live video replay from USA Cycling below. Unfortunately due to technical issues USA Cycling had, the Junior Men and U23/Junior Women races are not included. If you want to skip right to the racing, skip the first hour.
Enjoy all the action from Sunday’s races at the 2017 USA Cycling Cyclocross National Championships from the comfort of your couch!
We’ve partnered with USA Cycling to bring you live streaming video, available at 9:00 a.m. on Sunday, January 8th, EST.
Live stream schedule:
9:00 a.m. – Junior Men 17-18
– Junior Men 17-18 10:00 a.m. – Youth Women 17-22
– Youth Women 17-22 11:30 a.m. – U23 Men
– U23 Men 1:15 p.m. – Elite Women
– Elite Women 3:00 p.m. – Elite Men
In the meantime, we’re braving the element to bring you the most in-depth coverage on the ‘net of the week’s racing from Hartford. Be sure to check out our 2017 Cyclocross Nationals page, and follow our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts to get all the updates.Scientists have taken a large step toward making a fiber-like energy storage device that can be woven into clothing and power wearable medical monitors, communications equipment or other small electronics.
The device is a supercapacitor — a cousin to the battery. This one packs an interconnected network of graphene and carbon nanotubes so tightly that it stores energy comparable to some thin-film lithium batteries — an area where batteries have traditionally held a large advantage.
The device also maintains the advantage of charging and releasing energy much faster than a battery. The fiber-structured hybrid materials offer huge accessible surface areas and are highly conductive. The researchers have developed a way to continuously produce the flexible fiber, enabling them to scale up production for a variety of uses. To date, they've made 50-meter long fibers, and see no limits on length. They envision the fiber supercapacitor could be woven into clothing to power medical devices for people at home, or communications devices for soldiers in the field. Or, they say, the fiber could be a space-saving power source and serve as "energy-carrying wires" in medical implants.
Yuan Chen, a professor of chemical engineering at NTU led the new study, working with Dingshan Yu, Kunli Goh, Hong Wang, Li Wei and Wenchao Jiang at NTU; Qiang Zhang at Tsinghua; and Liming Dai at Case Western Reserve. The scientists report their research in Nature Nanotechnology. Dai, a professor of macromolecular science and engineering at Case Western Reserve and a co-author of the paper, explained that most supercapacitors have high power density but low energy density, which means they can charge quickly and give a boost of power, but don't last long. Conversely, batteries have high energy density and low power density, which means they can last a long time, but don't deliver a large amount of energy quickly.
Microelectronics to electric vehicles can benefit from energy storage devices that offer high power and high energy density. That's why researchers are working to develop a device that offers both. To continue to miniaturize electronics, industry needs tiny energy storage devices with large volumetric energy densities. By mass, supercapacitors might have comparable energy storage, or energy density, to batteries. But because they require large amounts of accessible surface area to store energy, they have always lagged badly in energy density by volume.
Their approach
To improve the energy density by volume, the researchers designed a hybrid fiber.
A solution containing acid-oxidized single-wall nanotubes, graphene oxide and ethylenediamine, which promotes synthesis and dopes graphene with nitrogen, is pumped through a flexible narrow reinforced tube called a capillary column and heated in an oven for six hours.
Sheets of graphene, one to a few atoms thick, and aligned, single-walled carbon nanotubes self-assemble into an interconnected prorous network that run the length of the fiber.
The arrangement provides huge amounts of accessible surface area—396 square meters per gram of hybrid fiber—for the transport and storage of charges.
But the materials are tightly packed in the capillary column and remain so as they're pumped out, resulting in the high volumetric energy density.
The process using multiple capillary columns will enable the engineers to make fibers continuously and maintain consistent quality, Chen said.
The findings
The researchers have made fibers as long as 50 meters and found they remain flexible with high capacity of 300 Farad per cubic centimetre.
In testing, they found that three pairs of fibers arranged in series tripled the voltage while keeping the charging/discharging time the same.
Three pairs of fibers in parallel tripled the output current and tripled the charging/discharging time, compared to a single fiber operated at the same current density.
When they integrate multiple pairs of fibers between two electrodes, the ability to store electricity, called capacitance, increased linearly according to the number of fibers used.
Using a polyvinyl alcohol /phosphoric acid gel as an electrolyte, a solid-state micro-supercapacitor made from a pair of fibers offered a volumetric density of 6.3 microwatt hours per cubic millimeter, which is comparable to that of a 4-volt-500-microampere-hour thin film lithium battery.
The fiber supercapacitor demonstrated ultrahigh energy-density value, while maintaining the high power density and cycle stability.
"We have tested the fiber device for 10,000 charge/discharge cycles, and the device retains about 93 percent of its original performance," Yu said, " while conventional rechargeable batteries have a lifetime of less than 1000 cycles."
The team also tested the device for flexible energy storage. The device was subjected to constant mechanical stress and its performance was evaluated. "The fiber supercapacitor continues to work without performance loss, even after bending hundreds of times," Yu said.
"Because they remain flexible and structurally consistent over their length, the fibers can also be woven into a crossing pattern into clothing for wearable devices in smart textiles." Chen said.
Such clothing could power biomedical monitoring devices a patient wears at home, providing information to a doctor at a hospital, Dai said. Woven into uniforms, the battery-like supercapacitors could power displays or transistors used for communication.
The researchers are now expanding their efforts. They plan to scale up the technology for low-cost, mass production of the fibers aimed at commercializing high-performance micro-supercapacitors.
In addition, "The team is also interested in testing these fibers for multifunctional applications, including batteries, solar cells, biofuel cells, and sensors for flexible and wearable optoelectronic systems," Dai said. "Thus, we have opened up many possibilities and still have a lot to do."
Source: Case Western Reserve University
Top image of Chen Yuan: Nanyang Technological University
and attend:Even what seems like a small contribution — just a tiny flower pot or patch — can provide valuable pollinator habitat.
Create a pollinator-friendly garden: for the butterflies
Want to help butterflies? Think beyond providing flowers for nectar in the height of summer.
Many butterfly species we see in Canada don’t migrate. You can provide habitat and food for their entire lifecycle — eggs, larvae, pupae AND adults — throughout the year.
Whether you have a small plot in the big city or a few acres, transform your yard into a butterfly garden!
You’ll need:
Host plants: Adults need a place to lay eggs where their caterpillars will forage. (Plant species that will get eaten and not just look pretty!)
Mud puddles: Some butterflies rarely visit flowers. They prefer mud, poop (a.k.a. “scat” or “dung”), sap and rotting fruit.
Blooms from spring through fall: Don’t limit your garden to an end-of-July colour extravaganza. You’ll need a diversity of native nectar plants to flower over a few months.
Overwintering habitat: Consider not raking leaves to provide a butterfly nursery! Most butterflies in Canada overwinter as caterpillars, others as pupae. A few species winter as adults, hibernating in hollow trees, under bark and firewood piles, or in garden shed cracks and crevices. Few spend winter as eggs.
Sunshine: Make sure you (or your neighbours) have sunny spots.
Nectar plants: Most butterflies will feed from more than a few plant species.
Think about the role of your yard: Is it a habitat source (high quality patch that supports population increases)? Or is it more of an island? Some yards can provide for one butterfly species’ entire life cycle. Some are disconnected from other habitat patches. Walk around the block and view your neighbourhood through a butterfly’s eyes. Chat with your neighbours and see what they’re planting. Note possible connecting corridors between butterfly-friendly patches. Can schoolyards, boulevards and local green spaces where you live help support butterflies?
Choose native flowers and shrubs
Butterflies need nectar plants for food and host plants to lay their eggs.
Tiger swallowtails choose nectar plants like lilacs or bee balm; nearby willow, alder, or apple trees can host larva
Painted ladies choose nectar plants like aster, cosmos or zinnia; host plants include thistle, mallow or hollyhock
Monarchs choose nectar plants like, black-eyed Susan, Canada goldenrod, wild bergamot and common yarrow; host plants include the milkweed family. (There are four most common species of milkweed in Canada — swamp (aka rose), poke, butterfly (aka orange), showy and common. Choose the species that is native to your area.)
To attract butterflies like the red admiral, tiger swallowtail and mourning cloak, you can also set up a nectar feeder using a solution of one part sugar to 18 parts water.
Did you know?
Sunny days are best for butterfly watching
Some individual butterflies live only a week, but the flight season for a species may be more than a month — and the migrating monarch “super generation” may live for several months
In B.C., butterfly season runs from March through October
Females are slightly larger than males — because she carries the eggs!
Butterflies and hummingbirds share many nectar flowers, so efforts to lure one may have the bonus of attracting both
How to attract hummingbirds
Is your yard or garden red enough? Hummingbirds are guided by their eyes! And many red-coloured flowers provide good sources of nectar.
Try perennials like red or purple hollyhock, pink or red coral bells, bee balm, summer phlox or sage. Annuals that attract hummingbirds include begonias, cosmos, geranium and petunias. And don’t forget shrubs and vines like hibiscus, honeysuckle and flowering currant. These plants prefer full sun exposure with shelter from strong winds.
Don’t see much action the first season? Enjoy the flowers and wait a year.
Create a pollinator-friendly garden: for the bees
Canada is home to hundreds of bee species of all sizes. The smallest is the size of the head of a pin! Some live below ground, some above. Every single species is beneficial to plants.
Bees are our most important pollinators. They love to live in urban settings where there are short flight paths and a variety of different plants and flowers to sample.
In fact, bees are more likely to thrive in your backyard, community or patio garden and on mixed farms than on acres devoted to single crops.
Honeybees and other bee species are declining, mainly because of habitat loss. You can make a difference just by creating a bee-friendly space in your garden.
Learn more: Five steps to creating your own wild bee sanctuary
Build a bee house
Make a cosy home for bees by following these simple steps:
Use an empty milk carton (waterproof) with the spout cut off — leave the bottom intact — or a box about that size made of wood scraps (not cedar) for the walls.
Paint a wooden house a bright colour with exterior zero or low-VOC (volatile organic compounds) paint. At first, the bees will fly around taking mental “snapshots” of their potential new home, but they’ll soon learn to make a bee-line to their new abode.
Fill the box with layered stacks of brown paper nest tubes, which you can buy at a garden store. Cut the tubes to six inches (15.75 cm) long, closing the end with tape or a staple, or fold them in half. Commercial nest tubes are 5/16 of an inch (.79 cm) in diameter, the exact size of an HB pencil. Make your own by rolling a piece of brown paper around a pencil, then pinch off the end and seal it with tape.
Hang the house somewhere out of the rain, facing south or east, at eye level, once the temperature outside has warmed to 12-14º C (54-57º F).
Dig down below your garden soil adjacent to your bee house until you expose the clay layer, or keep a bowl of moist clay near your bee house for the masons to use as construction material.
If you plan to make more than one bee house, be sure they’re different colours.
It may take a full season for the bees to find your house. If you don’t have any luck attracting locals, you can also purchase mason bees from a garden store or local bee keeper.
Make a bee bath
Bees and other beneficial insects — ladybugs, butterflies, and predatory wasps — all need fresh water to drink but most can’t land in a conventional bird bath without crashing. “They’re like tanks with wings,” says bee master Brian Campbell. “They need islands in the water to touch down on.”
These three simple steps use ingredients already in your home. Your creation will also combat pests like aphids, because ladybugs that stop by for a sip will eat ’em!
Place a shallow plate in your yard or garden at ground level where you’ve noticed bee activity. Better still, place the bee bath near sick plants to attract aphid eaters like ladybugs!
Reuse a plate (maybe one that’s chipped), source one from a thrift store or use a plant pot tray. Add a few rocks to the plate to create landing pads or islands. Add fresh water but don’t submerge the stones. You won’t encourage mosquito larvae if you keep the water level low.
It’s okay if the water evaporates, refill your bee bath as needed. And don’t be afraid to move it around your garden/yard.
Provide nutritious bee food
Bees eat two things: nectar (it loaded with sugar and a bee’s main source of energy) and pollen (which provides proteins and fats).
Choose a variety of plants that flower at different times so there’s always a snack available for when bees are out and about. As a rule, native plants attract native bees and exotic plants attract honeybees.
Flowers bred to please the human eye (for things like size and complexity) are sometimes sterile and of little use to pollinators. Native plants or heirloom varieties are best.
Bees have good colour vision — that’s why flowers are so showy! They especially like blue, purple, violet, white and yellow. Plant flowers of a single species in clumps about four feet in diameter instead of in scatterings so bees are more likely to find them.
Bee species all have different tongue lengths — adaptations to different flowers, so a variety of flower shapes will benefit a diversity of bees.
These plants, organized by when they bloom, are just a few of the species that attract bees:Thank you to all of the sponsors, speakers, attendees and competitors who helped to make Auto Glass Week™ 2018 the best event in it's history. Stay tuned to this website in the coming weeks when we announce the location for the 2019 event.
About Our Organizer
The International Window Film Conference and Tint-Off™ is sponsored, organized, and managed exclusively by Window Film magazine and Paint Protection Film (PPFMag) magazine. Window Film magazine is the only publication dedicated solely to the entire window film industry, designed to access all those who work in the film industry—bringing buyers and sellers in this special market together from all over the world. Window Film magazine is distributed worldwide to the film and tint community. Visit Window Film magazine at www.windowfilmmag.com. Visit PPFMag at ppfmag.com.The range of 90 per cent of eucalypt species such as this black box is predicted to shrink within 60 years
It may be harder to spot a mountain ash in parts of Australia's mountains or some species of mallee trees in the outback within 60 years as climate change causes the range of many species of eucalypts to shrink or even disappear entirely, new research suggests.
eucalypt key points Key points Researchers studied impact of 3 degree rise in temperature on more than 650 species of eucalypt trees
Distribution of 90 per cent of species would shrink by an average 50 per cent in 60 years
Australia will lose biodiversity, particularly in hotspots of older, rarer species
A team of researchers studied more than 650 species of eucalypts across Australia to see what would happen to the trees as the country's climate warmed by 3 degrees Celsius.
"We looked at the distribution of the eucalypts, where they are nowadays, and where they would possibly be given the climate change scenario, in 60 years," said study co-author Associate Professor Bernd Gruber of the University of Canberra.
"We found there was a major shift in the available habitats for these species, and where they're going to. We used that to identify areas which may be important for conservation."
The research, published in Nature Climate Change, is based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's intermediate emissions scenario, where emissions peak in 2060 and reach 3 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2100.
While a handful of species would increase their habitat range, distribution of more than 90 per cent of eucalypt species would shrink in size by an average of 50 per cent in the next 60 years.
Sixteen of the species studied — predominantly mallee trees — were predicted to disappear completely from their current ranges in this time.
Dr Gruber said the shift is predicted to happen as the "climate niche" — or the temperature and rainfall required for eucalypt species to thrive — narrows due to climate change.
How climate change could alter the eucalyptus tree landscape
Share Mountain ash forests are predicted to shrink in range by more than 48 per cent within 60 years
Areas that are currently suitable environments for eucalypts — Queensland, Western Australia, Victoria and parts of New South Wales — will become hotter, and with that, the distribution of eucalypts such as black box (Eucalyptus largiflorens), jarrah (Eucalyptus marginata), and mountain ash (Eucalyptus regnans) in those areas will shrink.
"[Some eucalypts] disappear and shift towards the edges of Australia, towards the south and to higher altitudes," Dr Gruber said.
While he said it's likely other trees will replace eucalypts lost, the overall diversity of the environment will be impacted.
"Don't think Australia will be barren, or that there won't be any trees, that's not the case," Dr Gruber said.
"But the biodiversity of the trees in Australia will be reduced in central areas."
The researchers found biodiversity hotspots, where older, rarer species of eucalypts currently grow, in southeast Queensland, northern coastal New South Wales, and central Australia were particularly at risk.
Dr Gruber said the loss of trees in some areas was likely to have a knock-on effect on other parts of the environment.
"If your tree disappears, some insects will disappear, and then probably some birds will disappear. It won't be only a shift in trees, it will be a shift in the biodiversity of Australia overall," he said.
"There will be a homogenisation of the biodiversity of Australia … it will be a bit more boring."It’s the person who shares a story, not the source of the news, that matters in gaining readers’ trust on social media, new research found.
Media Insight Project, a collaboration between the American Press Institute and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, interviewed more than 1,400 US adults from November to December 2016 to see how much faith people placed in news sources.
Each participant was shown the same article—”Don’t let the scale fool you: Why you could still be at risk for diabetes”—in a news feed that resembled that of Facebook. But the person who shared it and the original reporting source shown was different for each person.
Half of the participants were randomly shown a sharer they previously said they trusted—one of eight public figures who often share information about health including Oprah, Dr. Oz, and the US surgeon general—and the other half were shown a sharer they didn’t trust. (The study did not look at the impact of stories shared by respected friends, colleagues, or family members on social media.) Half the sample was also randomly shown the article was published by the Associated Press, while the other half was shown a made-up news provider, DailyNewsReview.com.
They were then asked to describe the piece of news. Half the respondents said the story got the facts right when it was shared by a public figure they trusted, compared to 35% who said the same when they didn’t trust the sharer. And the pattern held true for those who said the story was well-reported.
The participants were also more likely to share the article, follow the person who shared it, or otherwise engage with the post when they got it from an influencer they trusted.
The news source that reported the story, meanwhile, didn’t have much of an affect on whether the respondents believed the story to be true.
Other studies, including a 2016 report from the Media Insight Project, found that Americans in general were highly skeptical of news they found on social media and leaned on original reporting sources to decide how much stock to place in the news. But, as this study shows, the person who shares a story is much more influential than people realize. A highly trusted or distrusted sharer could sway a reader’s opinion of a story more than the news outlet that published it.
“All of this suggests that a news organization’s credibility both as a brand and for individual stories is significantly affected by what kinds of people are sharing it on social media sites such as Facebook,” said Media Insights Project, in the latest report. “The sharers act as unofficial ambassadors for the brand, and the sharers’ credibility can influence readers’ opinions about the reporting source.”
This is especially important now as more and more US readers are finding their news on social media. Facebook recently added new tools to help users spot fake news more easily, and other social networks have similarly taken steps to curb false reports on their platforms.
Overall, about half of the participants in the study could recall who shared the post in the study, while only two in 10 participants could remember the actual source of the news. The participants were, however, turned off by news organizations they inherently did not trust, and were less likely to describe those stories in a positive light.Going Simple with JavaScript
I was making a change to a page that needed to pull from a remote API and make changes to various parts of the page. Sounds like the time to pull out jQuery and Ajax, doesn't it? Instead, I just used old fashioned JavaScript. Actually, I used new fashioned JavaScript.
Browsers haven't stood still in the advent of libraries and frameworks. As a result, we can take advantage of those features when we need to bake in a little extra.
Some JSONP
The first step was to get the JSONP call executing. This is generally straightforward: embed a script tag into the page. The script will run a function that you've defined on your page.
var scr = document.createElement('script'); scr.src = 'http://openexchangerates.org/latest.json?callback=formatCurrency'; document.body.appendChild(scr);
When the script runs, it'll pass the data into the formatCurrency function. Excellent.
Once the data is in the function, I needed to grab all the elements of a particular type and make changes based on those.
querySelectorAll
The querySelectorAll method will grab all elements that match a particular selector—similar to jQuery. It's limited to selectors that the browser understands, which is definitely less than what jQuery can do. Sometimes a chisel will do in place of a sledgehammer.
The querySelectorAll method works in IE8 and up and all of the other popular browsers, too. I also wrapped my entire block of code to check if the browser supports this method before doing anything.
if (document.querySelectorAll) { function formatCurrency (data) { var els = document.querySelectorAll('.price'); /* do stuff with the elements */ } var scr = document.createElement('script'); scr.src = 'http://openexchangerates.org/latest.json?callback=formatCurrency'; document.body.appendChild(scr); }
As you can see in the example, all I'm looking for is every |
big jerk. They may not steal your lunch money anymore, but bullies can still harass you, put you down, and even undermine your work. Here are some tips for understanding and dealing with bullies, no matter how old you are.
What Adult Bullying Looks Like
You may not be getting squeezed into your locker by a pack of football players anymore, but adult bullies can still act out in similar fashion. What’s more frustrating about adult bullies, however, is they’ve gotten much better at hiding what they do. An adult bully is much more subtle than their “give ‘em a swirly,” “that’s so fetch” teen counterparts. They know how to poke and prod without attracting the attention of their superiors. Even worse, they might be your superior. We spoke with Roger S. Gil, a clinically-trained marriage and family therapist, about all of this and he explains:
As adults, many bullies are in a position of power over their victims. I’ve often seen adult bullies who are in a supervisory position at work. The power differential often serves to fuel their bullying behavior because they may feel that their weaker subordinates are truly powerless to do anything.
Advertisement
In fact, many adults don’t even realize they’re being bullied at all. Yes, it can take semi-obvious forms like playful joking, or pals ragging on you because “you seem like you can take it,” but it can also fly low on your radar.
Because careers take up a large chunk of your time as you get older, you’re most likely to encounter adult bullying in the workplace. According to Kenneth Dodge, Ph.D., Marc Brackett, Ph.D., and Jaana Juvonen, Ph.D., at This Emotional Life, workplace bullying can be hard to find if you’re not looking for it. Here are some less obvious examples:
Getting ignored : This could mean being given the “silent treatment,” refusing to help you when asked, not responding to your attempts to communicate (phone calls, emails), cutting you off while you’re talking, or even keeping you out of the loop for work-related social events.
: This could mean being given the “silent treatment,” refusing to help you when asked, not responding to your attempts to communicate (phone calls, emails), cutting you off while you’re talking, or even keeping you out of the loop for work-related social events. Disrespecting your time : Intentionally showing up late to meetings, failing to get things to you by the time they said they would, or putting your requests off to help others first are all good examples.
: Intentionally showing up late to meetings, failing to get things to you by the time they said they would, or putting your requests off to help others first are all good examples. Messing with your work: This could be in the form of sabotaging your ideas or projects, denying you well-deserved praise, taking credit for your work, scapegoating problems on to you, or even refusing to acknowledge your ideas at all.
Advertisement
Of course, there is also the more obvious things like putting you down in front of others, playing pranks on you, starting rumors that aren’t true, and even sexual harassment. Simple, yet extremely subtle things like undermining everything you do might seem small, but it’s grief you shouldn’t have to deal with as a mature adult.
If you’re still not sure what adult bullying looks like, perhaps there’s no better example than the character Jerry Gergich on the television show Parks and Recreation. It’s all for comedy in the show, but every one of Gergich’s coworkers is guilty of bullying him at one point or another. They all would probably argue that they are his friend, but if you were in Jerry’s shoes, you probably wouldn’t feel that way. That can be a big problem when you’re dealing with an adult bully. They don’t think of themselves as bullies, and may even consider you a buddy. In order to address the problem, you need to find out what makes them tick.
Advertisement
Understand Their Motivation
Adult bullies act out for the same reasons that kid bullies do; they’re trying to make up for some shortcoming of their own. As Psychotherapist Jenise Harmon at Psych Central suggests, bullying is not about you. You’re not the one with the problems, so you shouldn’t ever take bullying personally. Gil explains:
Every bully I’ve counseled has had serious insecurity issues. Many times it’s because they themselves were mistreated or made to feel inadequate in some way and the easiest way to feel empowered is to pick on someone that they perceive as weaker.
Advertisement
It’s very important that you understand this before you do anything else—both for your own personal well-being, and so you can start looking for the right way to approach the issue. Bullying might be targeted at you, but the first step to handling them is realizing that you’re not doing anything wrong. If anything, it means you’re doing something right! Bullies want power and control over you because they lack it in some aspect of their own lives. For example:
They may feel like they don’t get enough credit at work, or they may think you get too much credit at work.
They could be jealous of your family or home life, or they’re frustrated that they don’t have the kind of personal relationships you have.
They might feel threatened by your talent or ability, or hate the fact that your career is progressing and they’re stuck.
Advertisement
As sad as it may seem, it’s the same song and dance you see young bullies do. You’re smart and they have a harder time learning, so they lash out. You have a good home life and they don’t, so they lash out. Something is unsatisfactory in their lives and they don’t know how to deal with it, so they look for the first person they think will be their punching bag. Basically, they have problems and they want you to pay for them. Of course, there are still some bullies that just do it for the kicks. They’re usually few and far between, but they know they can get a rise out of you, and they enjoy it. Their life could be great, but there’s something about having the control over someone’s emotions that makes them happy.
Separate Yourself from the Bully
As an adult, you have a lot more control over the situation than you did when you were a kid. You may not be able to “tell the teacher,” but you also can choose how you spend your time. You’re not necessarily stuck with them as you might have been in a school situation. If you aren’t looking for any kind of confrontation, Gil recommends some simple “avoidance strategies”:
Avoidance strategies can be as simple as upping the privacy on your social media, ensuring you’re not alone around the bully, or devising an escape plan should the bully try to corner you. While the passive approach may not be the most popular one, it may be the only course of action for some people who feel that they cannot address the bullying directly.
Advertisement
You can also ask your boss to move your desk, or be taken off of their project. Generally speaking, if an opportunity arises for you to get away from them, take it. It won’t work every time, but if nothing else, it’s a start.
Stop Playing the Victim
This tactic is an oldie, but a goodie: stop playing their victim. The bully singled you out because they see you as weak and vulnerable. As Gil explains, they look for someone with some kind of trait that they can exploit:
Bullies might go after the “short” girl, “fat” guy, “ugly” kid, etc. because they feel they can target the person in the area where they are the most insecure. Some bullies will target someone who they perceive to be an “alpha” (e.g. the popular girl, the good-looking guy, etc.) to boost their ego. This strategy serves a social purpose in that the bully is trying to establish power so nobody else will try to push them around.
Advertisement
Bullies are looking for people that are willing to submit to their power play. If you make it look like the bully’s actions and words don’t affect you, it ruins it for them. Try to keep your ego in check and let it all roll over you. For example:
If someone keeps making jokes at your expense, laugh along with them.
If someone makes sarcastic, fake compliments, thank them.
When someone says something rude, pretend that you didn’t hear them.
If someone harps on the same mistake or accident you made, tell them that you don’t care about that anymore.
Keep your cool if you do anything embarrassing so you don’t give them any fuel.
When you stop being a victim, each of the bully’s attempts becomes embarrassing for them, not you. Remember, most bullies just want to get a rise out of you so they feel like they have control. The less subtle and more aggressive they are, the easier they are to deal with. Label them as a bully in your mind and consciously avoid their bait. They might be aggressive, but they’re probably lazy as well, so they’ll eventually lose interest and look for a “weaker” target.
Advertisement
Take a Stand
For some bullies, a little more force might be needed. If a bully keeps pushing you despite your other efforts, you need to push back. Not physically, of course, but verbally. If there’s one thing that bullies hate more than someone shrugging off their flak, it’s someone standing up to them. Gil suggests the best way to do that is to point out their behavior:
Assuming the bully is nonviolent and unlikely to find some other way to harm you, confronting them by pointing out that their behavior is bullying is sometimes a good start. Avoid provoking them but, at the same time, question their motives and what purpose going after someone who has done them no wrong serves them. This shows that you’re not afraid to call them out and, if necessary, put them on the defensive.
Advertisement
Many bullies will back down at the first sign of resistance, so this can be highly effective. If you’re going to call them out on their actions, however, make sure you do it right. Here are some suggestions:
Prepare for the encounter : Psychotherapist Jenise Harmon at Psych Central suggests you prepare what you want to say specifically, as well as where you want to say it. Having a plan will help relieve some of the anxiety you might be feeling, and it can also help ensure you approach the situation safely.
: Psychotherapist Jenise Harmon at Psych Central suggests you prepare what you want to say specifically, as well as where you want to say it. Having a plan will help relieve some of the anxiety you might be feeling, and it can also help ensure you approach the situation safely. Don’t attack them : Therapist Roni Weisberg-Ross at Good Therapy recommends you calmy and self-assuredly stand up for yourself. Avoid getting emotional or escalating the situation. If you don’t think you’re ready, focus on not giving them the reaction they want for now.
: Therapist Roni Weisberg-Ross at Good Therapy recommends you calmy and self-assuredly stand up for yourself. Avoid getting emotional or escalating the situation. If you don’t think you’re ready, focus on not giving them the reaction they want for now. Be specific: Health writer Holly L. Roberts at Livestrong explains that it’s important to be specific about the issue at hand. Avoid blanket requests like “stop bullying me,” and specifically tell them what they’re doing that is not okay.
Advertisement
Also, make sure you decide if you want to handle this privately or with others around. This usually depends on the severity of the bullying, so you have to feel things out for yourself. A bully that’s just looking to get some laughs, or someone that doesn’t realize they’re being a bully, is probably best handled privately so neither of you have to feel embarrassed. A more serious bully though might be best handled with some help from friends or coworkers. You don’t want to gang up them, but having others around can help make sure things don’t escalate.
Tell Someone Who Can Help
Despite your best efforts, some bullies just won’t go down easily. When things have gone too far and you can’t seem to get them off of your back, it’s time to send in the big guns. As Gil explains, your safety should be your number one concern. Don’t let your pride prevent you from getting the help and protection you deserve, especially, as Gil notes, if things are escalating to dangerous levels:
It goes without saying that any perceived physical threat should be handled with the assistance of local law enforcement or other community resource. Some bullies are dangerous and may need legal interventions (e.g. restraining order, police report, etc.) to reduce the risk of harm.
Advertisement
This goes for bullies in the workplace too. You do not have to tolerate a toxic work environment, so reach out to the people who are specifically there to help in these situations:
If the bullying happens on the job, many human resource departments have policies to address workplace bullying as well. The most obvious way to deal with a bully is to take a stand against them but this isn’t always feasible (in the traditional sense) if the bully is your manager at work. Again, contacting HR after documenting the instances of bullying and following company policies to address the situation is key (I’ve found that using the term “hostile work environment” will often get HR to pursue your complaint fairly quickly... at least here in the U.S.).
It’s not weak or lame to reach out to others for help with your situation. It’s good to see how you can handle things on your own first, but some battles just can’t be fought alone.
Advertisement
If you think you need to get others involved, there are some steps you can take to help ensure you get results. First, make sure you accurately document what’s happening. Having a list of specific times the bully has overstepped their boundaries will make it hard for them to refute the claims. Second, talk to any witnesses that have seen how the bully acts toward you. Write down what they saw and ask if they’d be willing to vouch for you. If you don’t have any witnesses, arrange for some to be around the next time you have to interact with your bully. The more evidence you have, the more likely higher-ups or HR will be able to help you.
Illustration by Sam Woolley.Since 2010, the Blackhawks' chosen recreational activity on the road has been Mario Kart, the multi-player racing game featuring characters from Nintendo's Mario franchise. According to winger Bryan Bickell, "when you're on the road you can go for a walk around the city to loosen up your legs and see some sights, but for the most part, the guys like Mario Kart because it's fun, competitive and it passes the time." It's a way for players to decompress and bond in between high-intensity games, allowing them to show their fighting spirit in another arena. That got the Blog wondering: Which video game character would each Blackhawks player be? Here are the results of the informal, highly unscientific poll:
Patrick Kane as Link (Legend of Zelda): Don’t let the baby faces fool you—both of these guys are fearless and great with their given weapon, be it sword or hockey stick.
Patrick Sharp as: Neither ever misses their chosen target.
Marian Hossa as Donkey Kong: once a chief rival, now a hero. Neither one is very likely to be pushed around, either.Though looking forward to millions of new customers who would be compelled by the U.S. government to buy health insurance, the insurance industry is threatening to raise premiums across the board if more of its demands are not met.
Industry representatives put Congress and the Obama administration on notice that if health-reform legislation doesn’t send even more new customers the industry’s way or if a windfall profits tax is included, the industry would hit businesses, individuals and the government with higher premiums, effectively defeating one of the initiative’s top goals, reining in ever-rising costs.
The industry’s chief complaint, which was raised in connection with an already-industry-friendly bill cobbled together by Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus, is that the legislation would push 29 million more Americans into the insurance market, but that they might be the sickest and thus costliest people.
The industry wants more of the estimated 25 million still uninsured – especially healthy, young people – to be compelled to buy policies, too. Without more healthy customers added to the mix, the industry says it will have no choice but to raise rates.
"The consequences of this would be an upward spiral; rate shock to everyone who stays in," Karen Ignagni, president of the industry group America's Health Insurance Plans, told the Washington Post. "This legislation will fail the test of affordability for individuals." [Washington Post, Oct. 9, 2009]
The industry’s warning comes after its lobbyists won an important victory in the Senate Finance Committee, defeating amendments that would have added a public option, a government-run program that would compete with private insurers to hold down costs.
Private insurers also bristled at an idea floated by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a windfall profits tax on extra money the industry might make from the influx of millions of new customers, many qualifying for government subsidies.
Robert E. Zirkelbach, a spokesman for America’s Health Insurance Plans, told the New York Times that a tax on windfall profits “would lead to higher premiums for families and businesses” because the added expense would be passed through to customers. [NYT, Oct. 9, 2009]
However, it was not clear why insurers would worry about a windfall profits tax if they were also concerned that new customers would be a financial burden.
Still, by the industry throwing its weight around with threats of higher premiums, it may be risking a backlash from Congress, which could still turn to the public option as the only feasible method for constraining ever-rising health insurance costs.
The industry fears the public option because it could piggyback on the existing Medicare bureaucracy and thus save substantial money, which the insurance industry spends on administrative expenses, executive pay and profits.
Those costs eat up 20 percent or more of an average dollar that businesses and individuals spend on health insurance premiums, compared to about 2 percent for Medicare.
The latest threats suggest that industry lobbyists believe they have enough senators lined up to back a Republican filibuster and block the public option, although some congressional liberals contend that some form of the public option, which is contained in four other committee-approved bills, still has a decent chance of winning final congressional approval.
But Democrats especially have reason to worry, because if they enact a reform package without the public option – and insurers then jack up rates – Democrats could be blamed for the unintended consequence of higher costs and thus pay a steep political price at the polls.
[For more on the Democrats' dilemma, see Consortiumnews.com's "Democrats Ponder Health-Care Suicide."]
_______
About author Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.'
Robert Parry's web site is Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book,, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book,Robert Parry's web site is Consortium NewsSolo Moto-Trip to the Retirement Paradise, AKA Sunshine Coast
This Saturday I rode BC 101/portion of the Sunshine Coast Highway both directions, from Langlade to Gibsons to Sechelt, through Davis Bay and Halfmoon Bay to Earls Cove. It was a ton of fun, my first time both cruising longer than a couple of hours, and doing it on my own pace. I was going at about 80 the entire time, just so I could have a chance to enjoy the surroundings and appreciate the views, which were incredible by the way. But I will get to it.
Highlights : So many twisties! A very nice ride for a motorcycle. Excellent scenery and fresh oceanic air. A lot of opportunities to go off-road.
7.30 AM.
Woke up, cleaned the soda cans and candy wrappers from the aftermath of a get-together the night before; took Lady for a walk; put my gear on and headed to Horseshoe Bay to catch the 9.25 ferry.
I got there at about 9.15, which gave me the exact amount of time needed to make it in time for the priority boarding for motorcycles. The ferry fare was $42.50 for the return trip. The ferry ride is about 40 minutes, which go by in a blink of an eye.
10.10 AM.
Got off at Langdale. Realised that I was nearing hitting the fuel reserve, so I had to get to a gas station within 30 km’s. Langdale is a teeny tiny town, the life of which is built around the ferry terminal. Gibsons is a bigger town, just 5 km west away. I meandered around for a bit until I found the gas station; got a custom-built salad at IGA, and some chocolate bars and a meat snack at the Dollar Store nearby ($4 bars at IGA? Nope, thanks).
The second stop I made was at a Secret Beach (I really liked the name, is all). I chilled on the rocks for a bit with Mr. Seagull, took a few pictures and tried to leave. Unfortunately, the trailhead was not marked well enough for me to notice, so I wandered around for a bit, till I finally decided to route myself through someone else’s backyard (sorry!). Then, as soon as I found the motorcycle, I got back on the highway and continued.
12.17 PM.
Stopped at Sechelt to stretch for a bit, and take a few pictures. Sechelt is a perfect place to live after retirement. Everyone crosses at intersections only, drives below the speed limit and chats up the cute cashier.
1.20 PM.
Every other turn along the highway past Sechelt is a logging road – very tempting on an enduro! So I gave up and decided to get a little dirty. Unlike hiking, the way down is a tricky part, rushing down on the gravel with very little grip. I didn’t think it’s very safe to ride difficult trails with no experience and without anyone else to get help, so I decided no to go too far. That’s where I lost my earplugs.
2.11 PM.
Got to Earls Cove. Ate the meat snack and the chocolate bar from before, and took a half-hour nap. Woke up around 2.45, got my thoughts together and headed to Egmont, which is only a 10-minute ride East.
Checked out the Egmont pier and got on the way back.
4.30 PM.
Got back to the Langdale ferry terminal.
Rushed to sip some water from the camelbak and lost the end tip. The water started dripping out and I had to finish what was left. Met a nice couple on a Harley on the way back, and was promised a business opportunity by the hubby.
Next time I would go the other way, East rather than West, to Port Mellon and beyond, on the logging roads towards Squamish. I doubt I will get to Squamish, but it certainly would be a ton of fun. Not alone though.
$42.50 ferry fare
$18.78 gas
$4.35 salad at IGA
$4.20 snacksThe Cleveland Browns are exploring ways to acquire more offensive weapons before Tuesday's trade deadline, a league source told ESPN's Adam Schefter.
The Browns are looking for a deep-ball threat who can spread the field for the offense, as well as help for the running game, which has struggled all season.
Hue Jackson's Cleveland team is 0-7 entering Sunday's game against the Minnesota Vikings in London. Its offense ranks second worst in the league in points per game (14.7).
The Browns' receiving unit lost second-year player Corey Coleman to a broken right hand in Week 2, and Kenny Britt has been a free agent bust. Duke Johnson Jr., who is listed as a running back, leads the Browns in receptions (32) and receiving yards (314). In the backfield, Isaiah Crowell has failed to duplicate a strong 2016, amassing only 287 yards on 91 carries (3.2-yard average) on the year.
The lack of weapons hasn't helped the quarterback play. Rookie DeShone Kizer has been pulled from two of his past three starts but will get the nod behind center against Minnesota.
Since then-coach Mike Pettine made the decision to bench Brian Hoyer in favor of Johnny Manziel in 2014, the Browns have changed starting quarterbacks in 20 of the past 43 games, through last Sunday's loss to the Tennessee Titans. Nine of the moves were made because of injury, and 11 were made because of a coach's decision.“After many weeks of anticipation, I am eager to join you, energized by the prospect of what we will achieve together.” CIA Director Mike Pompeo
LANGLEY, VA – Mike Pompeo was sworn in last night as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency by Vice President Mike Pence in a ceremony at the White House. Pompeo, who most recently served as the Congressman representing the 4th District of Kansas, is the twenty-second Director of CIA. Follow us on Twitter: Intel_Today
Director Pompeo began his first day at Langley by convening the CIA leadership team, receiving substantive briefings, and engaging the workforce. Director Pompeo sent the following message to all CIA employees this morning:
“Last night, I had the honor of a lifetime by being sworn in as the 22nd Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. I come to the Agency as a longtime admirer, well acquainted with your skill, courage, and dedication during my years on the House Intelligence Committee. I am humbled by having been entrusted with this post, and I feel deeply privileged to be given the opportunity to serve with you. Likewise, I am mindful that I follow the directorship of a distinguished CIA veteran, consummate intelligence officer, and devoted patriot. “Over the past few weeks, I have had the opportunity to speak with nearly every living former Director. To a person, they emphasized one point above all others: the extraordinary talent of the CIA workforce—something I appreciate from firsthand knowledge. They all said it was the best job they had ever had. I would be remiss if I did not mention former director and President George H.W. Bush and his wife, Barbara, who are both in our prayers today. President Bush told me that being Director was his second favorite job, but I did not really believe him. Each of these leaders has been so kind to help me prepare for this day. They love you. They know your strength comes from many sources: a legendary can-do spirit, sophisticated tradecraft, and rock-solid integrity, among others. “I want to hear from you—and learn from you—as I gain a greater understanding of the Agency’s opportunity to improve how we keep America safe. Our first opportunity to get together as a full group will be later this week in the auditorium. I look forward to that first conversation. After many weeks of anticipation, I am eager to join you, energized by the prospect of what we will achieve together.” Mike
REFERENCES
Mike Pompeo Takes Helm as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency — CIA Website 24 January 2017Last summer was the season of frosé, the slushy rosé that nearly broke the Internet — and will likely come close again this year. But boozy popsicles are the original way to get buzzed in the warm weather. And a now new line of push-pops is serving up your favorite bubbly in frozen form.
Created by the U.K.-based company Pops, these icy treats actually contain alcohol (about 4% each). They're available in your favorite wines like champagne, rosé, and Prosecco Bellini.
But there are also cocktail flavors like Moscow Mule and a vodka watermelon martini. The catch, of course, is that — like most of our favorite things lately (Oreo Cadbury eggs, rose gold Prosecco glitter) — they're only available in the U.K. for now.
Before you start mourning all of your crushed beach trip and picnic party dreams, you could try ordering them online; but your best bet might be to wait until they make their way overseas — or you could always book a trip abroad.Town in Leinster, Ireland
Historical population Year Pop. ±% 1813 1,754 — 1821 2,304 +31.4% 1831 3,282 +42.4% 1841 2,269 −30.9% 1851 1,905 −16.0% 1861 2,058 +8.0% 1871 2,195 +6.7% 1881 1,586 −27.7% 1891 1,531 −3.5% 1901 1,513 −1.2% 1911 1,488 −1.7% 1926 1,325 −11.0% 1936 1,455 +9.8% 1946 1,383 −4.9% 1951 1,309 −5.4% 1956 1,786 +36.4% 1961 1,745 −2.3% 1966 1,856 +6.4% 1971 2,255 +21.5% 1981 3,526 +56.4% 1986 4,124 +17.0% 1991 4,185 +1.5% 1996 4,405 +5.3% 2002 5,894 +33.8% 2006 6,870 +16.6% 2011 8,268 +20.3% 2016 9,194 +11.2% [2][1]
Trim (Irish: Baile Átha Troim, meaning "town at the ford of elderflowers")[3] is a town in County Meath, Ireland. It is situated on the River Boyne and has a population of 9,194. The town is noted for Trim Castle - the largest Cambro-Norman castle in Ireland. One of the two cathedrals of the United Dioceses of Meath and Kildare — St Patrick's cathedral — is located north of the river. Trim won the Irish Tidy Towns Competition in 1972, 1984, and 2014 and was the "joint" winner with Ballyconnell in 1974. Traditionally Trim was the county town of Meath, but this title was passed on over time onto larger, neighbouring town Navan
History [ edit ]
At an early date, a monastery was founded at Trim, which lay within the petty kingdom (tuath) of the Cenél Lóegairi. It is traditionally thought to have been founded by St. Patrick and left in the care of its patron saint Lommán, also locally known as Loman, who flourished sometime between the 5th and early 6th century.[4] When domestic politics endangered the position of Lommán's foundation, the church of Armagh assimilated Lommán into the dossier of St. Patrick, making him a disciple of that saint.[4] Attackers burned the church several times in the twelfth century, during which it was refounded as an St. Mary's Abbey under Augustinian rule. The abbey church was the sanctuary for "Our Lady of Trim", a wooden statue reported to work miracles. The statue made Trim a major pilgrimage site from at least 1397. During the Reformation the statue was burned and Henry VIII dissolved the abbey. The abbey's bell tower, the "Yellow Steeple", is the primary remnant of St. Mary's.
With the spelling "Áth Truim", the bishopric is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see.[5] Since it is not mentioned in either of the lists of the reduced number of sees approved by the Synod of Ráth Breasail (1111) and the Synod of Kells (1152), it was one of the monastic establishments that were no longer recognized as seats of bishops after the 12th-century reorganization of the Church in Ireland. Its territory was joined to that of Meath Diocese.
Lying 61 m above sea level on the River Boyne, Trim became one of the most important Hiberno-Norman settlements in the Middle Ages. In the 15th century the Norman-Irish parliament met in Trim. Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington is reputed to have been born in Dangan Castle between Trim and Summerhill, and a large column to him was erected in the town in 1817. The town's main feature is Ireland's largest Norman castle, Trim Castle; other features include two ruined church complexes, the Boyne River for fishing, and the Butterstream Gardens, visited by Charles, Prince of Wales in the mid-nineties (no longer open to the public).
Trim Castle (or King John's Castle) is Ireland's largest Norman castle. It was built in the late 12th century following the Norman invasion of Ireland. Trim and the surrounding lands were granted to Hugh de Lacy, Lord of Meath, a Norman baron. Richard II of England stayed there before being ousted from power. Once a candidate to be the country's capital, the town has also occupied a role as one of the outposts of the Pale, and sessions of the Irish Parliament were sometimes held here, as in 1542. It was also designated by Elizabeth I of England as the planned location for a Protestant Dublin University (known as Trinity College, Dublin).[6] However this was revised by Sir Francis Drake, who advocated the case for locating the University in Dublin. In 1649 after the sacking of Drogheda, the garrison of Trim fled to join other Irish forces and the town was occupied by the army of Oliver Cromwell. There were many local disturbances in neighbouring villages in the Irish Rebellion of 1798, most infamously the battle on the Hill of Tara, following the dispersal of the Wexford rebellion. Trim was represented by Arthur Wellesley in the Irish Parliament from 1790 to 1797.
Newtown Abbey
The 19th century saw the construction of Trim Courthouse, St. Loman's Catholic church, St. Patrick's Anglican church, the Wellington column, the current Bank of Ireland building, and Castle Street by Lord Dunsany, a major landowner. Following the Great Irish Famine of 1846–1849, the practices of agriculture in the hinterland altered, with a change in emphasis from tillage to stock raising. This resulted in a change in the business life of Trim. Trim developed as a market town for the productive agricultural hinterland. Some small-scale local industries were developed including envelope, and leather product manufacturing. Trim was also chosen as location for the Timoney Engineering company to make Fire Tenders. However, in the main the town continued to mainly be a service centre for its immediate area.
During the Irish War of Independence, local companies of the Irish Republican Army took Trim RIC Barracks, a large structure located on the current site of the Castle Arch Hotel, secured the arms from the barracks and then burnt down the Barracks. A large part of the town was burned as a reprisal by the British Crown forces on 26 September 1920.[7] The local members were drawn from Trim, Longwood, Ballivor and South Meath in general. The Lalor brothers form Castle St. were prominent members as well as the Duignans from High St and the Proctors. Records of the adventures of the Lalors rest in Navan library and recount the tales of one of the brothers hiding in the recently dug grave of Fr. Woods in the churchyard. Local memories recall the townspeople sheltering down by the Boyne for a few nights as the Black 'n' Tans and Auxiliaries burnt out prominent businesses and the town hall. Footage of the burning of J&E Smyth can be viewed on the 'Pathe' website. Many of the townspeople were traumatised for the rest of their lives; many children in Trim were not allowed to play with guns; memories of the B'n'Ts dangling grenades outside their windows as the Town Hall burnt and peeled the paint off their doors at Castle St. remained for a long time. The newspapers reported the burning of the barracks and the subsequent looting and burning of the town and follow-up operations by the local IRA.[8]
In later years the Lalors who moved to the house across the road from the old Brothers school had a collection of memorabilia from those years including, letters from Collins sent from Frongoch (they kept the originals and forward duplicates to HQ), Devs slippers and a Tricolour made by Constance Markievicz (with her name embroidered) that was to fly over the GPO during the Rising. Their whereabouts now are unknown but photographs of their existence are on file in Navan library. While other parts of Meath were particularly quiet during the War Of Independence, the men from South Meath took the war to the British; one ambush by one of the Lalor brothers took place at the Wellington Monument, where he single-handedly took on a truckload of British with his rifle and grenade[citation needed], the monument to the British PM still stands.
A new bridge was built on the Boyne in the 1980s to divert heavy traffic from the town. This was then enhanced by the construction, in stages, of an inner relief road, which now makes it possible for heavy traffic to achieve a complete by-pass of the town. The Watergate bridge was replaced in 2005. The local town council purchased a field beside the new bridge in 2004, as it was expected to be of archaeological significance.[citation needed]
As part of the Civil Service decentralization plan of the Irish government, Trim was chosen as the location of the headquarters for the state body known as the Office of Public Works. The movement of this state administration function to Trim resulted in Trim being the first location outside of Dublin to complete a satisfactory decentralization move. Trim has seen some growth in recent years[when?] with growth as a tourist and business centre.
Places of interest [ edit ]
Viewed from the castle's southern curtain wall. St Patrick's church, TrimViewed from the castle's southern curtain wall.
Trim courthouse
Sheep's gate in the morning
St Patrick's church (Roman Catholic), Church Street
St. Patrick's cathedral |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.